November is upon us and members may be ready for some cozy play-time with their kids at the HNN playgroup or cozy nights with friends at the HNN book club.  But don't settle in just yet!  Our COMEDY NIGHT Fundraiser is on Nov. 8th at Anthony's on the Green, hosted by Holliston's own Paul Gillespie.  It sold out last year, so don't wait to get your tickets!  I also hope you choose to participate in our annual Thanksgiving Meals for Seniors, assembling and distributing Thanksgiving meal kits to Holliston Seniors before the holiday.  There are so many small ways that our members can meet new friends and spend time with old ones through our three primary efforts: social, civic and fundraising.  For example, some easy ways to get to know members is to come to a book club meeting, assemble meals for Thanksgiving Meals for Seniors, come to a fundraising event and introduce yourself, even host a small social activity of your choice when it's convenient for you.  We'll help you market your activity and can reimburse you for reasonable expenses.  HNN members love to connect, just let us know how we can help you achieve it!

Children's Playgroups are in full swing and it was great to see some new faces at our October group. We will meet this month and then take December off for the holidays.

Save the date for our next playgroup on Sunday, November 17th from 3:30-5:30pm. Please RSVP to Jackie to receive the address or with any questions. 

Let's get together & play!

We had a great discussion of our October book, Absolution, by Alice McDermott. Thanks to Deb for hosting. We hope you will join us for our November meeting on Wednesday, November 20, at 7:30 pm. We will be discussing Three Things About Elsie, by Joanna Cannon. Please don’t feel that you shouldn’t attend if you haven’t finished (or even started) the book—Book Club is mainly an opportunity for old and new friends to get together and chat and snack. All are welcome—we would love to have some new members join our group.

The Holliston Public Library reserves several copies of each book for us—they can be found (typically about a month ahead of each meeting) on the shelves along the windows on the right as you enter the library (now behind the circulation desk). We take the month of December off from Book Club, but for those who want to get a head start on January’s book, we will be reading Tiffany Girls by Shelley Noble. We meet the third Wednesday of each month (except no meeting in December). We hold most meetings in person but also have a Zoom option if you can’t attend. Please contact Debbie if you have any interest in hosting a meeting.

About the book:

Eighty-four-year-old Florence has fallen in her flat at Cherry Tree Home for the Elderly. As she waits to be rescued, she thinks about her friend Elsie and wonders if a terrible secret from their past is about to come to light. If the charming new resident is who he claims to be, why does he look exactly like a man who died sixty years ago?

From the acclaimed, bestselling author of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, Three Things About Elsie “breathes with suspense, providing along the way piercing, poetic descriptions, countless tiny mysteries, and breathtaking little reveals…a rich portrait of old age and friendship stretched over a fascinating frame” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). This is an “amusing and heartbreaking” (Publishers Weekly) story about forever friends on the twisting path of life who come to understand how the fine threads of humanity connect us all.

HNN has a blast in Fall, and you won't want to miss out!  So, mark your calendars for these upcoming annual social events & civic activities for both couples and families!

First, we are planning another adults-only Halloween Party on Friday, October 11^th at Casey's!  Why should the kids have all the fun this Halloween, right?  Next up is our annual Pumpkin Rail Trail event for the kids.  This family friendly spooky event has been a favorite fundraiser among families.  It's just as fun for the volunteers as it is for the participants!  And don't forget to bring your kiddos to Mission Springs for some early trick or treating with our town's elderly residents.  This civic activity is always a special community engagement.  Lastly, buy your tickets for our Comedy Night at Anthony's on the Green in Holliston on Nov. 8th!  This fundraising event was hilarious last year, so grab your friends and make it a night-out!  A community that laughs together, supports each other and helps make Holliston an even better place to live!

Join us for a scary good time on October 11th at 7pm for our adults-only annual Halloween party at Casey’s Pub, 81 Railroad St. Holliston! This favorite tradition includes yummy appetizers, sweet treats and a cash bar. Come whether you have a costume or not and feel free to bring a friend who might be interested in joining. Please RSVP to Timea,  so we can get a projected appetizer count. 

See you there, if you dare!

We had a great discussion (over Zoom) of our September book, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin, which everyone seemed to like (so if you haven’t read it yet, consider adding it to your [probably very long] list of “Books I Want to Read”). We hope you will join us (either in person or by Zoom) for our October meeting on Wednesday, October 16, at 7:30 pm. We will be discussing Absolution, by Alice McDermott. Please don’t feel that you shouldn’t attend if you haven’t finished (or even started) the book—Book Club is mainly an opportunity for old and new friends to get together and chat and snack. All are welcome—we would love to have some new members join our group.

