Celebrating Birthdays are: January 14, Lyn Ward; January 15, Carole Abbott; Daniel Ward Sr., January 16, Daniel Ward Jr.; January 17, Nancy Fogg; January 18, David Fogg, Tasha Giuda; January 20, Mark Riel.

A Very Happy Birthday to one and all.
 

Best Wishes to Robert and Wanda Boston who will celebrate their wedding anniversary on January 15.
 

Winners in the Peterson-Cram Post #75 Monthly Drawing for December Were:

#333, Diane Vaughan, $50; #132, Charles H. Green, $25; #184, Jill Metcalf, $10; #164, Cameron Donovan, $10.
 

Come join The Greater Pittsfield Chamber of Commerce as we enjoy our first 2009 Business After Hours. The event will be held at Pittsfield Youth Workshop on Thursday January 15th, 2009 from 6pm – 8pm . There will be light refreshments served, a tour of the PYW building and a brief explanation of what they do. Everyone is welcome to come. If you are not a member, this is a great opportunity to learn what The Greater Pittsfield Chamber of Commerce is involved in and how it could benefit your business.
 

Boy Scout Ice Rink Benefit Breakfast by the Epsom-Chichester Lions Club on Jan. 17 from 7:30 to 10 am at the Epsom Legion Hall. All donations are toward the Ice Rink. Full breakfast: pancakes, french toast, eggs, bacon, sausage, baked beans,potatoes, juice and coffee. Join us.

Pittsfield Area Senior Center
 

Thurs., Jan. 15

10:00 a.m. - Bingo
12:00 p.m. - Birthday Party Luncheon
         

Fri., Jan. 16

11:00 a.m. - Yoga
 

Mon., Jan. 19
10:00 a.m. - Bingo
 

Tues. Jan. 20
10:00 a.m. - Crafts
 

Wed. Jan. 21
10:00 a.m. - Post Holiday Gathering At The Gregoirs In Barnstead

MOW And Daily Participants

Meals on Wheels participants call 435-8482 when you won’t be home to receive your meal or you won’t be at the center. If you don’t, we worry about you.  Listen to WMUR TV on bad weather days for cancellations. Keep your Emergency Bags for the days when we have to cancel deliveries due to a storm or flood! Please do not call the center to question deliveries. Wait for us to call you. If we won’t deliver, you will be called to be sure you are OK and remind you to use your blizzard bag.

Daily participants:  The Senior Center does not necessarily close just because the schools close. We make every attempt to be open even if we open late. The Senior Center is a warm dry place to spend a chilly day.

Listen to WMUR for cancellations only. Otherwise we are open.

School Lunch Menus
January 19-23, 2009

CHICHESTER
Monday - No School - Martin Luther King Day
Tuesday - Pizza sticks, marinara sauce, garden salad, fruit, milk.
Wednesday - Cheeseburger, oven fries, green beans, pudding, milk.
Thursday - Nachos with cheese sauce, baked beans or veggie, peaches, milk.
Friday - Variety of cold sandwiches, carrots with Ranch dip, chips, apple, milk.
 

EPSOM
Monday - No School - Civil Rights Day
Tuesday - Nachos, tossed salad, salsa/cheese, fruit, milk or yogurt tray, Caesar salad.
Wednesday - Baked macaroni & cheese, baby bread sticks, veg., fruit, milk or yogurt tray, cheese salad.
Thursday - Sloppy Joe with roll, onion rings, veg., fruit, milk or yogurt tray, egg salad.
Friday - Mini Course - Bag Lunch - Ham & cheese wraps, chips, baby peeled carrots, fruit, milk, no salad.

The Pittsfield Youth Baseball Association is pleased to announce that Michael and Suzanne Hill, formerly of the Whites Pond District, have made a major donation to the project at Pittsfield Youth Athletic Park. Mr. Hill retired as President of the New Hampshire Hospital Association at the end of November and the couple has moved to Florida. We wish them well in their new home in the Sunny South.
 

