Reformer

BRATTLEBORO — Austin Design is now a worker-owned cooperative, giving the employees a way to keep the firm running beyond the founder's retirement.

Going to employee ownership can offer "a greater sense of continuity" for staff when the owner is considering retiring, Cropp said. They're all about figuring out how to design a process and make a good thing for humans to live in." This is often one piece of the larger financing package that can make a conversion happen." "We work a lot with business owners who are considering selling their business and trying to figure out what path to take," he said. He explained how "the tipping point" is usually half to 75 percent of staff being on board for the change. The center opened in 2001 and was the second one in the U.S. As owners, Holschuh said, employees have "a little more skin the game" and take more responsibility for what happens with the business. [Vermont Employee Ownership Center](http://www.veoc.org/) Executive Director Matt Cropp and his group first met with Austin Design to discuss the prospect of employee ownership in May 2021. "But we still do a lot of work in western Massachusetts." Austin had been looking forward to retiring for "quite a while and we hadn't let him," Holschuh said. It took about a year for the switch to take place. "In our case, all of the employees bought into the model," said Chamois Holschuh, general manager at Austin Design.

BRATTLEBORO — Vermont Humanities 2022-23 season of First Wednesdays lectures continues Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Brooks Memorial Library, 224 Main St. in ...

[https://www.vermonthumanities.org/programs/attend/first-wednesdays/library-schedules/first-wednesdays-brattleboro/](https://www.vermonthumanities.org/programs/attend/first-wednesdays/library-schedules/first-wednesdays-brattleboro). See the full series program at: He is the recipient of the 2021 New Hampshire Governor’s Arts Award for Art Education. Graphic novelist Marek Bennett will present Drawing Community: Creating Comics from Shared Stories. at Brooks Memorial Library, 224 Main St. BRATTLEBORO — Vermont Humanities 2022-23 season of First Wednesdays lectures continues Wednesday at 7 p.m.

DORSET — Maria Timmerman sometimes gets customers who qualify as outliers at In Stitches Fine Needlepoint, which she owns. These patrons only make one visit ...

"I think needlepoint is a way of unwinding," Timmerman said. "If you're a stitcher, you totally understand the difference between hand-painted and mass-produced," Timmerman said. The cost is determined by the size but also by the intricacy of the design. Depending on the size of the canvas and the dedication of the craftsperson, weeks or months will pass before they return to the store to leave the completed canvas to be finished into a desired end product. She has an inventory of fabrics in the back of the store, and said she normally spends Mondays (the store is open from Wednesday to Saturday) selecting the fabrics and trims that will accompany the completed canvases to the finisher. "The way I have always done finishing in my shop is I choose the fabrics and the trims that go on your pieces," Timmerman explained.

“Vermont's WCC teams' goals are community-driven economic development,” said Executive Director of Vermont League of Cities and Towns and WCC Steering Committee ...

The report was produced by the Vermont Council on Rural Development. “Vermont’s WCC teams’ goals are community-driven economic development,” said Executive Director of Vermont League of Cities and Towns and WCC Steering Committee member Ted Brady. MONTPELIER — The Vermont Working Communities Challenge has released its Initial Report sharing the new approaches made by the eight Vermont teams over the first three years to address systemic challenges in Vermont like housing, childcare, poverty, workforce development, racial equity, and more.