We met new Manchester Town Clerk Dianne Bucco in March, 2021, after nearly a year's search.
Each year at this time, we republish snippets of the year’s events that have made their way onto the pages of the newspaper. If 2020 was about learning and adapting and adjusting to a new normal with social distancing, masks, and frequent hand washing, then going into 2021, we were very much getting on with our lives as best as we all could. With new rules under our belts, new vaccinations rolling out, and warmer weather asserting itself, Manchester and Essex got a taste of returning, if cautiously, to familiar things.
School returned, in real life (“IRL”), first on an abbreviated schedule and then full time! The Manchester Club returned, and held its 115th anniversary cruise! Manchester got to pick back up on its 375th Anniversary Celebration that was cut short in 2020 when COVID hit. Essex successfully passed an ambitious slate of articles at a packed, marathon Town Meeting in the spring, held outdoors. Two months later, Manchester had its own, smaller affair on the high school football field. In many ways, it was all about how to successfully transition back to IRL community business, and community fun. Events, holidays, school and sports, town government, the business of community associations, and the news of each other have all picked back up, adjusting where necessary. Today, vaccinations rates in local communities have topped 80 percent for residents age five years old and older. It’s good news, and God willing, the good news will continue.
Our goal at the Cricket is chronicle our life together as a community. We don’t always succeed, but we continue toward betterment, every week. We hope you enjoy looking back at the year as much as we have. May your holiday be spent happily and safely with family, friends, and neighbors.
Part II, next week!
