Avenue Library
Children & Family Events
Bilingual Early Literacy Class
12/4, 11, 18 Mondays 6:00 pm – 6:45 pm
Join us every week for stories, poems, music, movement, a simple craft & fun!

Adult Classes & Events
SuperBrain Yoga
12/16 Saturday 10:00 — 12:00 pm Facilitated by Ellen E. Morano
Attend this hands-on workshop to improve memory, achieve mental clarity, and gain emotional calmness.

Adult Literacy Classes
Laubach Literacy English Classes
In the Meeting Room
12/4, 11, 18
Mondays 11:00 am – 12:00 pm
Pumarosa English Classes
In the Meeting Room
12/4, 6, 11, 13, 18, 20, 27 Mondays & Wednesdays 9-10am & 6-7pm
Learn English in a fun environment that combines conversation, singing, and technology.

Foster Library
Adult Programs & Special Events

Twisted Stitchers Fiber Arts Club
12/28 Thursday @ 10:30am
Get together with makers from all across the fiber-arts world. Meet, teach, connect, share.

Coffee & Conversations
12/18 Monday @ 9-10am
Child Development Resources of Ventura County will discuss their role in developing, securing, and promoting a variety of programs and resources to serve the needs of children, families, and the community.

Ongoing Events
Poetry Open Mic Night
12/7, 21, & 28 Thursdays @ 7:30-9pm
On these Thursday nights, come join this group of writers as they meet in the Topping Room to share their work.

Children’s Events
Early Literacy Class
12/5, 6, 12, 13, 19, 20, 26, & 27 Tuesdays & Wednesdays @ 10:30am
A great way to introduce your child to early literacy and the library. Join us weekly for stories, poems, music, movement, a simple craft, and fun!

Teen Happenings

Makerspace Open Workshop
12/6, 13, 20, & 27 Wednesdays @ 4-6 pm
Come by the Makerspace to learn, create, and share STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math). 3D printing, coding, stop motion animation, and so much more!

TAG Teen Advisory Group
12/5 & 19 Tuesdays @ 5-6pm
TAG meets every month on the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of the month. Now is the time to join TAG, if you want to share ideas, meet new people and have a great time shaping the library teen program.

Hill Road Library
Grand Opening and Ribbon Cutting Ceremony
12/3 Sunday @ 12-2pm
Fun for the whole family!
Children’s Events
Early Literacy Class
12/6, 13, 20, & 27 Wednesdays @ 10:30am
A great way to introduce your child to early literacy and the library. Join us every week for stories, poems, music, movement, a simple craft, and fun!

Saticoy Library
Children & Family Events

Early Literacy Class
12/7, 21, 28 Thursdays 9:30 am – 10:30 am & 11:00 am – 12:00 pm
Join us every week for stories, poems, music, movement, a simple craft & fun!

Monthly Maker Day
12/12 Tuesday 4:30 pm-5:30 pm
Join us for this design and 3D printer workshop.

Adult Classes & Events
English Classes
12/4, 6, 11, 13, 18, 20, 27
Monday & Wednesday 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm
ESL Conversation Groups hosted by Laubach Literacy of Ventura County

Livingston Memorial Visiting Nurse Association has begun its 33rd Annual Light Up A Life campaign. The beginning of the campaign coincides with National Hospice and Palliative Care month, November, and runs through the holiday season. The campaign goal is to raise $110,000 to benefit Livingston Hospice, the first Medicare Certified hospice in Ventura County.

This year’s celebration includes:

Saturday, December 2, 2017 – 4:30pm
Constitution Park, Camarillo

Thursday, December 7, 2017 – 6:30pm
Pacific View Mall, Ventura

Thursday, December 14, 2017 – 5:30pm
Chaparral Auditorium, Ojai

Livingston invites all residents of Ventura County to support this year’s Light Up campaign. Memory Stars can be ordered online for $25 each at lmvna.org or by calling 642-0239. Event sponsorship is also available.

Livingston Hospice is a special kind of care for the terminally ill, their families and caregivers. Hospice care addresses and meets the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of patients. Services are provided in the patient’s home, wherever their home may be. Livingston’s hospice team, including our medical director, nurses, social workers, spiritual care providers and volunteers, combine their expertise, passion and compassion in providing end of life care. Bereavement services are provided to family and friends by our dedicated staff of grief counselors.

Hospice patients live with a variety of diagnoses that include heart disease, Alzheimer’s, lung disease and cancer. Anyone with a life expectancy of six months or less who is no longer receiving cure-oriented treatment is eligible for our hospice care, regardless of age or ability to pay. The goal of cure is replaced with the goal of comfort, dignity and quality of life.

