Historical Commission

Sterling Heights Historical Commission December 5 , 2019 6:00pm Meeting AGENDA I Call to Order Meeting was called to order at 6:02pm by Mott. II Roll Call Present: Cynthia Appleton, Nicholas Cavalli, John Connor, Douglas J. Harvey, Meghan Mott, Mark Schell, Bryan Wojciechowski Staff Present: Tammy Turgeon, Library Director III Approval of Agenda Requested to add VII.C. Proposed Digital Initiatives. Motion to approve the agenda as amended was made by Cavalli, supported by Schell. Motion carried. IV Minutes of October 2 , 2019 Requested change to October minutes VI.B. change Wojciechowski to Cavalli. Motion to approve the minutes of the October 2, 2019 meeting as amended was made by Connor, supported by Cavalli. Motion carried. V Communications/Reports/Correspondence A thank you letter, copy of program and photo will be sent to sponsors. Appleton will draft. A thank you letter will be sent to Deb Remer for her donations and the organ player. Appleton will draft. VI Unfinished Business A. Names Project Mott will move this document into the bus tour so that it can be used when needed. B. Historical Display in Library The display case in the Library will no longer be available by the end of January. Turgeon will ask Facilities to move the case to the basement of the Upton House. Commission members that have items in the case should remove them before the end of January. Mott will give form for UofM display to Turgeon. C. Historical Marker Program No updates at this time. D. Cemetery Walk (October 19) A new front gate is needed. A historical plaque is also needed. The Historical Commission would need to do a fundraiser for this. The commission would like to do this program again next year since many positive comments were  received. The commission would like to add a funeral customs program and charge more. Two of the three tours were full. E. Inventory/Processing Statement This title is being changed to Procedures and Process Manual. This will be worked on at the January 15th ad-hoc meeting at 6pm at the Upton House. Turgeon will try to order a PC and a wifi hotspot to use by then. F. Sterling Heights History Traveling Box MCHA has a March deadline for the $500 grant. Mott will work on. G. Upton House Sneak Preview Event 45 people were in attendance. Positive reviews were received. Thank you for everyone’s hard work on this monumental task. H. Sterling Christmas Event will take place December 7th from 6-8:30pm. Commissioners should arrive by 5:45pm. There is a future need for credit card acceptance as well as cash. Wojciechowski and Cavalli will investigate. VII New Business A. Upton House Regular Hours The Commission would like to have regular hours that the house is open for the public. Turgeon offered that the Library would staff it every Wednesday from 1-4pm. The Commissioners offered to staff it on the first Sunday of each month from 1-4pm. The Commission would provide different hours during the summer to match up with the Patios n’ Pints events. Cavalli and a friend will volunteer for January 5th. Mott will volunteer for March 1st. Mott will create a sign up genius for commissioners and volunteers to sign up. The open hours will be publicized on the MCHA pages, city and library Facebook pages, C&G events page, city magazine, and the city email list if possible. B. Inventory Process We need to get any type of history on the items that are in the house. Turgeon will ask Debbie Vercellone what records she has. C. Proposed Digital Initiatives Commission would like to get emails from visitors so that we can start a list for publicity related to the Upton House Museum, programs, volunteering, etc. Turgeon will ask Parks & Recreation if they have emails from our previous events that people registered for. Schell, Cavalli and Wojciechowski will work on creating Facebook posts for the city to post. Suggestion was made to put everything in a google drive, including photos. Wojciechowski will try to get ownership of the google listing for the Upton House. All Commissioners and any future marketing should call the house the Upton House Museum from now on. Commissioners will all work on creating a script as we work on the inventory. Turgeon will pull what she has for the previous script to assist volunteers to use for tours. Eventually an audio tour should be created. VIII Communications from Citizens A marker of old sites was requested by a resident. The sites seem to be located in Clinton River Park North.  Wojciechowski is writing the summer city magazine article. It is due by the end of February. IX Adjourn Motion to adjourn the meeting was made by Cavalli, supported by Wojciechowski. Motion carried. Meeting adjourned at 8:18 pm. Next Meeting: February 6, 2020 Ad hoc meeting will be January 15th at 6pm at the Upton House