North Berkshire Contra Dance Scheduled for Saturday

06:07PM / Friday, May 09, 2025Print Story | Email Story

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.— The North Berkshire Contra Dance will host its monthly community contra dance on Saturday, May 10, from 7:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.

The event will feature live music by Joy Factor, a Massachusetts-based trio, and dance instruction by Albany caller Peter Stix.

The contra dance will take place in the Community Hall of the First Congregational Church, located at 906 Main St., Williamstown. Instruction will begin at 7:30 p.m. The admission fee is pay-as-you-can, with a suggested range of $12 to $20.

Joy Factor includes Gianna Marzilli Ericson and Rebecca Rose Weiss on fiddles, and Henry Yoshimura on guitar. The trio performs original, Celtic, Quebecois, and Old Time tunes.

Prior to the dance, at 2:30 p.m., NBCD will hold a beginner calling workshop at the Williamstown library, featuring live music.

Further information can be found at www.NorthBerkshireDance.org.

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Willinet Cameras to Capture Monday's Williamstown Select Board Session

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
02:31PM / Saturday, October 24, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Select Board's third-floor meeting to complete its evaluation process for the town manager will be televised by the town's public, educational and governmental television station.

Willinet Executive Director Teri Yuan confirmed this week that the station will put a camera in the upstairs conference room to record a planned 8 p.m. single-item agenda meeting to do the annual review of Town Manager Robert Menicocci.

The board at its last meeting decided to break the evaluation out from its regular 7 p.m. meeting in the first floor Community Meeting room, which is set up with multiple cameras and audio equipment to facilitate live Willinet telecasts of most public meetings of town boards and committees.

The Select Board offered no real explanation for the desire to complete the evaluation in an otherwise public meeting outside of view from Willinet's cameras other than a desire to "sit around the table" rather than sit on one side of a large table along one side of the first floor meeting room.

The "sit around the table" talk was particularly puzzling given the fact that Willinet has a camera mounted on the wall behind the spot where Menicocci generally sits for Select Board meetings, a camera that gives a full view of both sides of the table, and an angle that Willinet frequently uses when panels like the Finance Committee invite participants to sit across the table from the committee to give testimony.

Perhaps the real reason is better explained by a joking comment from one Select Board member at the Sept. 28 meeting who indicated that doing the evaluation without access to things like Zoom capability was "the object" of moving that business to the third-floor meeting room.

The evaluation discussion on Monday evening will follow on a survey of the five board members assessing Menicocci's performance in fiscal year 2026, which ended on June 30.

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