Vol. 5, No. 2                                                                                     March 2010

Winter Roundtable Meeting Recap

The winter meeting of the Monadnock Historical Societies Forum was held at the Horatio Colony House Museum on Thursday, 18 February 2010. A special thank you goes out to Anita Carroll-Weldon for hosting the meeting, providing drinks and refreshments, and giving us a tour of the museum. We had a great turnout of thirty people for this meeting representing eighteen organizations. The meeting consisted of our morning Roundtable, discussion on a Roundtable brochure, schools and education exhibit program planning, discussion on providing "The Way We Were" articles to The Keene Sentinel, and identifying where we will hold our spring and fall meetings.

Our collaborative exhibit, The Nursery of Liberty: Schools and Education in the Monadnock Region, is on view in the Historical Society of Cheshire County's Exhibit Hall through 1 July 2010. The companion publication with the same title is available at HSCC's museum store with discount pricing for all Roundtable members.

A full schedule of associated exhibit programs has been organized, including a tour of one-room schoolhouses that will be held on Sunday 13 June 2010 from noon to 5:00 p.m. If you would like to have your town's schoolhouse/s be a part of this tour, please contact me by phone or email with this information.

- Name of Organization
- Name of Schoolhouse/s
- Location of Schoolhouse
- Main Contact Person, Phone Number, and Email Address

We are planning to have a simple schoolhouse guide with map for the event, a roadside sign for participants, and to possibly recruit a sponsor. If you would like to help organize this event, please let me know as soon as possible.

We had an enthusiastic response to working with The Keene Sentinel to provide them with "The Way We Were" articles. It was decided that I would be the best person to be the clearing house for all articles and to be the contact person to the Sentinel. All articles will need to follow the existing guidelines already established. The guidelines are listed on the Roundtable section of the HSCC website under "Way We Were" Criteria. Articles are published every other Tuesday, and we begin the first week in April. I will feed articles to the Sentinel each month, and will rotate articles from different organizations as best I can depending on what I have to submit.

Because we start submitting articles in just a few weeks, I strongly encourage you to submit articles with a photograph regularly by email to me so I have a pool of articles to edit and choose from so we do not miss any deadlines.

If you have any questions, please contact me by phone or email. This is a great opportunity for the Roundtable community to show Sentinel readers our wonderful historic homes and places.

The idea for a Roundtable brochure has been suggested several times, and now seems to be the time to take action. The basic idea is to provide space for each Roundtable member to highlight their organization, with a map of the region. A traditional foldout brochure and/or a small booklet were discussed as possible ways to showcase our organizations. There was interest in having both, with perhaps a bit more support toward the booklet. At the spring meeting in June, I will have further details on possible layouts models for both methods and costs.

The spring Roundtable meeting will be in Fitzwilliam on Thursday, 17 June 1010 at the Amos Blake House at 9:30 a.m. and hosted by the Fitzwilliam Historical Society.

The fall Roundtable meeting will be in Alstead on Thursday, 21 October 2010 at the Maybelle H. Still Memorial Building (formerly the Universalist Church) at 9:30 a.m. and hosted by the Alstead Historical Society.

Details for each of these meetings will be in future newsletters.

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.

Nursery of Liberty Gallery Walks
Wednesday - March 17, 2010 at 7:00 p.m.
Saturday - April 3, 2010 at 10:00 a.m.
Saturday - May 1, 2010 at 10:00 a.m.
Saturday - June 5, 2010 at 10:00 a.m.
Wednesday - June 16, 2010 at 7:00 p.m.

Wednesday - March 24, 2010
Chris Pratt, will examine the history of the Sullivan schools as a case study of the evolution of a town's school system. Program begins at 7:00 p.m.

Wednesday - April 21, 2010
"A Hundred Years of Training Teachers" will be a program that will explore the history of Keene State College, from its roots as a Normal School to its current role in the community. Program begins at 7:00 p.m.

Wednesday - May 19, 2010
"The One Room Schoolhouse Story Circle" will be an opportunity for anyone, teachers or students, to share their one room schoolhouse experiences. Program begins at 7:00 p.m.

Sunday - June 13, 2010
Open House of the Region's One Room Schoolhouses. 12:00 to 5:00