President's Letter

New Ipswich Historical Society

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President’s Letter

September 19, 2022

Dear Members and Friends of the New Ipswich Historical Society, I would like to thank you all for your continued support. It has been a busy year for the New Ipswich Historical Society and we have stayed active throughout the year.

We have kept the building open for visitors two Saturdays a month during the summer season, into the fall. Board members have met once a month to conduct business and plan.

During the year we sponsored a variety of programs.

• A presentation of Lee and William Kaula, New Ipswich artists, by Professor Carol Scollans

• One room school houses by Stephen Taylor

• A four session program on exploring your genealogy by Erin Moulton

• The History of Windblown Cross Country Ski area by Al Jenks

• Proper cleaning of cemetery headstones by Kim Black

We thank Michelle Pelletier for coordinating with the New Ipswich Library to cohost some of the programs.

We had a presence at last fall’s Harvest Festival and this summer’s Children’s Fair.

Board members, Kim Black and Carl Toko, have been cleaning and restoring headstones in three of our cemeteries. When you see the glowing white monuments in the cemetery, thank Kim and Carl.

John Poltrack has been doing a wonderful job creating the New Ipswich Historical Society ‘newsletter’. We had hopes of creating a monthly newsletter, but John has published a daily newsletter, with diary entries and historical photographs, and in addition John also scanned all of our photographs and recorded any attached notes that were on them. (Remember that subscribing to the newsletter, or friending the Facebook page does not make you a ‘member’. Your financial support is required to be a member of the New Ipswich Historical Society).

Kim Black has undertaken the heroic task of cataloging our paper documents into a database so that they can be searched. All the documents have been sorted into logical categories, such as businesses, families, buildings, organizations, etc. This is a huge project and will help bring us into the 21st century.

Mitch Gluck has gifted us with his professional expertise in leading us to create a five-year (and ten-year) plan. We have been gathering ideas and focusing on the future of the Historical Society.

Michelle Pelletier has been a great liaison between the Historical Society and the New Ipswich Library. Since our building does not have heat or bathroom facilities, we depend on the library’s help for presentations.

Margaret Lee has been instrumental in researching speakers, finding grants and coordinating programs.

Pat Lage has done a great job as treasurer, keeping our finances in order, making sure our non-profit documentation is up to date, and maintaining our website.

We have also learned a lot about providing Zoom access for some of our speaker programs, and have welcomed viewers from Arizona, Illinois, and North Carolina.

One of the things that precipitated from our future planning is probably the most exciting and ambitious project for the Historical Society for decades.

From our planning we identified how incomplete our collection seems at telling the whole history of our town. Yes, we certainly have artifacts from the 18th and 19th century, but no our history doesn’t stop there.

We need a logical narrative telling about important parts of our history answering important questions such as: Who were the founding families? What made New Ipswich an important industrial center?

How, when and why did Finnish and French-Canadians settle here? Why is New Ipswich home to so many construction tradesmen?

This coming year’s plan is to re-do the inside of our building. In order to do that we would like to re-inventory, photograph, carefully pack up and temporarily store the objects to empty the building. We will modernize the space with better lighting and more focused displays along with self-guided descriptions of artifacts, including timely rotating exhibits. We intend to display fewer items that better tell our story.

This will take a lot of work, energy and some cost. Some of the ‘upgrades’ required will be painting, better and more focused lighting, improving the uneven concrete floor, and acquiring more appropriate display furnishings. We would also like to have a climate controlled area to help preserve our delicate paper documents.

In closing, we would like the NIHS to tell a more complete story of our town’s history in a way that is both interesting and relevant to our community. To make this happen we will need help. If you are interested and have talents to share, please contact one of the board members.

Next year I hope to communicate through 21st century media. To simplify fundraising we plan to get a PayPal account. Please assure us that we have your email address. If by chance you do not use email, we can continue reaching out to you through the USPS.

Thank you for your interest and support. We have managed our resources well, and have continuing expenses for insurance, electricity, and archival supplies. Thanks to you we plan to continue to provide interesting programs this coming year.

Thank you again,

John Rosenfelder