T wo weeks ago a group of Vineyard farmers , selectmen, county commissioners and other Islanders interested in farming heard about the advantages of setting up an agricultural commission from a delegation of representatives involved in agricultural commisions elsewhere in the commonwealth. Vineyarders attending this workshop felt that there was enough merit in the idea to put together a proposal for how this could be done on the Vineyard.

Rarely does the genteel card game of bridge merit both a news story on the front page of the arts section and an editorial in The New York Times, but that’s what happened recently during a raging controversy over free expression.

Lorraine Parish has been an Island fashion presence for nearly three decades, but it was her personal spirit rather than her designer’s eye which last month put her in front of a film crew, shooting the pilot for a television series on baby boomers.

The hour-long Public Broadcasting System (PBS) show, yet untitled, is being edited for broadcast in Boston area. Laurie Donnelly, executive producer of the pilot and for lifestyle entertainment at Boston’s WGBH-TV, is teaming up with AARP magazine to chronicle the lives of boomers today.

Bank of Martha’s Vineyard, a division of Sovereign Bank, is pleased to announce the promotions of Kim Klaren to Chilmark community banking manager and Jim Irwin to Edgartown Four Corners community banking manager.

The kickoff workshop for the Island Plan built environment work group will be held on Monday, Dec. 3 at 7 p.m. at the Martha’s Vineyard Commission office in the Olde Stone Building in Oak Bluffs. This is one of the second series of work groups being launched by the Island Plan steering committee.

For decades, the Vineyard’s exceptional natural environment has been the focus of considerable study and effort. Does our equally remarkable built environment merit an equivalent attention?

At night the Earth loses all its importance.

Then the Vineyard, surrounded by a black ocean, isn’t just any island — it’s an Island amid the stars. And it’s the best viewing stand.

When the light of twilight fades, the Milky Way, our galaxy, becomes the Island’s neighborhood. Star clusters, comets and nebulae become a part of the Vineyard’s vivid landscape and the skyline of Cape Cod slips farther away. Hyannis, New Bedford and the city lights in which they bathe don’t matter here.

The light French feature film Blame It on Fidel, a child’s view of how experience shapes our political consciousness, screens on Saturday, Dec. 1, at 7:30 p.m. at the Katharine Cornell Theatre in Vineyard Haven.

The film centers on a whip-smart, feisty Parisian girl, Anna, who is forced to make sense of cataclysmic changes in her life after her parents decide to devote themselves full-time to radical activism.

Taize Worship Service

The United Methodist Cooperative Ministry will hold a candlelit Taize Worship beginning Sunday, Dec. 2 at 6 p.m. at the Chilmark Community Church. It will continue for four consecutive Sundays, through Dec. 23.

The Taize community began in the south of France in the 1940s to witness reconciliation and peace among individuals, nations and religious traditions. It incorporates elements of Protestantism, Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.

LETTER ON THE WIND: A Chanukah Tale. By Sarah Marwil Lamstein. Illustrated by Neil Waldman. Boyds Mills Press, Honesdale, Pa. 2007. 32 pages. $16.95 hardcover.

The Island Community Chorus will open the holiday season with a festive concert program, presented twice this weekend at the Old Whaling Church in Edgartown.

At 7:30 p.m. tomorrow, and again at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 2, the chorus will sing under the baton of its artistic director Peter Boak, with accompanist Garrett Brown at the piano.

For this holiday concert, the chorus is bringing back a popular favorite it hasn’t performed for several years, singing selections from G.F. Handel’s Messiah.