VA Data Show Home Health Technology Improves Access to Care
Peake: Entire Health Care System More Effective

Submitted By American Legion  Peterson-Cram Post 75 of Pittsfield
Merrill Vaughn
Commander
Veterans with chronic conditions can manage their health and avoid hospitalization by using special technology provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in their homes, according to a recent study.

“The study showed that home telehealth makes health care more effective because it improves patients’ access to care and is easy to use,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Dr. James B. Peake. “A real plus is that this approach to care can be sustained because it’s so cost-effective and more veteran-centric. Patients in rural areas are increasingly finding that telehealth improves their access to health care and promotes their ongoing relationship with our health care system.”

The study found a 25 percent reduction in the average number of days hospitalized and a 19 percent reduction in hospitalizations for patients using home telehealth. The data also show that for some patients the cost of telehealth services in their homes averaged $1,600 a year - much lower than in-home clinician care costs.

The authors of the study in the current issue of the journal Telemedicine and e-Health are VA national telehealth staff members. The study looked at health outcomes from 17,025 VA home telehealth patients.

VA’s home telehealth program cares for 35,000 patients and is the largest of its kind in the world. Clinicians and managers in health care systems, as well as information technology professionals, have been awaiting the results of the telehealth study, said Dr. Adam Darkins, chief consultant in VA’s care coordination program, who led the study.
“The results are not really about the technology, but about how using it helps coordinate the full scope of care our patients need,” said Darkins. “It permits us to give the right care in the right place at the right time.”

Telehealth Study 2/2/2
VA’s Under Secretary for Health, Dr. Michael J. Kussman, said the key to the program’s success is VA’s computerized patient record system. “Data obtained from the home such as blood pressure and blood glucose, along with other patient information in the electronic system, allows our health care teams to anticipate and prevent avoidable problems,” he said.

VA health care officials emphasize that home telehealth does not necessarily replace nursing home care or traditional care but can help veterans understand and manage chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension and chronic heart failure. Patients’ partnership with the medical team can delay the need for institutional care and maintain independence for an extended time.

Information taken from Veterans Affairs News Release.

Letter

Dear Pittsfield Voters,
Please take a look at the Zoning Ordinance changes to be presented on January 15.

Table 1 includes the following proposed uses in the RURAL zone which have the potential to contaminate drinking water and future land value:

Automobile Dealers, Auto Body Shop/Auto Repair, Repair Shop, Personal Service (by definition includes dry cleaners or printing shops), Marine facilities (by definition includes on-site fuel and servicing boats), and Truck, Heavy Equipment & Trailer Repair.

Any facility where fuel is present on-site has the potential for groundwater contamination. Many many towns across the nation have decided it is best to separate these uses from rural property, and to keep these uses in industrial zones. These uses have potential to contaminate soil and groundwater. Abutting property around industrial activity loses value, affecting the tax base of the town.

Table 1 includes other uses in the rural zone which are more suited to commercial zones: hospitals, veterinary hospitals, hotels, and health club/sport facilities.

Rural property is highly valued for agriculture, silviculture, or conservation/open space, all of great value to most towns for aesthetic and environmental reasons. But facilities that bring traffic, asphalt parking lots, lighted signs, etc. are not suited to the rural zone. Please, let’s keep them in the commercial zone. Please do not accept these proposed zoning changes.

Finally, the definition of Frontage specifies frontage on Class VI roads. The town does not maintain these roads. Emergency vehicles cannot access property on these roads. Why would the Planning Board approve subdivisions on Class VI roads?

Respectfully,
Susan Willoughby, P.E.

VA Assisting Veterans with Health Care Costs

Submitted By
The American Legion Peterson-Cram Post 75 of Pittsfield
For veterans struggling financially due to a job loss or decreased income, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) offers an assortment of programs that can relieve the costs of health care or provide care at no cost.

“With the downturn in the economy, VA recognizes that many veterans will feel the effects,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Dr. James B. Peake. “Therefore, it is important that eligible veterans learn of the many ways VA has to help them afford the health care they have earned.”

