Crouch Bridge Will Be Plowed

The City of Crouch has announced that Bill Jones, Supervisor of Boise County Road and Bridge, has agreed to drop the county snowplow blade, as they cross the Old Crouch Bridge towards the Middle Fork road. They did this in the past but received complaints about the berms left behind. The City has asked that he start dropping the blade again, in an effort to help out with the snow plowing.

If anyone has any concerns or objections, please contact Kim Bosse directly.
Bill Jones is only going to do this with the understanding that “we want him to do this” and the City would like to relieve him of complaints.
Kim Bosse
City Clerk/Treasurer
(208)462-4687
cityofcrouch@frontiernet.net

Join the Chamber of Commerce: Business & Non-Business Welcome!

Greater Garden Valley Chamber of Commerce President, Diane Caughlin, shares reasons for joining the Chamber:

~ You tap into an extensive volunteer base that acts as an arm of your business, by providing marketing and promotional assistance and educational opportunities, and by working to improve the quality of life in our community -- all in the name of member businesses!

~ Membership in Chamber is a rite of passage, an investment in the health and abundance of your business, and a way to harness the collective power that is available from creating a solid business community.

~ Many opportunities to network, advertise, and communicate open up when you join the Chamber! Another key reason business people join Chamber is to get the inside scoop on what is happening in the County, often before others know and well in advance of it being printed in the papers.

~ What we do know is that a community that acts like a community - that is, one that bands together to reach common goals – will be more successful than a similar number of individuals all acting alone. In other words, the old adage rings true… “There is strength in numbers”. And whether it’s for tourist promotion, efforts to promote local economic health, or even support for community events, a critical mass of support is essential for success.

~ The Chamber Information Center is a popular stop for tourists and as a member of the Chamber you may place your promotional materials at the Information Center located on the community hall wall, for no fee. We have plans to move it to the front wall of the Radio Station.

~ The Chamber fulfills literally hundreds of information requests every year. Requests arrive by mail, email and telephone, and we make certain to answer all questions thoroughly and quickly. We feel good service reflects well on our town – good impressions are invaluable, and we only connect Chamber members with the people looking for their services.

~ The Chamber supports community events that bring visitors to town. Some of the events we support are: the 4th of July Celebration, Spring Fling, Trunk or Treat. This year we are also inviting groups such as car, motorcycle, church, etc., to come here, stay in our town, and use the services we provide.

~ The Chamber will host periodic business-training seminars this year, to help small businesses fulfill their goals and connect with helpful resources and information.

~ The Chamber emails notices to our members prior to all Chamber events and whenever there is something of interest to share with members.

~ The Greater Garden Valley Chamber of Commerce maintains our popular website, which contains much interesting and useful information for those interested in learning more about the Garden Valley area. The site maintains a comprehensive, and regularly updated, calendar of Valley-wide events. As an added benefit, Chamber member businesses are listed in the on-line business directory and provided a free link to their business website.

~ You support the community that supports your business, and you establish a certain amount of credibility in the business community, as well as with the general public.
Your membership investment is 95% tax deductible. Your dues, as a business, are $80 per year. With this, you have the opportunity to eat dinner at ten meetings throughout the year! It pretty much pays for itself!

~  Non-business community members are invaluable and are welcome to join for $30 per year. Dinner deal applies to all members!

Diane Caughlin, President

Garden Valley Chamber of Commerce
PO Box 10
Garden Valley, Idaho 83622
208-462-5003 info@gvchamber.org

WICAP Offers Help To Low-Income Residents

(Weather Permitting)

WICAP WILL BE IN GARDEN VALLEY ON

FRIDAY, JANUARY 27, 12:00 to 2:00 p.m.

DOING:

ENERGY ASSISTANCE

COMMODITIES (temporary emergency food) 

ENERGY KITS TO ELIGIBLE PARTICIPANTS

 at

CROUCH COMMUNITY HALL : 1022 Old Crouch Rd.

Western Idaho Community Action Partnership, Inc. (WICAP) is involved with developing and administering anti-poverty programs. They offer many services to low-income populations in Western Idaho communities:

Emergency Assistance, Education, Employment, Housing, Health--including help for pregnant women, and self-sufficiency.

They welcome volunteers, who enable them to offer more services; in return, volunteers can obtain or update skills for employment.

If you are in need of assistance, please bring the following:
1) Recent copy of utility bill.
2) Recent payroll stub showing past three months income.
3) Documents from Social Security, Unemployment, Pension, etc.
4) Final termination notice.
 5) Proof of present address.
6) Proof of U.S. citizenship or permanent residency.

Senior Center Closed For Dinner

Thursday, January 19, the Garden Valley Senior Center will be closed for dinner, due to snow.

Granny's Closet will be open Friday, 1/20, from 1-5 and Saturday, 1/21, from 10-5. Have a nice week-end, drive carefully and see you on Tuesday, January 24, for Exercise and Dinner!

