Fisher House Board Meeting
Tuesday, 08/03/04 7:30 PM
Attending: Patty Deetjen, Jim Fisher, Amey Dodge, Jonathan Ashcroft, Badge Jessup, Gary Vencil, Bill Petry, Bob Slaven
Announcements
Gary circulated a program for a Historical revival
Place: Old Brooksville Baptist Church
Date: Sunday August 8, 4:00 PM
Gary will speak as Jonathan Fisher
Bill Petry noted that Peg Beardsly passed away this week - she was a former president of the Fisher Memorial
· include an article in the next newsletter - Badge will send information to Jim
· Badge will send a letter to her family
· Bill will call Mora Creasy
Amey called Phyllis Pemberton - thinks that arrangements for disposition of the Esther Wood estate will be completed in November. If there is no contest, then we should be receiving 70% of the intended $150k.
July Minutes – approved without revision (though Jim’s notes need to reflect that Rob Nolan attended by telephone.
Ship Model Exhibit
Bob believes that most of the pieces are coming together. The committee will meet Wednesday afternoon (or morning?) to make final arrangements.
Irving Forbes - sings sea shanties (Jim will invite him to the event.)
Jim sent press releases to all of the local papers noting the week-long exhibit and Sunday reception.
Invitations have been sent
Posters and other materials arrived for the Downeast Magazine promotion. Jim will adapt a sticker to provide details of the Fisher House reception.
Food and drink
Bob will give Jim some interpretive information for the exhibits
Maureen Rawding - will need help hanging a series of banners on the poles – Jim will help, but needs to know when
Exhibit needs to be taken down Saturday Aug. 21 in the afternoon.
Annual Meeting
Theme - Fisher house memorial at 50 years.
Speaker options:
Preferred option: Might have a series of short vignettes - history of Fisher Memorial
Badge and Bill may be able to put together a short list of speakers from former board members.
There was a short discussion of having a symposium about Jonathan Fisher House – this might include others who are working on Fisher research (Carter, Smith, etc.)
Black House will sponsor a historical society symposium in September 10th.
Archives
Jonathan Ashcroft reported on several initiatives and priorities
Some very valuable items were found in a box of unrelated materials -
Jonathan asked for the board to adopt rules for archival document handling
UV Protection of the windows of the old part of the house - tabled for another meeting. Might be done for less than $200 by us or quite a bit more with professional installation
Archival work - completed some documents. Every object in the parlor, bedrooms and ... have been photographed and added to the database.
The future - recommendations
Grant writing - worth considering writing more proposals
Moira Creaser - wrote a few grants when she was here.
Restoration - contact Marty Harmon or the Farnsworth - priority - copy of Fishers family register
Book bugs are causing a lot of damage to Jonathan Fishers
Jonathan will send Martha Harmon an email about
Missing items (have accession cards, but not the items)
· Couch - was sold
· Magnifying glass - missing since the 1960's
· Mortar and Pestle - missing
· folding bed -may be in the attic
Need to see about opening the attic windows for ventilation
938 items have been accessioned.
Board approved such funding as is needed to carry Jonathan for the balance of the summer.
Fisher Research by Raoul Smith
Bill Petry reported Raul Smith would like to complete journal 8
Bill handed out copies of letters and accounts.
Bill also noted that some of Raoul’s work is in our hands for revision. A few board members have had access to this.
About $1,000 should remain in a journals fund for work on translation and publication.
He hopes to use the original journal and discover discrepancies between previous translations.
Arguments against putting information into the public domain include the possibility that Raoul Smith will be able to publish his work. He is concerned that someone else would grab the public domain documents and publish first. Some reasonable amount of time would be needed by him before the translations would be made public.
Discussion of potential board members
· some names were suggested (not noted here)
· we can invite them to board meetings to see how it goes
· more members would help us to form committees
· Amey will look into Board Recruitment
Management
· Amey - Need to correct bad mailing addresses. Many of our letters and newsletters are coming back.
· Fund raising will be important – major focus of the next newsletter will be fundraising and membership
· Blue Hill Historical Society will blanket the area for fund raising in September/October.
· Should we use a target the letter? Newsletter?
· Tabled until next board meeting.
Marketing
Meeting adjourned at 9:30 PM