Ready to roll....

I am happy to report that the SGS Board of Directors is now complete. Our new Nominating Committee, chaired by Bruce Finlayson, submitted names of candidates interested in each of the four open Board positions (two contested, two not) and the Board, after reviewing the candidates' statements and their qualifications, elected the following to serve the remainder of the 2010-11 SGS fiscal year:
     Vice President:  Bonnie Larson
     Treasurer:   Tom Hamilton
     Director of Membership:   Jean Morton
     Director of Volunteers:   Becky Kaufman
Please join me and the rest of the Board in welcoming these new officers/directors and really appreciate the level of interest shown in these positions. We look forward to another active and rewarding year.

The Board also confirmed the appointment of Marilyn Rose, former SGS President, to serve a three-year term as a Library Trustee. She will join Pat Younie and Ida McCormick, continuing Trustees, this year, to continue working on establishing appropriate library policies.

So, what is this now-complete Board working on? Right now, we have the following major projects on our collective plate:
1. Decisions related to the Library Trustees' proposals: So far we've had one working meeting and are trying to schedule more. Since many of the proposals are interrelated, we need to make sure that new library policies are totally consistent. One of the Trustees' proposals--to place the SGS Library catalog on WorldCat--will be addressed in an informational meeting with Gary Zimmerman, President of the Fiske Library (which was the first genealogy library to join WorldCat), on Wednesday, July 7th, at 7 pm at SGS.
2. New policies required by our new Bylaws: We have developed drafts of many of the required policies and now need to review them carefully before voting on approval.
3. New Board Job Descriptions: Our current job descriptions were written in 1999. Duties and responsibilities have changed a lot in 11 years, especially with this year's new Board position. We are working on revising all of the job descriptions and making them consistent and comprehensive.
4. Establish the year's calendar for SGS programs, meetings and events.
5. Establish performance measures for each Board member. Yes, we're all volunteers, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't evaluate our efforts. Setting performance measures will help us gauge how well we're doing at meeting the goals of our positions and the Society.

If you'd like to provide input on any of these projects, please email us. All Board members have generic email addresses, e.g. President = sgspresident@gmail.com, Secretary = sgssecretary@gmail.com. We need to hear from our SGS members to know if we're on the write track, so please email us.

Digital Genealogy

I suspect we all agree that doing genealogy in the 21st century requires some computer and internet knowledge and skill.
Hopefully we all agree that completing a meaningful and interesting family history also requires more than a computer and an internet connection.
The question I've been pondering lately is: What is the optimal balance between "old-fashioned" [ie, libraries, courthouses, family interviews, etc.] and digital research methods?
A corollary to the previous question is: How can SGS provide the best mix of family history research resources for our membership?
If any readers of this blog have suggestions or ideas to share, please click on the "comment" hyperlink below and let's get a conversation going.
Please share your thoughts.

Library Trustees' Proposal

For those of you who didn't make it to last Saturday's SGS Annual Meeting, I thought I'd direct your attention to the Library Trustees' proposals for our library. They prepared a 36 page report to the Board; then developed an 8-page summary for discussion at Saturday's meeting. That summary is available as a PDF file from our home page [http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~waseags/ ]
The Trustees (Pat Younie, Ida McCormick, and Betty Ravenholt) have done a tremendous amount of work to develop policies for guiding collection development (acceptance, retention, disposal), creating a comprehensive library inventory and electronic catalog, and reorganizing our library "staff."
If you're interested in the future of the SGS Library, please take a look at the Trustees' proposal and provide your feedback to the SGS Board. I don't anticipate any votes on the specific proposals until the July Board meeting, when we will hopefully have a full Board, so you have another 6 weeks to submit your comments. They can be sent to SGSPresident@gmail.com, SGSSecretary@gmail.com or any other Board address [see inside Bulletin front cover].
Speaking of which....if you're interested in serving on the Board as Treasurer, Vice President, Director of Volunteers, or Director of Membership, please contact Bruce Finlayson, chair of the nominating committee, at SGSNominate@gmail.com. The committee will be forwarding names to the Board on June 23rd for appointment at our June 28th Board meeting. This is a working Board, and we need people who have open minds, a willingness to work as a team, and a desire to see SGS grow and prosper to keep the Society going. If you have some time and energy, please consider joining the SGS Board.