The scouting reports are in and Whaler Pride is back. The last Nantucket team the Vineyard faced finished the season 0-10, capped by an embarrassing 43-22 Island Cup thrashing that saw Vineyard coach Don Herman pull most of his starters by halftime.

Structural steel work is complete, a concrete floor has been poured and underground utilities have been buried. And now the $6.8 million Tisbury emergency services building opposite the Tisbury School on West Spring street enters a new phase in construction.

What if you had $1,000 to give away? Recently, MJ Bruder Munafo had a chance to find out. While attending the presentation of the 2010 Creative Living Award hosted by the Permanent Endowment for Martha’s Vineyard, Ms. Munafo entered a drawing to win the opportunity to award $1,000 to Island nonprofits. The drawing was made possible by the 11 members of the Permanent Endowment board, who donated $1,000 to demonstrate their commitment to fostering philanthropy on the Vineyard.

Thanksgiving gets people thinking about birds. For most folks it’s about eating one, the one upside down on the dining room table, with side dishes of tradition, heritage, community, family, good friends — all cause enough for gathering and celebration. As a former restaurateur living in West Tisbury is fond of saying about the entirety of life itself, “It’s all about the food.”

The summer traffic jam is past, but I’m not yet used to the novelty of finding parking in front of the places I want to go. Leslie’s, the Reliable, the Steamship Authority lot. Space! But I got through this season without losing a fender, my temper or my driver’s license; well, you can’t lose what’s gone, namely your temper.

Pierre Bonneau was in Paris teaching a full immersion language course for the University of Arizona when he got an e-mail from his wife back in Tucson. It contained an advertisement for a French teacher at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School and a brief note: “The kids and I have thought about this — you need to apply here.”

Still unhappy with next year’s early budget estimates that they believe unfairly saddles the town with a disproportionate share of cost, the Edgartown selectmen are moving ahead with plans to withdraw from the Martha’s Vineyard Commission.

The selectmen will now put the question before voters at a special town meeting slated for Dec. 14.

The game is back. Every fall on the Island the leaves turn red and fall to the ground, scallopers take to Island ponds, and the V’s and W’s line up across from each other on the gridiron the week before Thanksgiving to add a new chapter to The Rivalry. Then, all of a sudden last year, they didn’t. The dead leaves might as well have clung to their branches. After the ensuing round of finger-pointing and resentment subsided the Game is back on the schedule.

Undaunted by the bleak economic picture, Oak Bluffs voters agreed on Tuesday night to increase the room occupancy tax and allocate $200,000 for the historic renovation of the brick bathhouse on the North Bluff.

But when it came to a much-discussed article by petition to reduce the number of selectmen from five to three, voters could not agree.

Dan Rossi was appointed as the new West Tisbury police chief on Wednesday night after a vote by West Tisbury selectmen Cynthia Mitchell and Richard Knabel. After the announcement, Mr. Rossi wiped his brow and hugged the selectmen to a round of applause. It had been a long weekend of interviews and public speaking, and Mr. Rossi was eager to get back to the work of leading the police department, as he has done as interim chief since Beth Toomey’s retirement in April.