Marlow Historical Society Minutes - February 2009

Executive Board Meeting / Thursday, February 5, 2009 / Marlow Historical Society Chapel

Pam Little, Maria Baril, Gen Ells, Candy Wiggum, and Loisanne Foster were present. As Vice President, Pam conducted the meeting. The Secretary's Report was read and accepted as read. The Treasurer's report was studied and accepted. We have over $3000.00 in our accounts.

Old Business

We will now realize our hope to secure a Humanities Council speaker for Marlow's children. Pam Little, as our Program Chairperson

Announced that the archaeologist, Dr. Robert Goodby will be our Humanities Council speaker for the children at Perkins School. He will speak on "Digging into New Hampshire History" at 1:00 pm on April 28. The public will be invited.

New Business

We discussed our options for a new Humanities Council Program and decided on having the rural N.H. comic and author, Rebecca Rule return. (She spoke here to an enthusiastic audience in 2002.) She will speak at Marlow in November of this year.

Maria Baril is about to launch our yearly membership drive, and we agreed upon wording for the letter to prospective members, new and old.

We reviewed plans for our February sponsored program, "The Devil's Disciple," by George Bernard Shaw, to be performed by The Hour Glass Readers. This is their Marlow debut.

We reviewed our program plans for the coming year. We decided that, since our March "Meet the Candidates" was so poorly attended last year, we would not do it this year. Our April public meeting will be "Digging into N.H. History". (See above.) For our General Meeting in May, we will hold another oral history session in which we will capture history 'live by recording the stories and comments of the participants. The topic will be Marlow in the 1960's, "The Age of Aquarius". By June we will be gearing up for our major fundraiser, the summer Monadnock Music Dinner, and we will also be responsible for the Monadnock Music Concert itself as we were last year. The Harvest Fest will be the first weekend in October, and we expect to participate in our usual ways. October will bring our General Meeting with the election of officers. In November we will be treated to Rebecca Rule. (See above.) In December we will sponsor the Marlow Christmas program complete with at least one original humorous skit as well as readings and music by local talent.

We voted to spend $1,500.00 to hire Edward White to repair all the windows and sashes at Murray Hall (the Grange).

The Town Budget hearing includes money for a back door for the upstairs of Jones Hall. We are gratified to learn of this as it is a fire exit which sometimes refuses to open, and it has a crack which leaks cold air into the building all winter. We support this budget item.

We received a letter of resignation from our President, Mary Blank. We regret that Mary is unable to continue to serve. She has done an excellent job in this demanding position. We tabled the resignation.

We agreed that we need to put it on the MHS Forum and elsewhere that we need people to step up and help us. Our Director, Candy Wiggum, will be leaving before the term for that position has expired, and she took the position temporarily with that understanding. Another Director, Adam Plumb, will be off to college soon. Loisanne agreed to put out the word and draft a letter for the Marlow Gazette.

Jeannie Merwin had asked that it be brought before the MHS Board that our Marlow stone face beside Forest Road near the Marlow Profile is in danger of being destroyed by the State Highway Dept. as the other profile nearby was smashed by them last year as a precaution for the snowplows. Loisanne reviewed her correspondence with the State Highway Dept. on this issue. The consensus of the Board is that Jeannie should bring this up with the Conservation Commission.

Re our work with the Conservation Commission: Adam Plumb has documented the old cellar holes on Huntley Mountain and surrounding roads, and we should be sure that this information goes to the Conservation Commission for Marlow's Inventory of Natural and Historical Resources.

The next meeting will be March 5, 2009 at 6:30 at the Chapel.

Respectfully submitted,
Loisanne Foster