Planning Meeting Musings

Thank you to the 20 or so people who showed up for yesterday's quarterly meeting. The meeting started with our Washington State Genealogical Society district rep, Bonnie MacDonald, presenting a volunteer award to Marilynn VanHise for her 9 years of work coordinating the King County Records Project. It was also announced that SGS has received written permission to publish this index however we please. Any ideas for how we can benefit financially from this project would be most appreciated.

After the usual "business" [minutes, treasurer's report, president's report], we reviewed the long range planning priorities generated at the quarterly meeting held last March. We also discussed SGS's financial situation--basically that over 80% of all funds generated by SGS go to support the library.

After some discussion, we broke into 3 groups for goal-setting.
The Programs/Education group came up with a long list of suggestions, from program topic and class ideas to suggestions for when and how to offer them.
The Membership/Volunteers group recommended that SGS take PayPal &/or credit cards for dues, move to digital newsletters and increased use of email notices [no more often than every 10 days to 2 weeks].
The Library group set more specific goals:

• search for a new home for SGS--a good location with parking
• strengthen relationships with other organizations; possibly combine with another historical or genealogical group for a new home
• develop the uniqueness of the SGS library--identify our collection's strengths and advertise them.

These are all great ideas, and all need more member input. Since our lease is up in 18 months, it's time to seriously consider relocation. If you know of any potential space--3000 square feet or more that can bear our library's weight, is inexpensive, well located and has good parking--please talk to a Board member.