Post edited 11:57 am – November 10, 2010 by kkuehling

Advisory Committee Meeting Updates

Meeting: October 8, 2010

Meeting Notes:

* Senator Beuhrer is drafting a resolution to honor Ohio's role in the Civil War; he has asked the Advisory Committee to submit materials and a proposal

* Members recieved an update about the AmeriCorps program launched October 1st; 10 AmeriCorps volunteers have been placed around the state to assist local commemoration efforts; an additional 5 volunteers have been placed at host sites and will be assisting local digitization efforts; and another 5 volunteers have been chosen to assist local preservation efforts

* AmeriCorps volunteers will be funneling information to the committee and OHS; they will be assisting local commemoration efforts by creating county and/or regional Civil War committees; will assist their regions with local projects

* Committee members offered to help AmeriCorps volunteers with regional priority efforts; may attend meetings if needed

* Roger Micker suggested ways to improve the CW150 online calendar

* Chuck Reeves suggested sending updates to Civil War News, which is featuring all state sesquicentennial efforts

* A committee member suggested reprinting pamphlets made during the Civil War centennial; if reprinting is not possible perhaps we could digitize them

* The Ohio Association of Historical Societies and Museums has changed their name to the Ohio Local History Alliance; great resource for Civil War commemoration efforts

* Jackie Barton recently gave a presentation at an AASLH conference in Oklahoma about digitization efforts and online collections; representatives from Virginia and Pennsylvania also gave presentations about their own digitizations efforts, including digitizing artifacts owned by the public

* Leonne Hudson mentioned that he is working on a book about the African American reaction to the death of Lincoln

* Updates about the CW150 traveling exhibit were given; a workshop (attended by committee members, historians, teachers, tourism representatives and museum representatives) held in August produced great material for the exhibit; the interpretive framework themes (democracy, transformation, and memory/commemoration) will provide a guide; one theme from the workshop stood out: individual choices affecting community actions

Subcommittee Updates:

Public Programs:

* They are collaborating with the National Guard to create a kick-off event at the Statehouse on April 10. There will be a mustering in ceremony organized by the National Guard and the subcommittee is working on bringing in a speaker to give a lecture before the ceremony.

* It was decided that a weekend-long kick-off was not feasible due to lack of funding

* Members requested more Advisory Committee meetings in order to coordinate the kick-off; it was decided that Advisory Committee members would meet in January, February and March.

Promotions/Marketing:

* Members are working on developing a special monthly Civil War column in local newspapers to be launched in April. They are seeking 15 story ideas.

* They are working with the Ohio Tourism office to find ways to promote the kick-off event.

* OHS is going to work with the tourism office to share the events posted on the CW150 site and have them also appear on the Discover Ohio online calendar.

* OHS is creating a media toolkit to assist organizations with promoting their events to the media and also promoting their regional AmeriCorps volunteers

* Members asked OHS to launch a Civil War 150 Facebook page

Education:

* Members are creating an educator's packet to provide Ohio teachers with resources to use in the classroom when teaching about the Civil War. Resources would include: information about Ohio in the Civil War, suggested reading materials, discussion questions, classroom activities, list of historical societies and sites related to Civil War, current preservation efforts, list of speakers from CW150 Speakers Corps.

* Members are also creating a "Civil War Days" toolkit to provide resources for communities who want to create public and/or kids events.

* Funding is needed to create these materials; members will write proposal for potential sponsors

* Goal: to make the educator's packet and Civil War Days toolkit available by March 2011

Next Meeting:

January 10, 2010