Lifeguard Class

The YMCA of Martha’s Vineyard is offering a lifeguard certification course beginning March 14.

The course will run over two weeks on Monday through Thursday evenings. Participants must attend all classes in order to receive the certification. Anyone interested must also be experienced swimmers and able to swim 500 yards in freestyle, sidestroke and breaststroke.

Waterfront certification is not included in the class.

Limerick Challenge

A public library by definition is free. However, on Sunday, March 13 at 3 p.m. the West Tisbury Library will be asking those willing to dig deep, not into their wallets but rather into their resources of wordplay.

It is the second annual limerick challenge. The rules are quite basic. A five line poem in the pattern of aabba. For those rusty with their poetry code that means the first two lines rhyme, the third and fourth lines rhyme and the fifth line rhymes with the first line.

Book Group Assembles

The Edgartown Library’s book group’s next meeting will be on March 29 at 4 p.m. The book under scrutiny will be The Fiddler in the Subway by Gene Weingarten.

Poet Rebecca Gayle Howell is a reader first and foremost. When she started to read in a serious way at the age of 11, Ms. Howell would sneak away with her older sister’s high school English textbook. That’s how she discovered T.S. Eliot.

“I read the Four Quartets, and for the first time I knew something had changed in me,” Ms. Howell said in a phone interview with the Gazette earlier this week. “I just kept reading from there.”

Drama Competition Preview

Every year the Massachusetts Education Theater Guild holds a statewide drama competition. For the past six years running Martha’s Vineyard has been represented at this festival, going all the way to the final round once.

This year the first round matchups take place on March 5 at Joseph Case High School in Swansea. However, a preview performance will be performed this Sunday, Feb. 27 at 4 p.m. at the Katharine Cornell Theatre in Vineyard Haven.

The Adult and Community Education Program (ACE MV) announces a new session of 38 courses and seminars for the spring session from March 8 to April 10, with professional development classes ending in June. Enrichment classes meet on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Registration begins now online; early registration is strongly advised. There is one day only for walk-in registration on Monday, March 7 from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School.