Posted following the Annual Directors’ Meeting, September 25-27, 2008
Your Board met on September 25-27, 2008, and made an amazing amount of progress! The Society is facing many challenges at this point, but the Board passed several resolutions to manage and resolve our difficulties and to move ahead. Any minor differences of opinion and methods to be utilized were discussed in a friendly and positive manner, and a consensus was reached on all points. All votes were unanimous.
Major challenges include:
The delayed Central Headlight issues. Due to the illness of our editor Charles Smith, Rich Stoving has stepped up and will immediately serve as editor. He will work to create and provide the issues needed to get back on schedule.
Our original plan for an Upstate New York convention to be situated in Utica met with multiple obstacles regarding pricing, dates, and including an Adirondack Scenic Railroad excursion. Utica is therefore not an option anymore Board members Howard Fine and Hugh Guillaume have gratefully and quickly come up with a superb alternate plan to hold our convention in Geneva, NY, on the weekend of April 16 through 19, 2009. It is planned to include some excursions on the Finger Lakes Railway and several more interesting attractions. Full confirmation of the dates and of the convention hotel will be presented forthwith. I may be able to arrange another Hickory Creek charter.
Our plans for the 2010 convention in Michigan have progressed exceptionally well, due to the comprehensive groundwork of members Dick Croy and John Martin. More details about this will follow.
The NYC drawing digitization is complete with nearly 14,000 drawings digitized. Grateful thanks go to directors emeriti Charlie Smith and John Reehling. Our immediate project is to provide all members with an index that will depict exactly what each drawing relates to. Director Tom Gerbracht has spent many hours creating and composing this index for our benefit, and it should be available shortly.
Thanks to some generous friends and members, we now have the resources to move ahead with photograph and negative digitization, and arrangements are being finalized to begin this long-awaited project.
Respectfully,
Bill Strassner,
Vice president, NYCSHS
