Vol. 4, No. 3                                                                                      May 2009

Spring Roundtable Meeting in Westmoreland

The spring meeting of the Monadnock Historical Societies Forum will be hosted by the Westmoreland Historical Society at Westmoreland Town Hall on Thursday 18 June 2009 beginning at 9:30 a.m.

The morning portion of this Roundtable meeting will be our traditional forum gathering to share news and events, issues and concerns, and needs and suggestions. During the morning, we will also discuss collaborative exhibit plans and a deaccessing opportunity.

After our morning Roundtable, we will break for a brown bag lunch. The Westmoreland Village Store is open across the street from the Town Hall, and as I understand they offer wonderful lunch fixings of cold cuts, sandwiches, and salads.

After lunch, we will car pool to visit the Westmoreland Corner School House, at the junction of River and Poocham Roads. The folks from the Westmoreland Historical Society will give us a tour and tell us about their restoration efforts. A visit to the school house will also give us an opportunity to discuss further the upcoming exhibit and publication on schools and education in Cheshire County.

Directions: The Town Hall is in the village center of Westmoreland on Route 63. Coming from the north, south, or west, turn onto Route 63 from either Route 9 or 12. Driving from Keene on Route 12, turn left onto the South Village Road in East Westmoreland, which will take you to the village center. Driving from Keene on Route 9, turn right on the Glebe Road, which will take you to the village center.

Schools & Education Collaborative Exhibit Project

The subcommittee for our collaborative project will be meeting in early June, and will update everyone on how the exhibit and publication is developing at the Roundtable meeting in Westmoreland.

The subcommittee organizing the collaborative exhibit has not heard from the folks in Alstead, Gilsum, Marlow, Peterborough, Richmond, Rindge, Surry, Troy, Walpole, or Winchester to know if you would like to participate in the upcoming exhibit and publication. If you are interested, please fill out the Exhibit Survey Form, available on the HSCC website at www.hsccnh.org/roundtable/exhibitsurvey.cfm, and return the form via the mail or an email ASAP to Tom Haynes at HSCC.  Thank You!

The next step in our collaborative project is to have each participating organization complete the written narrative on the history of education and schools in your community for the publication, along with a list of possible photographs. Guidance for what information to include in the narrative is available on the HSCC website at: www.hsccnh.org/roundtable/ exhibittext.cfm or call Tom Haynes at 352-1895. Completed narratives can be sent via an email to Tom at dired@hsccnh.org, placed on a disk or CD and given to Tom at the June Westmoreland meeting, dropped off at HSCC, or by mail to:

Historical Society of Cheshire County
P.O. Box 803
Keene, NH 03431

18 June 09 - Submission of written narrative and photographs for the publication.

30 October 09 - Delivery deadline of all artifacts/items that will be used in the exhibit.

20 November 09 - Tentative opening of exhibit and completion of publication.

Deaccessioning

Greg Bixby of Keene, a professional auctioneer, appraiser, and HSCC volunteer, is interested in working with the Roundtable to sell items that have been deaccessed on Ebay. Greg initially would collect a 25% fee for any item he sells, which would include listing the item, taking photographs, and shipping. If, however, there is enough volume, Greg has indicated that he may be able to decrease the fee to 20%. HSCC could be used as the hub for dropping off items for Greg, since he is based here in Keene.

We can discuss this deaccessioning option at the Westmoreland Roundtable to see if this is an opportunity the Forum would like to undertake. If so, we can then ask Greg to develop a set of guidelines as to how this deaccessioning venture would work effectively.

Fall Roundtable Meeting

The fall meeting will be held at the Sullivan Town Library on Wednesday 21 October 2009 at 9:30 a.m. We switched this meeting from a Thursday to a Wednesday to not conflict with the library's open hours.

Contact & Website Information

For all questions or concerns regarding any aspect of the Monadnock Historical Societies Forum, please contact HSCC's Tom Haynes at 603-352-1895 or dired@hsccnh.org. Please remember to post and share this newsletter with your members. Also, please remember to submit your events for posting on the Roundtable Events page of the Roundtable Forum website.