TV or not TV

222 Days To Go

If you’re one of the many Haysville citizens who subscribes to cable or satellite television or who has invested in one of the new digital television sets, you may be utterly uninterested in the upcoming changeover to universal digital broadcasting on February 17, 2009. On the other hand, if you aren’t yet ready to spend a tidy sum on a new TV, or if your current analog television set has years of service left and you don’t want or need cable or satellite service, the federal government has a program to make your transition a good deal less painful than it might otherwise be.

At the official TV Converter Box Coupon Program you can apply online for two $40 coupons good for 90 days toward the purchase of any eligible digital converter box. The converter box will take the digital signals that will be the only ones broadcast, and convert them to the analog format that your TV set can use. The coupons are free, and should cover about 80 percent of the cost of a converter, more or less.

For a more complete explanation of the program see the website above, or consult the Federal Trade Commission’s consumer alert Television is Going Digital: Get the Picture.

More information about this program, and much other useful consumer information is available in the Consumer Affairs section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Web on the library’s home page.

Arcana

The Haysville Community Library will be sponsoring a trip to Branson in mid-September to help fund furnishings for the new library.

Among the varied attractions for the venture is Noah the Musical in which “with a cast of 50, you will witness the 40 foot high Ark being built on a 300-foot wraparound stage. You will actually be there, in the ark, surrounded by hundreds of live and animatronics animals . . .” That alone sounds spectacular enough to justify the journey.

The trip is scheduled for three days (September 15-17), not forty days and forty nights, and will be by bus, not ark.

For details, see the announcement on our home page.

Common Cents

With relentlessly rising food and energy prices, and both global and national economies nearly at a standstill, few home budgets can blithely ignore an opportunity to save a dollar. Here’s one tip that may help you do just that.

The Federal Citizens Information Center has released a 50 cent brochure full of quick, practical common-sense advice entitled 66 Ways to Save Money. Arranged in six principle categories (Transportation, Insurance, Banking/Credit, Housing, Utilities, and Other) and covering everything from airline fares and rental cars to prescription drugs and food purchases, the brochure is a concise and convenient reminder of all those savings tips you probably knew, but may well have forgotten or overlooked. Even the savviest of consumers can use a memory jogger now and then.

Want to save the 50 cents? Just check the brochure out on line. (For more savings tips for wise consumers, see the Consumer Affairs category in our Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Internet.

Cargill Award

Library Board President Zoe Burgess accepts Cargill Volunteer Award check from Sarah Sampson, former Board President and outstanding volunteer.

 

Cargill, an international provider of food, agricultural and risk management products and services, has honored the outstanding volunteer services of Sarah Sampson by awarding a $1,000 check to the Haysville Community Library.

 

Sarah is an Accountant at Horizon Milling, LLC in Wichita. A leading U.S. flour miller, Horizon Milling, LLC is a joint venture between CHS Inc. and Cargill. 

 

The Cargill Cares Volunteer Award is specifically intended to honor outstanding contributions by Cargill employees to the communities in which they live and work, and is awarded exclusively to non-profit organizations.

 

After eight years of dedicated and diligent service on the Board of Trustees for the Haysville Community Library – two as Vice President and three as President – Sarah only recently relinquished her day-to-day involvement in library affairs. She retains her keen interest in the library’s progress and in the welfare of our community as a whole.