Beverly Archive Project  Minutes

September 3, 2009

The Beverly Archives Project (BAP) held its regular meeting at 7 PM at the Beverly Public Library,  chaired by Charlie Wainwright. 

Present were:           

1. Welcome : Welcome to members.

2. Minutes: The Minutes of June 11^th meeting were read to the group and approved.

3. Treasurers Report: The Treasurers Report was reviewed, the current balance remains at $890.16.  Dues, currently 25.00/year , for the supporting institutions were discussed. Barbara B. suggested the dues remained the same and no one present disagreed.  John will send out the invoices shortly.    The Treasurers report was approved.

4. Membership list review: Charlie set up a membership site within the BAP web site where members can edit/update their information.  Charlie distributed two lists; one of ‘current’ members and the other of individuals that did not respond to a membership email Charlie had previously sent.  The members present were asked to review the lists.
1. Charlie also added a ‘meet the leadership’ section to the website. It  currently has short bios of Charlie and John, Charlie has requested other past leaders of the group to submit short bios for inclusion ( 100 words or less)
2. Suggestions were also made for  items to be added to the site

                                                              i.      For our supporting organizations – write ups on any current projects or links to the organizations web site

                                                            ii.      Link to Beverly Historical Society web site

3. Because our meeting minutes are posted on the web site if a member’s name is in the minutes it could be found via a web search (Google). Charlie asked if anyone objected. Barbara B.  asked about setting up a private site for the meeting minutes.  It was decided that we keep the minutes public and we  will make members aware that they could be ‘googled’ if their names appear in the minutes.
4. Barbara B. suggested setting up a Facebook page.  John was concerned about the time commitment that would be required of the person who was the site’s administrator.  The Beverly Historical Society has a Facebook page and Darren will check with the pages’s administrator to get their thoughts comments. Barbara C. suggested we check out other sites and discuss again in October.   Barbara B. is attending a social media conference soon and will bring information gleaned at that conference to the November meeting.

5. Activities
   1. Homecoming: We got a couple of people interested in joining as a result of our booth at the Homecoming. Sheila Fields from the Chamber of Commerce was vey interested in our organization. It was suggested we make our participation an annual event.
   2. It was suggested we redisplay the boards in the library this winter or try to get a spot in the Monday Morning series.  Barbara C. will look into the Monday Morning series.
   3. It was suggested partnering with the Historical Society to give a lecture on the various organizations in the city or on the subject of archiving
   4. City Hall: John, Margaret and Terry have put in about 150 hours so far in City Hall.  The organization of materials is mostly complete. 3 boxes of badly damaged document were recently found will need special care and attention.  The group discussed the possibly of getting a grant for some of the work, the City would need to officially sign and manage any grant received. John bought some supplies for the City Hall project and the City will be reimbursing him.

6. Brainstorming
   1. A former Beverly resident has been nominated by President Obama to be the National Archivist we should partner up with City Hall, Endicott College, the Library and the Historical Society and invite him to speak in Beverly.
   2.  Partnership with Beverly Historical Society – the historical society sees itself as the archivist of the city and the Archive Project would work as an umbrella organization ( as BAP does not want to keep any archives anyway). We will take up this discussion again next month.
   3. The group discussed the question; should BAP focus on sharing what we know or should we try to learn something new in relation to archives?  There are differing levels of archival knowledge and computer literacy with in the group. Could individual members give presentations about what they are doing relative to archiving? The group members could learn from what others have done.

7. Our next meeting will be held Thursday October 1^st  at 7:00 p.m. in the Library.

Respectfully submitted:        Margaret Alfonso

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