The National Park Service, California State University Channel Islands (CSUCI), and the Ventura Master Gardeners welcome the public to attend the opening of a native plant demonstration garden on Saturday, December 2 at 10:30 am at Channel Islands National Park in Ventura Harbor. The Channel Islands Park Foundation will also be hosting a native plant sale at the park visitor center from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm.

The native plant garden demonstrates how easy it is to create a drought tolerant home garden using plants native to our region and the California Channel Islands. The plants featured in the garden are readily available at local nurseries, easy to maintain, produce less yard waste than your average lawn, and have beautiful blooms that vary throughout the year.

The garden includes a dry rock river feature that collects any runoff and rain water into a seasonal pool and irrigation holding tank, demonstrating a good method of managing seasonal water flow. The stream also functions to infiltrate and recharge the groundwater at the site.

At 9:30 am and 1:00 pm a panel of garden experts with the Ventura Master Gardeners and CSUCI will discuss techniques to consider when creating your own home native plant garden. There will be educational booths sponsored by organizations including the City of Ventura Water, CSUCI, and Channel Islands Restoration at the event.

“Using island and California native plants in your home garden is a great way to help to preserve our Mediterranean-type ecosystem”, said Channel Islands National Park Service Superintendent Russell Galipeau, “It is one of the most imperiled ecosystems in the world and is home to remarkable levels of plant diversity.”

The Mediterranean ecosystem is also one of the rarest ecosystems, occurring in only five regions in the world with characteristic mild wet winters and warm and dry summers. Although these regions cover only slightly more than 2% of the world’s land areas, combined they have approximately 20% of all of the plant species in the world. Channel Islands National Park preserves some of the finest remnants of these coastal ecosystems in America.

The Coffee Connections Wednesday morning networking meetings are held every week, 8:00 – 9:30 a.m. at Spice-Topia, 576 E. Main St. in downtown Ventura. They start the meeting right after reading the Breeze.

Sitting front row center is Debbie Echevarria of Your Business Support, the founding leader of the Coffee Connections networking group with the Ventura Breeze contributing writers Carol Leish and James Francis Gray at her side. For more information visit their web page www.ybstoday.com.

Employment Development Department (EDD)invites you to attend aNo Charge an Employee or Independent Contractor Seminar on December 6, from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.

EDD Tax Office Training Room
4820 McGrath Street, Suite 200

To make reservations, visit the EDD website at www.edd.ca.gov/Payroll_Tax_Seminars/ or call 866-873-6083.

The EDD is an equal opportunity employer/program. Auxiliary aids and services are available upon request to individuals with disabilities. Requests for services, aids, and/or alternate formats need to be made prior to the event by calling 866-873-6083 (voice) or TTY 888-547-9565.

by Sheli Ellsworth

Local author, Patrice Karst, is planning the sequels to her bestselling (2000) children’s book, The Invisible String. Karst describes the book, that has sold more than 250,000 copies, as a heart-warming and reassuring story that addresses the issue of separation anxiety for children of all ages.

Karst’s “string” is the love that binds us to each other, reminding us that we are never alone, and that when we are loved beyond our wildest imagination. “I simply wrote it because it was something that had comforted my son Elijah from me being gone all day as a single working mother and I wanted him and all others to know that this string transcends time and space and that love connects us all and always will and nothing is stronger than love—not time or space or anger or even death.”

Karst says the book is also being used by school districts, therapists, hospitals and hospices, the military, the prison system, divorce attorneys, foster and adoption programs, bereavement groups, etc. and helps children understand what love really is.

Karst, who has been writing since she was a teenager, is also the author of The Smile That Went Around the World, and the adult books: God Made Easy and The Single Mother’s Survival Guide. She wrote her first book as the result of a difficult break-up. Karst says she, “. . . has been on a fascinating spiritual journey since she was a young girl looking out in awe at the glistening stars.”

Born in London, England, Karst moved to Ventura from Ojai a couple of years ago and lives at the beach with a zany wiener dog named Coco. She loves living in Ventura. She says the food, the people, the hills and the beach make for a unique Bohemian vibe.

by Jennifer Tipton

It all started with a Bible study group in 1867, before that Ventura had only one church, the historic Mission of San Buenaventura, founded in 1782 by Padre Junipero Serra.

The location for First United Methodist church has changed several times with the first built in 1874 on Oak Street and then a new structure on Oak and Meta in 1891 that served as a beacon to all travelers passing through Ventura on Highway 101. Due to an expanding congregation, the church moved again in 1928 to its current location at 1338 East Santa Clara.

Being part of Ventura for 150 years, the church has some interesting history …

In 1917, one of the ministers was overseeing the Easter sunrise service at Serra cross, he began the walk up the steep road before dawn and when he arrived at the top, he suddenly fell dead at the foot of the cross shocking everyone!