The Holliston Public Library reserves several copies of each book for us—they can be found (typically about a month ahead of each meeting) on the shelves along the windows on the right as you enter the library (now behind the circulation desk). For those who want to get a head start on next month, our November book will be Three Things About Elsie by Joanna Cannon. We meet the third Wednesday of each month. We hold most meetings in person but also have a Zoom option if you can’t attend. Please contact Debbie if you have any interest in hosting a meeting.

We are still looking for a few titles to fill our calendar for the rest of the year, so if there’s a book you’ve read (or want to read) that you think would make a good book club book, please bring your suggestions to the October meeting (or email suggestions to Debbie if you can’t make the meeting).

American women―American wives―have been mostly minor characters in the literature of the Vietnam War, but in Absolution they take center stage. Tricia is a shy newlywed, married to a rising attorney on loan to navy intelligence. Charlene is a practiced corporate spouse and mother of three, a beauty and a bully. In Saigon in 1963, the two women form a wary alliance as they balance the era’s mandate to be “helpmeets” to their ambitious husbands with their own inchoate impulse to “do good” for the people of Vietnam.

Sixty years later, Charlene’s daughter, spurred by an encounter with an aging Vietnam vet, reaches out to Tricia. Together, they look back at their time in Saigon, taking wry account of that pivotal year and of Charlene’s altruistic machinations, and discovering how their own lives as women on the periphery―of politics, of history, of war, of their husbands’ convictions―have been shaped and burdened by the same sort of unintended consequences that followed America’s tragic interference in Southeast Asia.

A virtuosic new novel from Alice McDermott, one of our most observant, most affecting writers, about folly and grace, obligation, sacrifice, and, finally, the quest for absolution in a broken world.

Children's Playgroups are in full swing.

Come join us!

It’s been great getting to meet some other families. Mark your calendars-our next gathering is on Sunday, October 20th from 3-5pm. Please RSVP to Jackie for details and the address. 

Let's get together & play!

Holliston Newcomers & Neighbors is gearing up for a great 2024/2025 year! And we started off with an outstanding "Day at the Lake" Event, hosted with Holliston's 300th Committee. The community gathered at Stoddard Park on a beautiful day for live music, food, swimming and games! A huge thank you to our bands, the Dave Melo Band and Colin Fields, who were outstanding and made the day extra festive. And we are grateful for the contributions of our local businesses and member volunteers, who made the event a huge success.

As HNN gets ready for a new season of events, take a moment to remember why our mighty Club is so special. HNN brings town new-comers and old neighbors together to strengthen our community through civic and social activities. In addition to simply having a good time together and making new friends at our playgroups, book club and parties, we give back to Holliston through our signature Community Grant Fund. When you attend and volunteer for our fundraisers you help fund this Grant, which is given to local organizations such as the Holliston Community Farm, our police department, our library, and the Summer Concert series. In addition, our civic activities support our town's senior citizens and The Holliston Pantry Shelf.

So, we look forward to seeing you this year at our civic and social activities, and fundraisers. And thank you for helping to make our Club and community a success!

Children's Playgroups are in full swing.

Come join us! It’s been great getting to meet some other families and get together including over the summer.

Mark your calendars-our next gathering is on Sunday, September 22nd at 3pm. Please RSVP to Jackie for details and the address. Also reach out to Jackie if you have any ideas for other children’s activities for this fall.

Let's get together & play!

Welcome to a new season of Book Club! We hope to see both new and longtime members at our first meeting of the season, Wednesday, September 18, at 7:30 pm. We will be discussing Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin. Please don’t feel that you shouldn’t attend if you haven’t finished (or even started) the book—Book Club is mainly an opportunity for old and new friends to get together and chat and snack. All are welcome—we would love to have some new members join our group.

The Holliston Public Library reserves several copies of each book for us—they can be found (typically about a month ahead of each meeting) on the shelves along the windows on the right as you enter the library. For those who want to get a head start on next month, our October book will be Absolution by Alice McDermott. We meet the third Wednesday of each month. We hold most meetings in person but also have a Zoom option if you can’t attend. Please contact Debbie if you have any interest in hosting a meeting.

Among the titles we will be reading this year are Three Things About Elsie, Tiffany Girls, and The Cliffs, but we are still looking for a few titles to fill our calendar for the rest of the year, so if there’s a book you’ve read (or want to read) that you think would make a good book club book, please bring your suggestions to the September meeting.

About the book:

From the best-selling author of The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry: On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom.

These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won’t protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.

Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love.