Artist James Castle Catching On in Europe

The work of Garden Valley artist, James Castle, has been exhibited throughout the United States since 1962. His first showing was A Voice of Silence, at the Image Gallery in Portland, Oregon: he was 63-years-old. The first international exhibition of his work was of his Art Books, held at the University of Alberta, in Edmonton, Canada, in 2000. The European art world first gave a nod to Castle in London, England, in 2001, and in Bristol, England and Munich, Germany, in 2002. Since then, his work has been exhibited in England, Ireland, Spain, Switzerland, and Korea. The following is from Galerie Karsten Greve, with catalogue text by Margit Rowell and John Yau.

JAMES CASTLE

Exhibition from 14th January to 17th March 2012

Galerie Karsten Greve is presenting the first comprehensive retrospective of the work of James Castle (1899-1977) in France.

James Castle, with his extensive oeuvre of collages, drawings, books, and assemblages, is one of the most interesting discoveries of North American art in the 20th century. His works, which for decades had only been shown regionally or mistakenly in group exhibitions on outsider art, have in recent years increasingly attracted the attention of collectors and museums. The perfection of the drawings, Castle’s material aesthetics, and the numerous references to the avant-garde of the 20th century are all fascinating. Although he had never any personal contact with it at all, Castle’s paper works are reminiscent of collages of European art before 1945, and even more of pop art’s view of the everyday aesthetics and the commercial art of the post-war period in the U.S.

James Castle, who was born in Idaho, was deaf from birth. Having no access to spoken language, he never learned how to read or write, but even as a child he made drawings all the time. Drawings were his means of communicating with his family, but even more, art for him was a way of appropriating and reflecting on the world. James Castle spent his entire life with his family in Garden Valley. His art was influenced by the fact that for decades his father, in addition to the farm, ran a shop and post office in the village. James Castle collected the wrappings, cardboards, and advertising brochures and used the reverse sides as drawing paper, the printed material as visual inspiration and material for his collages. He mixed his paints out of stove soot, crepe paper, and saliva, and drew and painted with sharpened sticks and soft rolled cardboard. With great concentration, he created fascinating and conceptual works that in addition to an extraordinary sensitivity for materials also exhibit a highly complex spatial order.

James Castle was interested in rural buildings, in houses, barns, and fences, which he reproduced in a smaller scale and with a precise sense of perspective. Interiors are always visualized with their simple furnishings and their surface structures of wooden beams and wallpaper pattern repeats in various perspectives. In some interiors, he presents groups of his works like in an imaginary exhibition. In addition, he created book objects, sculptures, and collages of letters and brand marks. This fascination with letters and numbers may be initially surprising, especially in light of the fact that it could never be established just how far he actually understood the content of texts. The visual appeal of the graphic signs and the complexity of the books which he filled with his drawings, however, are easily and immediately understood by the beholder of James Castle’s fantastical objects.

In his lifetime, James Castle was only known to a small circle of people interested in art, but early on other artists were enthusiastic about his work and supported it. He himself lived to see the opening of his first solo exhibition in the museum of Idaho’s state capital Boise. He attracted international attention with the first scholarly retrospective of his work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2009. This year, Museum Reina Sofia in Madrid has devoted the first comprehensive European retrospective to James Castle, a selection of which will travel in May 2012 to the K 21 – Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen Düsseldorf.

Exhibition and catalogue were produced in cooperation with the James Castle Collection and Archive.

*Photo from Facebook, Portrait of an Artist.
*Thanks to Georgianna Goetsch for the heads up.

Join a Book Club at the Library!

Submitted by Kathy Passie
Friends of the GV Library

The Garden Valley Library has some great programs planned for the next three
months:

On Saturday, January 21, there will be a gathering of any folks interested
in forming or joining a book club. Any or all interested people are invited to come
discuss this idea. The clubs will be Library-sponsored, but the genre of the books
selected as well as the meeting times of the club(s) will be entirely up to the club members. Many people have expressed an interest in forming some book or reading
clubs, so we are hoping to facilitate this . Since we have a cold, dry winter, this is a perfect time to catch up on some of that reading you’ve always wanted to do.

The meeting will be at 1:00 p.m, at the library. We’ll have refreshments and group discussion. Come and meet other folks who share your interests in reading and perhaps form your group. Your library is here for you to enjoy, and we hope to see you there, and maybe bring a friend too! If by chance you are not able to attend the Saturday meeting, there will be a “sign-up” list at the library, so you may be included in organizing these groups.

In February, the Friends of The Library, in conjunction with the Idaho Humanities Council, are sponsoring a guest speaker and a special program on Saturday, February 25. Dave Lachiondo will present a program on Basque culture featuring music and history. We also will be serving some Basque culinary specialties to “immerse” us into this special presentation.

