Fraser-Harris — Charlotte’s unofficial fun guy

Being the Fun Guy of Charlotte keeps Bill Fraser-Harris busy throughout the year. Summers are spent at Charlotte Town Beach, but during the winter he concentrates his efforts at Charlotte Central School, maintaining the town skating rink.

A former high school hockey player, Fraser-Harris started working on the rink when he was a member of the recreation commission.

“I’ve been doing it for 15 years or so with a motley assortment of other night owls,” he said.

At 100 x 200 feet, the rink is one of the largest outdoor surfaces in Vermont and is almost the size of an NHL rink. It’s big enough that when college kids come home during winter break, they can shoot a puck around on one side while people free skate on the other side.

Making the rink requires spraying thin layers of water when the ground begins to freeze. The cost of a liner and the logistics involved in laying one down means the team of ice makers has to wait until the temperature is in the teens to spray water on the ground surface. Last year, the ground never really froze.

“We’re hoping for a better year than last year,” Fraser-Harris said. “We keep saying that every year and it doesn’t happen.”

The ice rink is only one of Fraser-Harris’s many volunteer efforts. Roughly 15 years ago, he helped bring the Mozart Festival to Charlotte and other venues in Chittenden County. When the festival went bankrupt, Fraser-Harris was loathe to see its venue at the Charlotte Town Beach go to waste, so he recruited a quartet of Vermont Symphony Orchestra players to take the festival’s place.

For the last seven or eight years, Music at the Beach has been a self-supporting, pass-the-hat event with some behind-the-scenes benefactors.

“It’s been extremely successful,” Fraser-Harris said. “We have a beautiful venue that is almost mystical.”

Another event that Fraser-Harris spearheads is the annual Town Party. Initially, the party was an opportunity for residents to learn more about the various municipal committees. When the cost of renting a tent ended that event, Fraser-Harris and Mary Provencher of the Mystic Party Band decided to build on it and create a real summer party with ice cream and music.

The event is billed as a farm-to-table potluck, and last year, roughly 300 people attended.

“It’s a social feeding frenzy,” Fraser-Harris said. “It comes at a time when people have been cooped up and they’re a little starved for community. In Charlotte, we pack everything into the three months of summer.”

Fraser-Harris grew up in Ottawa and studied oceanography and geography in Wales. Although he hasn’t worked in those fields, he has done a lot of traveling on land and sea and believes his educational background gives him a great appreciation for the planet and what we have to do to save it.

Working for People’s Express, Fraser-Harris was based in Newark and employed in a number of different capacities. As a flight attendant on one of the airline’s $19 flights to Burlington, after landing, he stepped on the stairway, smelled the air and saw Mt. Mansfield capped with snow. He decided to request a transfer to Vermont.

After People’s Express was purchased by Continental and then United, Fraser-Harris decided to switch careers. He started a restaurant at Bolton Valley. When that ski area went bankrupt in 1994, he opened Bridge Street Café in Richmond.

He sold the restaurant in 2000 when he married Eva, an anesthesiologist from Charlotte. He moved into her house and took care of her aging parents, who have since passed away.

Those deaths gave Fraser-Harris more time to volunteer, and he has begun working at the senior center for the Men’s Breakfasts and other social events like the farewell party for Dean Bloch. Additionally, he is a house captain and usher at the Flynn.

During COVID, Fraser-Harris and his wife bought an Airstream. As a first responder, Eva had been vaccinated so she was able to go out and do the shopping, but otherwise, the couple was in their own COVID bubble. They drove for two and a half months, covering over 10,000 miles and meeting a whole community of travelers.

Fraser-Harris stepped down from the recreation commission a year and a half ago, but enjoys volunteering in other ways.

“I got out of the administrative side,” he said, “and just took on doing the fun things. I’ve been called the Fun Guy of Charlotte and I’m happy to own that. Volunteerism is a wonderful distraction from the world.”