Beverly Archive Project  Minutes

October 1, 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 September 3rd meeting were approved.
3. Treasurers Report: The Treasurers Report was reviewed and approved.  The current balance  $940.16. 
4. Membership Dues:   John has received some membership dues and gave copies of the Dues form for those who requested them.
5. Grant Search:  John received information on an available grant, with an application deadline of Nov. 1^st, via Mass Moments (a daily historical event email). He applied for the grant in the name of BAP but our request was rejected because it was for ‘small’ groups and because we are technically an affiliate of the Beverly Public Library we were not really eligible. John was looking at this grant not only for monies for supplies but to get money for a ‘scholar in residence’ to help with the City Hall project. John will look for other grant opportunities.   Charlie remembers seeing a grant specifically for public institutions and will try to find the details.  Cristina mentioned that via her work at Harvard she sees a number of available grants and will keep an out for ones BAP could apply for.  Terry and Cristina both have grant writing experience.
1. 501c3 – BAP does not have a separate tax-exempt status, we use the Library as our fiscal agent. We can put it on our agenda as something to do this year if the group wants.  The down side to tax exempt status is the amount of  paperwork such status requires.
6. Social Networking -  Barbara Broudo report – Charlie distributed some notes Barbara Broudo prepared re:  Social  Media policy considerations.  Terry’s experience has been that it takes a lot of time to keep up an organization’s social media web site and generally asked if any of us felt we had the time and/or experience to keep a site running successfully.   Both John and Carol have received emails (not a significant number though) that were generated from their names/emails being on the home page of the BAP website.   Charlie will bring to the next meting the statistics he has for visits to the BAP website.    After some additional discussion Charlie suggested we table the idea of an additional web presence for BAP for the time being and the members present agreed.
7. Monday Morning Meetings:  Charlie distributed info (schedule and meeting notes) he had received from Barbara Cook regarding the Library’s Monday morning Series.  Terry thought that when BAP first started it was the subject of a meeting.  It was agreed around the table that BAP should try to get on the schedule for later in the spring.  Both Carol and Cristina had good ideas for what we, as an organization, could present so John nominated Cristina and Carol to head up the organization of the talk (with all of us volunteering to help).  Charlie will give the library a heads up that we are interested in participating.
8. BAP repository and collaboration web site -  Charlie added some content to the website and continues to look for bios of past BAP leaders.  John wrote an article on the City Hall project, that article and a small slide show of pictures is now available for viewing.  It was suggested that the article be submitted to the Beverly Citizen for publication.  Members believe the Citizen is a better venue for our news than the Salem News.  Carol has some pictures from past BAP events and will send them to Charlie to add to the wed site.
   1. Collaboration site – Charlie set up a collaboration site on Google and emailed instructions to members on how to log in. Unlike the BAP site that is available to anyone, this site is for BAP members only.  He would like for the members to log in and see if they like the site, feel it is valuable etc.  John had trouble logging in but when he gets access he said he will upload some of the BAP info he has been hanging onto.  Carol has all of the photos that were used for the production of the BAP calendars and asked if that site might be a good place to put them.

9. Ideas for future meetings
   1. Archival topics we want to explore e.g. mold
   2. Field trips

                                                                          i.    Harvard  (Cristina’s archive is a closed archive but will make inquiries)

                                                            ii.    Charlie’s Church Ministerial papers’ stored at Andover

                                                          iii.      National Archive in Waltham

                                                          iv.      Mass Archives (Charlie will pursue)

                                                            v.      Meetings at member Organization’s archives (John and Charlie volunteered)

10.  David Ferriero, National Archivists – John made some inquiries to family members but doesn’t hold out much hope going through that route

11.  City Hall Project-  We have segregated the moldy documents into plastic bags. The city has called Browns River (the city’s records preservation specialists) to come in and take a look at the docs.  They will be at City Hall on Oct 20^th.  About $800.00 has been spent on supplies for far for the project.   Our newest find of note was a book of “Ear Marks”.  It was suggested we cull out items such as these and highlight them on our web site.  Carol was concerned, from a document security/theft standpoint about indicating on the web site that certain items were located at City Hall.  Charlie suggested we ask City Hall and as long as they are okay with it so should we

12.  In Memoriam:   Sr. Marguerite Ledwell, a longtime BAP member representing St. Mary’s passed away on September 25^th .  Carol will send a card in BAP’s name and Charlie will put something up on the website.

13.  Our next meeting will be held Thursday November 5^th   at 7:00 p.m. in the Library.

Respectfully submitted:        Margaret Alfonso

Site Updated Monday, March 01, 2010 09:00 PM