March brings us to a St. Patrick’s Day Party on the afternoon of Saturday, March 17. Music and fun for all are promised.

Much more information will be forthcoming as the date gets closer, but you might
want to “save the date” on your calendar.

Children's Clothing Needed For Afghanistan

A message from Diane Caughlin

President, Garden Valley Chamber of Commerce

Hey Everyone,

I guess we are becoming famous in Afghanistan!  I received the email (below) from an Army Chaplain stationed in Afghanistan asking for help with a new project:

Ms Caughlin:

I have a request from my commander.  We are in the process of doing a clothing drive for the children in the area.  This is the hearts and minds part of our campaign.  We are desperately in need of used children's clothing that we can distribute in our AO.  This would mean a quieter summer fighting season, if we do this part of our mission right.

I have contacted all the churches I know of to help with the children's clothing.

I know that is not something that's in your lane as part of the adopt a soldier program.

However if you can point us in the right direction or help directly, it will be greatly appreciated.

This is time sensitive as we are trying to do this distribution in the next few weeks.

Thanks in advance if you can coordinate or able to help with this.

God Bless you

CH Somaratna

I sent an email asking for more specifics, Capt. Somaratna replied:

Regarding sizes, as long as they are children's clothing we will distribute them regardless.  There is a need for primary through middle school sizes.  These kids wear anything that keeps them warm and covers them up.

Chaplain S.D. Somaratna

Our community is so awesome; for the "Thinking of you from Garden Valley Idaho" operation, we shipped over 40 boxes to the soldiers, so I'm sure we can rummage up some clothing for these children. If you have anything to donate, please bring them to the Garden Valley Properties office, 609 S. Middle Fork Road, Garden Valley, Idaho

462-4620. 

Thank you again for your help. 

Diane Caughlin, President, GGVCC

Friday Morning Chamber Marketing Meetings!

The Garden Valley Chamber of Commerce meets for casual brainstorming every Friday at 9:00 a.m., at Wild Bills Coffee & Bistro, in Downtown Crouch. 

Tomorrow’s meeting, Friday, January 13, will focus on why we should be a part of the Chamber--what are the benefits!?

Chamber members will also be discussing the Crouch sign project they are working on. Diane Caughlin says they’ve had a lot of great ideas and Joe Roberts requested she do an AAR (after action review, it’s a military term) following the meetings. She’ll try to put that together for you after tomorrow’s meeting.

Hope to see you all there!


For info, contact:
Diane Caughlin, President
Garden Valley Chamber of Commerce
PO Box 10
Garden Valley, Idaho 83622
208-462-5003 info@gvchamber.org

Garden Valley Market Swings Into 2012

by Greg Simione

Hello to the first week of 2012,

Most of our visitors to the Valley have left and school is back in session. As we enter our quiet season made even quieter due to lack of snow, we keep plugging along at the Market. With six months under our belt and some breathing room, we’ll review our merchandise selection to ensure we are meeting your expectations. This will be an opportunity to reduce slow moving items and maintain an appropriate inventory.

Some changes have already begun. We recently began to expand our vitamin and minerals selection, as well as the amount of organic produce and organic products in general. You’ll begin to see an increase in the number of Private Label Western Family products, but we will always also carry name brand items. Their products are doing very well because of their quality and low prices.

Some new items this week are in response to many requests for alternative sweeteners and baking items. In addition to Stevia and Agave products, we are now carrying Coconut Secret Brand. Their products include:

Coconut Crystals – Low glycemic sugar alternative – organic –unrefined, gluten free, unbleached, GMO Free, vegan
Coconut Flour –Gluten Free, GMO Free, High in Fiber and low Carbs – unbleached - organic
Coconut Aminos – Raw, soy free seasoning sauce, Gluten Free, Dairy Free, GMO Free – organic (compare to soy sauce)
Coconut Vinegar – Raw, gluten free, high in FOS, GMO Free – organic (compare to apple cider vinegar)
Coconut Nectar – raw, organic, low glycemic sweetener (compare to Agave), gluten free, GMO Free, fat free, vegan

The January 30-day Deal flyers are in the store. Pick one up the next time you shop. Not all items are available and if an item is out, we will do our best to get it for you by the next delivery.

We want to thank Lynne McKibbin, from Dahlia’s Flowers & Gifts, for heading up a campaign to decorate the town with Holiday Flags. You may have noticed them driving into town and on many of the local businesses. Even without the snow, the flags have added to the charm of our area.

Finally, don’t let the lack of snow stop our fun! The Idaho X-Sports Tubing Hill in Garden Valley is open on weekends. They’ve been hard at work making snow since Thanksgiving. It’s fun for the whole family and one of the few winter activities available for our area.

Have a great Playoff-filled weekend and we look forward to your next visit!

Greg and Gerold
Garden Valley Market
462-3817
greg@gardenvalley-market.com