Veterans whose previous income was ruled too high for VA health care may be able to enter the VA system based upon a hardship if their current year’s income is projected to fall below federal income thresholds due to a job loss, separation from service or some other financial setback.

Veterans determined eligible due to hardship can avoid copays applied to higher-income veterans. Qualifying veterans may be eligible for enrollment and receive health care at no cost.

Also eligible for no-cost VA care are most veterans who recently returned from a combat zone. They are entitled to five years of free VA care. The five-year “clock” begins with their discharge from the military, not their departure from the combat zone.
Each VA medical center across the country has an enrollment coordinator available to provide veterans information about these programs.

Veterans may also contact VA’s Health Benefits Service Center at
1-877-222 VETS (8387) or visit the VA health eligibility web site at www.va.gov/healtheligibility.

Area Resident Named to Dean’s List at Quinnipiac University

The following local student was named to the Dean’s List at Quinnipiac University for the Fall 2008 semester:

Meghan Brown of Pittsfield, NH

Students who excel in scholarship by earning a grade point average of at least 3.5 with no grade lower than C are recognized by being place on the dean’s list. Full-time students must complete at least 14 credits in a semester, with at least 12 credits that have been graded on a letter grade basis (A through C) to be eligible. Part-time students must complete at least 6 credits during a semester.

Quinnipiac is a private, coeducational, nonsectarian institution located 90 minutes north of New York City and two hours from Boston. The university enrolls 5,600 full-time undergraduate and 1,900 graduate students in 51 undergraduate and 19 graduate programs of study in its School of Business, School of Communications, School of Education, School of Health Sciences, School of Law, College of Arts and Sciences and College of Professional Studies. Quinnipiac consistently ranks among the top universities with master’s programs in the Northern region in U.S. News & World Report’s America’s Best Colleges. The 2009 issue of U.S. News and World Report’s America’s Best Colleges named Quinnipiac as the top up-and-coming school with master’s programs in the North. Quinnipiac also is recognized in Princeton Review’s The Best 368 Colleges. For more information, please visit http://www.quinnipiac.edu.

Lighthouse Church Of God

Pastor’s Corner
Rev. Elmer Elliott
Only One Year

Resolutions come and go with every year. We make promise after promise which lasts a week or two and then they are forgotten. But what if you were told you had just 12 months to live, how would you spend this year?

For one thing “time” would become more valuable. How often have you heard, or said it yourself, “Oh, I’m just killing time.”

How precious those wasted moments would be this year.

We read in James 4:13-14, “Go to now, ye that say, today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:

Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.”

What would you do with your time? No two of us would react the same way, but I believe we would want to fulfill some obligations. Not just financial debts, but debts of gratitude and appreciation.

Would there be a new standard of value on things? Money would be less important, but the love of family and friends would be a priceless treasure.

Now you  have just twelve short months to think of the future. What future? ETERNITY!

This life on earth, whatever the length of time, is a preparation for eternity, and it’s your choice where you spend it. It’s either eternity  in heaven with Jesus and the redeemed saints or eternity in hell with Satan and his fallen angels. Either place must be decided on here on earth before death.

Jesus told Nicodemus, “Ye must be born again.” He was speaking of the new birth in the Spirit. John 6:47 “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life.”

John 3:18 “He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

What do you have to do to go to hell? Nothing...

Is there life after physical death? Oh yes!

Rev. 20:12 “And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which was the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works.” This is God judging the lost. Verse 15 “And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”

Speaking of the redeemed in heaven we read:

Rev. 22:5 “And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.”

Yes, heaven will be wonderful, and if you give your life to Christ, now, this life can be wonderful also, whether it’s one year or many years.

So now let us walk together with Jesus in this life and the one to come.

Leslie and Barbara Clark celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary on December 5th. They were  married in Northwood, lived many years in Pittsfield and now reside in Chichester. They celebrated the day with dinner out with their children. They were also surprised with a cake and memory video at the annual Clark Family Christmas Party.