■Yesterday at the University of Massachusetts, hundreds of spectators and participants took part in a “festival of life” sponsored by the campus branch of the Universal Life Church. Activities included baptisms, canoe races, jousting matches from small tubs used as boats, and the launching of miniature sail boats.
■The Upper Leeds Reservoir area will not be relinquished by the City Department of Public Works for recreation purposes, the Northampton Conservation Commission has been told. The commission has been investigating the possibility of developing the Roberts Meadow area for conservation and recreation.
■Staff at the Green Street Cafè in Northampton have an Olympian in their midst — a future culinary Olympian, that is. Bo Celetto, one of the restaurant’s chefs, is now in training for the International Festival of Chefs, familiarly known as the Culinary Olympics, which are being held in Berlin in 1996.
■Northampton will ask for donations from residents to help create a dozen information signs for the Manhan and Pynchon Meadows. Peter McNulty, a member of the Meadows Cleanup Committee, said the signs would advise people using the meadows of allowable activities and prohibitions.
■With an eye to the future and a detailed nod to the past, Superintendent of Schools Isabelina Rodriguez presented her proposed budget to the School Committee for fiscal 2011 Wednesday night. It speaks to a $764,661 gap, a deficit that could lead to layoffs for teachers, aides and at least one administrator.
■Lawmakers moved a step closer Wednesday to approving a bill designed to crack down on school bullies in the wake of two recent suicides of students whose families and friends said were the victims of intense bullying. The bill prohibits bullying on school property, buses or at school-sponsored activities. It also outlaws so-called cyberbullying by email or social media.