Meeting Minutes

March 22, 2007

Starksboro Historical Society Meeting
March 22, 2007
Starksboro Town Offices
7:00-8:40 pm

Members Present: Emma Lou Craig, Gerry Heffernan, Cynthia Kling, Robert Stokes, Sarah Adams, Kevin Hanson, Jim Lockwood, Olive Phillips, Ruth Beecher

1. Minutes were approved for January 26, 2007.

2. Sarah presented the Treasurer's Report with a Profit and Loss Statement for 8/1/05 through 3/22/07. Discussed and approved. It was noted that annual dues were due in January. We discussed how an Annual Newsletter might help us keep our membership and others informed of SHS goings-ons, as well as make an appeal for donations. Emma Lou, Ruth and Sarah offered to work on this Annual Newsletter (Em and Ruth: year-in-review news; Sarah: membership/dues renewal card) with an April 30 deadline.

3. Election of Officers

Emma Lou Craig will continue to serve as President;
Sarah Adams will continue to serve as Treasurer;
Ruth Beecher will continue to serve as Secretary;
Cynthia Kling will continue to serve as Corresponding Secretary; and Jim Lockridge agreed to serve as Vice President. He was voted in unanimously!

4. The display cabinets from Middlebury College are not available.

5. A room above the Starksboro Town Offices is available for SHS archives and materials. Emma Lou will get final approval from the Select Board.

6. To update/improve the SHS brochure, Jim and Emma Lou will work together. The brochure will have general information as well as a way to recruit members.

7. Programs for 2007:

June 13: Carroll Stokes will speak about Old Farms in Starksboro at the Jerusalem Schoolhouse at 7pm. This will be in conjunction with the Jerusalem Schoolhouse Lecture Series. Sarah will contact Linda Barnard about possibly having a potluck. Other Starksboro farmers will be invited to reminisce as well. Time TBA. This meeting will be in place of our May meeting.

July 21: Cynthia Kling will host her annual Brown Hill gathering at the top of Brown Hill Road. The Kling camp is up there as well as the Brown Hill cemetery. Rain site: Kurt Kling's barn near the bottom of Brown Hill Road. Time TBA.

September: Kevin Graffagnino of the Vermont Historical Society may present The Shaping of Vermont with maps and a slide show. Emma Lou will see if he is available. Exact date and time TBA.

November: Jim Rowe of Huntington may discuss the Crown Point Bridge and information about the man our town is named after. Emma Lou will see if he is available. Exact date and time TBA.

8. Starksboro cemetery research will continue, as will interviews with Starksboro residents.

9. Ruth discussed recent connections with SHS members, community members and Robinson Elementary School students. During an extensive study of Starksboro's one-room schoolhouses, Ruth's first and second grade students interviewed Gerald Heffernan, Robert Stokes, Linda Barnard, Norma Wedge, and Gary Orvis about their experiences in Starksboro's one (or two) room schoolhouses. With 3 classes of first and second graders in attendance, Emma Lou presented a display on Starksboro's one-room schoolhouses (circa 1871) at the Starksboro Public Library. Students interviewed Em about her experiences at a one-room schoolhouse in Stowe.

10. Kevin shared the SHS website he created, as well as the program he developed for us to document items and objects that SHS acquires. It is user friendly, thorough, informative, and fun. We are very lucky to have such a web guru in our midst -- we applauded Kevin's hard work and dedication! Please check out the website:

http://starksborohistoricalsociety.org

You can search for what we have with accessions and objects; you can also play around with the program to see how it works. Here's how:

Once you're in the website, go to Attic Treasures
Then open Online Catalog
username: shsmember
password: route116
test mode - online catalog: shstest, 05487

Questions? Contact Kevin Hanson at kphanson@gmavt.net

11. Next meeting: June 13 at 7pm at Jerusalem Schoolhouse for the Old Farms in Starksboro program. Directions: from Route 116, go up Route 17 a few miles. Turn right at the Jerusalem Store, then take an immediate right. The schoolhouse,a white wooden building, is just down the road on the right.

Respectfully submitted,
Ruth Beecher