Vol. 1, No. 1                                                                           September 2006

New Newsletter Format

I have chosen to replace the announcement and recap letters that have communicated the news and activities of the Roundtable Forum with a newsletter. This will help preserve the Roundtable's history more easily, offer a more readable format, and have the ability to transfer more readily to the Roundtable Forum pages on the HSCC web site. With newsletters being posted on the web site, everyone who has internet access can keep abreast of all the meetings, events, and activities that are part of the Roundtable Forum.

There will be six issues each year, January, March, May, July, September, and November. Our Roundtable meeting schedule will remain the same, meeting on the 3rd Thursday of February, June, and October.

Fall Meeting at Pisgah State Park

The Friends of Pisgah will host the fall Roundtable meeting at the Pisgah State Park Visitor Center in Winchester on Thursday October 19th starting at 9:30 a.m. After our traditional morning meeting and brown bag lunch, members of the Friends of Pisgah will offer us a tour of the newly restored barn and museum, tell us about some of the Park's history, and if the weather is good take us on a short walk to visit some of the park's historic sites.

Directions: South on Route 10 or West on Route 119 will take you to downtown Winchester. At the downtown traffic light, turn right if coming south on route 10 or straight via route 119. You will cross over the Ashuelot River and continue straight on Elm Street. Elm Street will merge with the Old Chesterfield Road, continue straight. The road will turn to gravel at some point and there may be a sign or two, but continue straight and the road will end at the Pisgah State Park Visitor Center. I look forward to seeing you at the Park!

If you have any questions or need further information, please contact Tom Haynes at 352-1895 or dired@hsccnh.org.

Meetinghouse Exhibit Update

The Meetinghouse sub-committee has met regularly through the summer to continuing planning our collaborative exhibit with accompanying publication. To date, we have twenty-one communities involved. Thanks to everyone who has already contributed a written text or information on your building/s and a list of potential pictures and artifacts available for the exhibit. We are excited how the project is taking shape. We would like to share with you some upcoming dates and deadlines.

- If you have not submitted a brief history on the meetinghouses and/or churches in your community, the deadline for the publication is: Friday the 29th of September.

- If you have not submitted your list of pictures or artifacts that are available for the exhibit or publication, please do so by: Monday the 2nd of October. The sub-committee is meeting on 3 October to choose the pictures and artifacts that will be used in the exhibit and publication.

- The sub-committee will request by phone the items that we would like to use for the exhibit. We would like to have them delivered to HSCC between the: 10th and 20th of October.

- Opening Reception: Monday 27 November. Will Morgan will be the feature speaker at the opening reception. He is an architectural historian and author of American Country Churches.

To help cover some of the costs of creating an exhibit and the printing of the accompanying publication, the sub-committee encourages each participating organization to consider making a $25 donation. For this generous support, you will receive two free copies of the publication.

Newsletter Ideas & Logo

Comments, suggests, or ideas for our new newsletters are welcome. It might also be fun to have a simple Monadnock Historical Societies Forum logo to add to our newsletter and any other documents we might prepare for the public. If you have a logo idea or would like to try your hand at designing a logo, please contact me at 352-1895 or dired@hsccnh.org.

Contact Information

For all questions or concerns regarding any aspect of the Monadnock Historical Societies Forum, please contact the Director of Education, Tom Haynes, at the Historical Society of Cheshire County at 603-352-1895 or dired@hsccnh.org. To learn more about the Roundtable Forum and the participating organizations, please visit www.hsccnh.org and click on Roundtable Forum.

Please remember to post or share this newsletter with your members. Also, please submit your events to Tom Haynes to have them posted on the Roundtable Events page of the HSCC web site.