Minutes of The Windsor-Severance Historical Society
September 28, 2020
The Windsor-Severance Historical Society met via Telephone Conference Call on Monday, September 28 at 10:00 a.m. In attendance were Kristie Melendez, Elaine Schlotthauer, Gloria Gaslin, Dan Meyers, Sue Buxmann, Marcia Will-Clifton, Thomas Chambers, Ruth Brunner, and Judy Firestien.
Call to Order – Kristie Melendez called the meeting to order at 10:02 a.m.
Monthly Reports/Approvals
August Minutes – The Minutes from the previous meeting on August 24, 2020 were reviewed and approved as presented.
Treasurer’s Report – Elaine gave a verbal report on funds. The balance in the checking account is $3,342.27, the balance in savings is $20,190.32 and the balance of the CD is $3,297.50. Elaine confirmed a payment had been received from Great Western Oil and Gas for $113.19. Kristi commented that the Society is on solid ground and it feels good to be there. The report also reflects the change adopted at the previous meeting and $15,000 had been moved from checking to savings.
Membership Status/Update
Memberships and donations received to date – Nothing more to report.
Old Business
Logo Update – Kristi had circulated the current versions of the revamped logo. Several things had been tried with the sugar beet, locomotive and smokestack. The little girl and mom images will be outlined and defined a bit more. Two logos had been provided; one with the four square images and one with the photo of the sculpture. Kristi suggested both images be used. The logo with the photo could be used on the website and other places and the other logo could be used on printed materials.
Several members expressed they really liked the logo with the statue but agreed that the other logo was better for printing. Members really liked both logos and either could be used depending on what the project is.
Update Website Status – Kailee has updated the website further and it will go live when the logos are decided on and members have reviewed some of the pages. Something will also be done to give the videos stronger recognition on the website. Kailee will use the new font and color scheme and both logos throughout the website. The new website should be available by the next meeting.
For November and December, suggestion would be made on the website home page to remember the Society and give the gift of history through a membership in the Society or purchase of a book. Starting November 1 and during November and December, a special could be offered where a book is included with the membership with the membership good through 2021.
Video Status Report – Kristi reported all of the final videos had been done. Cami has completed them all and more and they are on the website. After some discussion, Sue moved and Dan seconded the Society spend $103 for a Visa card from the Bank of Colorado to be included with a thank you card to be given to Cami for all of her work on editing the videos for the Society. Motion carried.
Elaine confirmed she had sent the check for $1,000 to the Town of Windsor and Kristi provided the Letter of Support from the Society for the grant application involving the Jacoby Farm/Historic Halfway Homestead.
Next Steps with Videos/Video Criteria – Kristi has not had time to work on the video criteria but would hope to find some time to work on this before the next meeting.
Info from State Oral History call 9/24 – Kristi also shared she had joined a video call the previous week presented by History Colorado on doing oral histories. Many videos had already been done by the Society, but a few things were presented in the webinar that the Society might want to do also. One item would be putting an agreement and acknowledgement into place with those who are interviewed that the Society would have full right for placement and visibility of the video. Sue added that in the past the Society has always had interviewees sign an agreement. Sue had printed one for Ruth to use and would email the agreement to Kristi. Ruth has many agreements signed and on file.
Another good idea would be to back up the videos to a couple of different locations; disk, hard drive, YouTube and an external drive. It would be good to go through and catalog all the videos, and list where the video exists (disk, YouTube, etc.) so that we know where everything is stored. The webinar also suggested an app call Audacity which helps to get rid of background noises in recordings.
Another idea suggested was creating an index or table of contents for each video to note the time when a topic is mentioned. With an index, these segments could be pulled up on the videos. Kristi would contact Laura also to see if she needs volunteers to help the Town with this. Ruth added she had listed in the YouTube description or title boxes something specific to the video so that a google search would bring up these videos. Ruth would return the hard drive and two memory cards to Kristi, as well as the signed agreements.
There were a lot of people on the call and there appears to be a lot of interest in oral histories. This webinar might be archived for viewing later as part of a series History Colorado is doing. Kristi would share if there are future webinars members might be interested in.
Severance Centennial – Dan reported there has been some work on the video project with Preserving with Purpose and Clearview Library. They have made contact with the high school to get them on board to give some assistance with getting interviews going. They have a proposal from Claire of Preserving with Purpose for moving forward and they may be looking for some financial support. It will be an Intergenerational Centennial video with many people from the community participating. They may also use video conferencing to collect some videos. Kristi would share the agreement with Dan. Ruth mentioned she had just interviewed quite a few Severance people. This would hopefully be a 20-30 minute video and Dan will keep the Society informed of the progress.
New Business
WSHS Video – There had been discussion at the previous meeting about doing a short video/infomercial directing people to the collection of videos and other historic information that the Society has and where to find it. The website would be updated first and then the infomercial could be put on social media to help people to find this information and hear history first hand. Maybe the Town would run it on Channel 8. It would also be fun to have a video preview party at a time when we can gather again.
Board Communications
There was further discussion on the possibility of meeting in person at Bethel or continuing over the phone.
Marcia planned to call on the Poudre Heritage Alliance in person in October to talk with them about a membership.
There were questions raised over whether there would be any holiday celebrations in Windsor, such as Windsor Wonderland, which it was thought may have been cancelled. Marcia asked about a lunch get together for the group.
The grand re-opening of the American Legion was very nice. Ruth took some video and pictures and gave them to Bryon McAvoy. He has old documents on when they moved the building and Ruth may interview him about this and other documents he has related to the Legion. She also interviewed Ben Wacker and this is on her YouTube channel.
The next meeting will be a teleconference call on Monday, October 26, 2020. The meeting was adjourned at 11:00 a.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Judy Firestien
Secretary