SGS Outreach Efforts

One focus I've had since becoming SGS President is getting SGS better known in the community. SGS has sent speakers to other genealogy societies in the area for many years, but now we're trying to broaden our outreach efforts. To that end, this Saturday Cary Bright and I are presenting an all day beginning genealogy class at the Nordic Heritage Museum. In February, SGS will be participating in a panel discussion on genealogy at the Rainier Club. In April and May, I'll be teaching a 5-week class for the Swedish Cultural Center.

What else can we do to get SGS better known in the community and possibly generate a bit of income? It seems to me that retirement homes--ones where the residents are relatively active--might be an ideal focus for outreach activities. But what can/should we offer them? Should we offer classes, library tours, individual assistance, something else? Who would provide these services? Do we need a new kind of membership to accommodate retirement homes and their residents?

How about reaching out to schools? Several members have suggested developing a program in genealogy for school kids. But at what grade level? Historylink.org has developed a new Education page that includes a section of Heritage Education Resources. For the most part, these appear to be history trunks--collections of materials for classroom exercises. Is this something SGS could/should be contributing to? Do we have members with experience in this area? Or should we be offering teacher training opportunities in using genealogy to teach history? What other possibilities are there? Anybody interested?

The response to our planning survey has been quite good so far, with over 110 completed surveys. I'm guessing those who read this blog have already completed the survey, but if not, please follow this link http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB22A3YRU8WME The survey will close on January 24th. Is there any chance we could reach 200 responses?

For those of you who haven't noticed, there's a one-question quick survey to the right of this blog entry. Please share your thoughts on what you'd like to see in our Bulletin.