On December 21, 1921 Troop 102 of the Boy Scouts of America was organized at The First United Methodist Church and is there today as the oldest troop in Ventura.

When the church moved to its current location, the building on Oak and Meta was sold to the Salvation Army, it burned to the ground shortly thereafter.

The memorial windows in the sanctuary were dedicated in 1929 with the beautiful rose window donated by the American Legion in memory of the men who died in WW1.

In 1950, Ventura College Miss Mildred Keys instructor and chairman on their Commission on Education passed away and the family established the church library in her memory, the Mildred Keys Memorial Library

I met with Barbara Tomblin, a minister at the church since 2002 and Dave Stork, a church member since 1948. When asked about the changes in the church, I’m told they have added a contemporary (more casual) service to accompany the traditional service on Sunday mornings and the sanctuary now offers an audio induction loop for the hearing impaired, Dave said, “you can sit in the parking lot and listen to the sermon!”

Dave belonged to Troop 102, he was one of 5000 attending the boy scout jamboree in 1950, and it was Dave’s dad that did the woodwork seen in the sanctuary today.

The First United Methodist Church is an onsite tutoring center for Project Understanding and some members are very active in the community; Dave’s wife, Midge is on the Board of Directors with Ventura Botanical Gardens and Shelly Foote is a volunteer at the museum after being a costume historian at the Smithsonian (Shelly’s parents were married in the church).

Barbara shares, “there have been a lot of changes, except for the music program which has always been exceptional”, she reports the Director of Music, Sally Rose Bates has commissioned a song writer to compose a song just for the church’s 150th anniversary.

On Sunday, November 19th, First United Methodist Church will celebrate its 150th anniversary beginning at 8am and including a special all community Thanksgiving lunch.

For details visit www.fumcventura.org

Cooler water temperatures and other favorable sea conditions have returned the Ventura Squid Fleet to the Ventura Harbor Village. In late October and early November squid landings are increasing. They are currently averaging over 500 tons per day.

All of the squid seiner* slips are occupied with some vessels even rotating in a shared slip arrangement.

All three squid offloading companies are currently in full operation with individual seiner vessels making squid landings at the Ventura Harbor Fish Pier daily, Monday through Friday.

One vessel, Ocean Angel II, made a landing the second week of November of 100 tons of squid. At $1,000 a ton this vessel received a $100,000 payday. The Port District receives $7.99 for each ton off-loaded by the squid companies.

News of the Ocean Angel II landing has resulted in an enormous number of requests for seiner moorage in the harbor which unfortunately they cannot accommodate.

The previous three squid seasons proved largely disappointing for California with small individual vessel loads and missed quotas.

The current squid landings are re-igniting enthusiasm among the fishermen and delighting visitors to Ventura Harbor who can observe the vessels arriving into the harbor and the activity of the squid being off-loaded from the Ventura Harbor Village Promenade.

Frank Locklear
Manager, Ventura Harbor Village Marina, Commercial Fisheries and Technology
“The Ventura Harbor Village welcomes the return of squid to the area. The presence of the squid fishermen and their vessels paint a colorful maritime picture of the harbor. Please come visit the Ventura Harbor Village and enjoy all the wonderful food, activities, sights and sounds that the Ventura Harbor provides.”

*Seine (/seɪn/ SAYN) fishing (or seine-haul fishing) is a method of fishing that employs a seine or dragnet. A seine is a fishing net that hangs vertically in the water with its bottom edge held down by weights and its top edge buoyed by floats. Seine nets can be deployed from the shore as a beach seine, or from a boat.Boats deploying seine nets are known as seiners.

A gala event celebrating the opening of the newly restored Meister Hall will take place at Temple Beth Torah, 7620 Foothill Road at 6 p.m. on Saturday December 2.

“I am delighted that Meister Hall has been given such a magnificent makeover,” said long time Temple member Barbara Meister, “and I am happy that we continue to be an integral part of the Temple’s remarkable history in Ventura County.”

Almost 40 years ago Meister Hall was named to honor the generous support of longtime residents Barbara and Larry Meister, and it has since served as the venue for countless Temple events—from weddings to bar mitzvah’s to the annual Jewish Film Festival.

The Dec 2nd fundraiser features a landmark four course wine-maker’s dinner, live music and a live auction.

Arrivals at Temple Beth Torah will be ushered into the newly restored community center which has just undergone a major six month refurbishment.

This opening event, sponsored by the Temple’s Brotherhood, includes an exciting evening of gourmet food with matching wine introduced by oenophile (a lover or connoisseur of wine) Ron Halpern, a long time Temple Beth Torah member. Jay Kosoff will be MC for the evening.

Tickets for this special event, are $75.00 and reservations can be made by calling Temple Beth Torah at 647-4181.