Warwick Historical Society
March 19, 2014 Minutes

Present:  Ann Miner, Susan Wright, Arline Lincoln, Larry Carey, Ed
Lemon, Mel Kitchen, Martha Morse, Charlie Brown, Mike Carey, and Barbara
Walker.

The meeting was called to order at  7:50 by Larry Carey.
Minutes of the December 18, 2013 meeting were accepted as read. 

Treasurer's report gave the following figures:  
checking: 1,713.18
savings: 5,231.90
C.D.:  10,260.99

TOTAL:  17,206.07

The treasurer's report was  accepted as presented.

President's Report:  Larry Carey
1. A slate of officers will be nominated at the June 2014 meeting.  The
slate will be voted on at the  September meeting. 
2. Larry is hoping it will soon be warm enough to spend some time at the
WHS building on needed projects.  Specifically mentioned:  installation
of the outside lights, one of which was donated by David; and work on
the cellar way. 
3. Larry mentioned his discussions with Ed on the need to preserve all
the work he has done so that it will be available in the future. Larry
said, and I quote, "We might have to look outside our society for help
but I think it is a topic we should keep on our agendas." 
4. There was a discussion on the need to reproduce the old photos put
out on the saddle boards for display during Old Home Days. Larry checked
the price to have them done professionally, and the cost of 8 X 10 is
prohibitive. The cost for 5x7 is .80 each.  The consensus was to have
them professionally re-done from the photos Larry has on a c.d.  Board
itself will also need some cleaning and repairs. 
5. Larry asked the secretary to send a letter to Lawrence Pruyne
thanking him for the filming the Old Home Day parade and the film that
Saturday night. 

Ed Lemon gave the Curator's report, and it is attached.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:21 p.m. and was followed by refreshments.


Respectfully submitted,

Martha Morse
secretary 

Curator's Report 3.19.14

I have a copy of the Society's Annual Report to the Town for the year
2013 if you'd like to see it.

1. Inventory Project

We'll probably begin working in mid-June at our usual time of 1 to 3
p.m. on Mondays if there are no objections from my regulars. I'd like to
invite others to join us in these sessions. You will get deeply involved
in our collection and learn much about our town. I certainly did!

2. Book Grant & Project

We have received $750 from the Warwick Cultural Council towards another
publication which we have discussed before, namely a book of photos and
brief histories of older houses in Warwick.  I will pass out a sheet
with most of the ones listed in the Massachusetts Cultural heritage
database. We need to consider how many (20?) and which ones to document,
and divide them up amongst ourselves. This will involve a visit to the
homeowner, getting permission to use a photograph of their house in our
little book [pass around permission form], and researching the
background of the house. Most of this work has already been done for us
by our predecessors in the Society, and I have taken recent photographs
of all of these buildings. As we found with the topics in our very
successful book "A History of Warwick in 15 Objects" many hands make
light or at least lighter work. I am suggesting that Martha Kitchen and
I share the editing duties and that we get Deb Paulson to help with the
formatting and printing. Most of the content will come from Morse's
books, my photos, and the current owner of the property.

Speaking of publications, we've sold most of the 100 copies we had
printed. So should we negotiate another print run, or consider the
market saturated and as soon as the last copy is sold, put it up for
free on the internet?

In connection with this there's another project I would like the
Society's input on. Quite a number of Massachusetts communities are
undertaking to affix historical plaques or markers to the older houses
in their towns, giving the name, date and a very brief description of
the building's original purpose/owner. I would like us to discuss the
feasibility of a similar project for Warwick. This has been attempted in
the past and there is at least one sign still extant, namely the one on
the Cobb Post Office. If we decide to do this, it would again involve
getting the cooperation of the owners, ordering the signs/markers
locally, if possible, and finding funding for the signs. At least one
historical building owner I discussed this with was very willing to
cooperate with us and even pay for the sign. I'll pass around a typical
form from the town of Sandwich, MA.

3. Cooperation with WCS

I have been working together again with Susan Wright and Laurel Powell
of the WCS to arrange for some of our exhibits to be used by the school
for their various projects, such as the recent Literacy Night. Perhaps
Larry can tell us a bit about that later. One of the purposes of our
society and its collections is, after all, for educational purposes and
there is nothing more satisfying than seeing the expression on a child's
face when she comes face to face with, say, a musket that was used in
the revolutionary war 250 years ago, or a book written about Warwick or
by a resident. 

4. Web site - analytics, photos

People have apparently been asking about the fact that a number of
objects described on our web page show no photo available. This is my
fault, as I am still way behind on getting the photos of our albums
posted on the site. If anyone asks, the photos are coming - no part of
the collection will be without a photo, eventually. 

I have already installed Google Analytics on the town's web page and I
hope to do the same for the Society's page. These analytics will allow
us, among other things, to learn how many visitors we have per day,
week, month and year, where they come from, and a ton of other data. I
hope to have some of this info at our next meeting in June.

5. Membership card

With our business cards now a reality, it seems to me that we need a
redesign of our membership cards as well, so I have designed one. Please
let me know if the design seems OK, if all the data is included and what
we want, etc.

6. Miscellaneous

a. October is Massachusetts Archaeology Month. You can see on the web
what other towns are doing. Do we want to participate? We have two
meetings before October, so there is time to plan.

b. Other things to sell - how about color reproductions of the Blake
map? Is anyone interested in taking this on? We have the map as a
computer file. A wall-size reproduction would make a fabulous souvenir
or gift.

c. Once again may I remind you that we need helpers to get oral and
video interviews with long-term residents. We have digital recorders
that are very easy to use. Some of you, I am sure, have interesting
tales to tell and I'll be happy to record them. Just let me know!

d. As always, I remind you that we welcome your comments in all these
areas. These are Society projects, not curator projects and I hope
you'll all want to be involved in them!  

Respectfully submitted,

Ed Lemon, Curator