By Thorne Building  Posted September 30, 2017

 

To: Greater Millbrook Community Village Town & beyond

From: Charles Pierce – Chair, Thorne Building Planning Committee

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As many of you may know, Mayor Rod Brown convened this past spring a group of concerned locaI citizens to discuss how best to make use of the Thorne Memorial Building. After four meetings, the Mayor announced the formation of a Thorne Building Planning Committee, charged with the task of developing a proposal that would transfer this architecturaI jewel of the village to a new non-profit corporation for use as a community center. I am the chair of this committee. The other members are: Bob Audia, Rona Boyer, Matthew Calkins, Skip Ciferri, Thom Fiet, Ann Gifford, Bob Knapp, Patsy Pollack, Joe Rochfort, Grace Rosa, Betsy Shequine, Sarah Stack, and George Whalen. Oakleigh Thorne is an ex-officio member.

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We have already met once and have set ourselves three goals: 1) to ascertain the best uses of the building for the greater Millbrook community; 2. )to dlscover the costs of rennovation to meet these uses, and 3)to develop a fundraisiing plan to support the rennovation and operation of the building.

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All of us on the committee are keen to get as much information as possible from all the members of the greater community about what you think would be the best uses to which we could put a restored and renovated Thorne Memorial Building. To hear your thoughts and feelings, there will be a public meeting on October 10 at 7 pm at The Fire House in Millbrook. At this meeting, Oakleigh Thorne and I will summarize the principal steps of the process we have in mind to achieve the above goals. We will then devote the rest of the meeting to you. We hope you will attend and come prepared to express your views about the best uses to which we could put this building.

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We know that there have been earlier attempts to achieve these goals, and we understand some of the reasons why they did not succeed. But we feel that the time has come to try again, taking advantage of what we learned about past efforts and making use of our desire to create a community center that will enrich the cultural, educational, social and economic life of Millbrook.

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All of us on the Planning Committee look forward to seeing you on October 10.

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Charles E. Pierce, Jr.
Chair, Planning Committee of the Thorne Building Community Center