NBCC Sets Annual Meeting, Northern Berkshire Hero Award Presentation

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NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The Northern Berkshire Community Coalition will hold its annual meeting at Greylock WORKS on Friday, June 16, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. 
 
This marks its 37th year as a community organization.
 
This year's keynote speaker will be state Sen. Paul Mark and the coalition will honor George and Nancy Canales with the Northern Berkshire Hero Award for their decades of community involvement, including their volunteer efforts with the LaFesta Baseball Exchange, the SteepleCats baseball team and the North Adams visitors booth.
 
The theme of this year's meeting, "Telling Your Story," will include memories captured in photographs of the past 37 years of work the coalition has done in the community. Some  photographs will be enlarged and displayed throughout the event space and thousands of photographs will be available for attendees to search through and take home. The coalition recently digitally archived its collection of photographs and welcomes the community to take home any photographs they would like to keep. Most of the photographs available are from 1998  through 2002.
 
Tickets for the event are $25 per person. Scholarships are available for community residents who would like to attend. Buffet lunch, coffee and dessert will be provided by M&J's Taste of Home Catering. Registration is available online or by calling the coalition at 413-663-7588.
 
Registration link: https://conta.cc/40HKN9l

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North Adams Hopes to Transform Y Into Community Recreation Center

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff

Mayor Jennifer Macksey updates members of the former YMCA on the status of the roof project and plans for reopening. 
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The city has plans to keep the former YMCA as a community center.
 
"The city of North Adams is very committed to having a recreation center not only for our youth but our young at heart," Mayor Jennifer Macksey said to the applause of some 50 or more YMCA members on Wednesday. "So we are really working hard and making sure we can have all those touch points."
 
The fate of the facility attached to Brayton School has been in limbo since the closure of the pool last year because of structural issues and the departure of the Berkshire Family YMCA in March.
 
The mayor said the city will run some programming over the summer until an operator can be found to take over the facility. It will also need a new name. 
 
"The YMCA, as you know, has departed from our facilities and will not return to our facility in the form that we had," she said to the crowd in Council Chambers. "And that's been mostly a decision on their part. The city of North Adams wanted to really keep our relationship with the Y, certainly, but they wanted to be a Y without borders, and we're going a different direction."
 
The pool was closed in March 2023 after the roof failed a structural inspection. Kyle Lamb, owner of Geary Builders, the contractor on the roof project, said the condition of the laminated beams was far worse than expected. 
 
"When we first went into the Y to do an inspection, we certainly found a lot more than we anticipated. The beams were actually rotted themselves on the bottom where they have to sit on the walls structurally," he said. "The beams actually, from the weight of snow and other things, actually crushed themselves eight to 11 inches. They were actually falling apart. ...
 
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