a brief summary of this month's historical society meeting



Subject: a brief summary of this month's historical society meeting
Date: February 23, 2014 at 7:54:30 PM EST
To:

MINUTES
OCONEE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY
February 18, 2014
UNG Presentation:  Ben presented a plaque to the University of North Georgia in recognition of outstanding public service for their help with our History on the Lawn Event. 
Old Business:
  1. Ben reported on progress for our web site (www.oconeehistory.org ).  He has it up and running with something to see for each of the choices of tabs on the home page.  It also links to our Facebook page.  There is space to add historical articles.  There is also a space for blogs for which we need to find people willing to create articles for us.  Ben wants to work on it a bit more but eventually it was suggested that we link to the county and chamber web sites.  Allison the UNG archivist also had some suggestions for things to add.
  2. Allison addressed the issue of what to do with our oral history collection, and photos.  UNG has a site on Digital Commons, which is a place we could post the information we have collected.      We can donate the University Copies of our files as well as put them up on the site.  This gives us the advantage of having things stored in more than one format and location  We should be able to index the files in several ways so that students and others looking for information on specific topics can find things as well as genealogists who are interested in family names.
  3. History on the Lawn:  We continued the discussion of what needed to be changed for the next event.  All agreed that we needed both quiet areas to continue the oral history collecting and that the other activities we plan needed to be less spread out.  We all agreed that Ashford was the best location.    We also agreed that fall would be the best time to hold History on the Lawn and the September would be a good month.  There are 2 dates open at Ashford on Main in September. (the 14th and the 21st) but no decision was made.  We will check on other activities going on in the area and consult via e-mail so we can get on Dave's calendar before out next meeting.     
  4. Touch a Truck is March 15 11:00am-2pm.  Linda, Pam and Peggy are planning to be there to talk to people who stop by.  Peggy has checked with Marty to see about the re-enactors she mentioned trying to get involved last month. 
  5. The Annual Alumni Association Event:  Larry has not yet talked to the people involved with planning it.  It was suggested that it was a place to have flyers advertising our History On the Lawn and oral history project as well as to set up a show and tell with a scanner so they could see what we are doing as well as pick up a flyer. 
New Business:
  1. Melissa met with Chairman Davis about obtaining funds for historic preservation.  He mentioned that there had been funds set apart in the last SPLOST for historic preservation but that it went to the Parks and Rec. Department who spent it for other things.  He said this time the $500,000 would be specifically set aside for historic preservation and would be spent on maintenance and preservation and could not be diverted to something else.  He asked Melissa to speak on our behalf for historic preservation at the next public meeting on the issue. Melissa did so.  We agreed that this is an issue that we needed to continue to pay attention to.
  2. Melissa asked about having speakers at future meetings as a way to get more folks to come to them.  Dave objected that we had too much on our plate and we needed to concentrate on business at meetings at least for now.                                             The speaker that Melissa wanted to bring to the meeting is Janine Duncan who is the Preservation Planner at UGA.  She has been working on preserving the Jackson Street Cemetery and getting it on the National Register. 
                  George said that he thought his students might be interested in hearing from Janine.  In the end we decided that Melissa should get together with the folks at UNG to set up program on historic cemeteries that Janine and possible Charlotte Marshall who has written about the Oconee Hill Cemetery are possible speakers.  This way speakers would not interfere with business meetings but we would still be sponsoring them and thus getting folks interested in us..

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