Day One of the first ever The Genealogy Show at the NEC BIrmingham has ended, but what is the show like? Well, here’s my review…
I’ve been looking forward to The Genealogy Show for ages now – just one of the family history-focused UK events to step into the void left by Who Do You Think You Are? Live as it closed its doors in 2017.
The lush green carpet welcomes you into the venue, a refreshing positive colour and one that befits those lofty boughs that form our tree obsession. Straight away you’re met by the Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine team and the team at LivingDNA on their stands. A quick glance beyond their welcoming faces shows you that the “big two” aren’t present here – with no dominating giant Ancestry stand, or elaborately themed FindMyPast stand. That’s fine… we know who those two companies are, and where to find them (maybe RootsTech?). I’m wondering how many people are drawn to these events because they want to see them specifically.
Beyond these first two welcoming stands is a spacious hall – not quite the size of WDYTYA Live was – probably about 2/3rds the size. However, the space is welcome, and it’s comfortably filled with our friendly local history societies, and smaller family history related company stands.
The Twiggli Trees stand was my favourite – bright, colourful, and nice lighting.
Some familiar friends are here – MyHeritage, the Railway Museum, FIBIS, the National Library Of Wales, and the GOONS. Pen & Sword, and stands with genealogy supplies are missing, which is a shame as they usually run some great deals (particularly on the final days of these kind of events).
The FIBIS stand is always a delight to see – the team are so friendly and helpful.
Theres a lot of chairs, perfect for resting those feet (put your pedometers on, you’ll be surprised), or for those wanting to rummage through notebooks, or digest the arrival of a new piece of information or research strategy.
An Experts section is on the left as you come in, perhaps a little enclosed and therefore a bit hidden (half-height screens would have been better) but the free programme (yay!) has a handy floorplan to help you find it, and the lecture arenas, which are also enclosed – so no sneaky listening in!
The Photo Alchemist was getting plenty of interest in photo restoration and colouring.
If you’re here for a wander round, hoping for inspiration you might not find enough for a whole day, but if you’re here to see a lecture (you can still buy tickets on the door), or to get help from the society stands or experts, then I think you’re going to have a great time.
Behind the scenes of a genealogy sleuth
I pre-booked two lectures for Friday – the first being author Nathan Dylan Goodwin talking on ‘Novelising Intrigues In Genealogy’, and this was a fascinating behind the scenes insight into how Nathan got hooked on genealogy.
Nathan Dylan Goodwin talking about how he handles crimes that span history.
Like me and many, he got hooked on it as a young teen, and he explained how that inspired him to begin writing, eventually leading to what is now a highly successful genealogy crime series starring character sleuth Morton Farrier including books Hiding The Past, and The America Ground. His son now has a double-glazed tree-house, so things must be doing alright!
Gill Blanchard got us all thinking about the questions we need to consider answering when writing.
I’ve been long overdue to see Gill talk, as I have 2-3 of her books, as she’s written on Cambridgeshire and Norfolk researching, house history, and crucially, writing your family history. I found this fascinating, with tons of practical advice on how to avoid issues and how to prepare, and there was a contrast in writing approach to Nathan – with Gill writing in pieces, Nathan writing in order. I suspect I’ll be like Gill… but with about a billion post-it’s and word files.
Day Two will see me attending the lecture from Michelle Leonard on ‘How To Make The Most Of Your Autosomal DNA Test’
In my experience, family history is one of the most friendliest hobbies I’ve ever experienced, and it’s a pleasure to see old friends and make new ones at these events.
It was great to see lots of family history societies attending the show, which for many was the second large event in just a few weeks. As ever, they were helpful and friendly, and it was nice to hear how they were finding the show. I even caved and bought another data CD from my ‘home team’ the Cambridgeshire Family History Society, with a nice show discount too!
There’s always a new set of records or a bargain to be found!
While I don’t know if there’s enough space for Family Tree Live AND The Genealogy Show to both survive the long term, I’m simply pleased that they’re having a good damn go at it in these post-WDYTYA? Live years.
So far, I think I’m enjoying the show a little more than I did Family Tree Live, but we’ll see how day 2 goes. So, I’ll be back for Saturday, and hope to see lots of you there.
Day Two of the Who Do You Think You Are? Live 2015 show at Birmingham NEC is over, and the final day is coming!
If you’re yet to tread the halls of this year’s show, then here’s what you missed in Day Two.
AncestryDNA has been a heavily promoted product this year.
Right near the front of the entrance is the show’s main sponsor, in prime space – Ancestry. I’ve had my account with these guys (and FindMyPast) for some time, and this year the team are going all guns to promote their AncestryDNA product.
Essentially this consists of a kit, that you can buy and register on their site, and then use to take a swab sample of DNA. Post them off, and then your results are returned to you online about 6-8 weeks later, via your Ancestry account.
The results will then give you an ethnicity estimate (I’m hoping for Vikings and old Saxons), and then it will give you leads to other people who have taken the test on AncestryDNA, where they have found matching DNA.
Two AncestryDNA testing kits
I’ve picked up two kits, as I was curious, and my mother has been far more excitedly curious about her DNA for some years. I guess that with all the other kits around, and with the recent discovery, questioning and burial of Richard III, the DNA market is booming.
I’ll write more about the tests another time – so keep posted!
Day Two was definitely busier, and even though the aisles are wider between stands (most noticeably amongst the Society of Genealogists Family History stands) they were still thick with busy, eager, genealogists looking for the next clue.
The Home Team – the Birmingham & Midland Society for Genealogy & Heraldry was naturally a busy spot to be. I have only a couple of distant relative marriages in Birmingham, so I didn’t need to stop.. but the team certainly looked busy!
Birmingham & Midland Society for Genealogy & Heraldry stand
As with yesterday, where I was able to catch Alec Tritton talk about the many wonders of The Parish Chest, and caught some of Jayne Shrimpton talking about the dating of 80s and 90s photographs (1880s/1890s, okay!), today I was able to catch some more.
The first was from Dave Annal who gave a fascinating talk on the FindMyPast stand, on Death Duty Registers. I could tell that it was something to do with death and taxes, but beyond that I had no idea what they would contain. As a source, they look like the fantastically messiest, chaotic and cryptic set of possible information ever (beyond Doctor’s notes!).
Understanding the Death Duty Registers sign
Later, I briefly caught the team at FamilySearch, who gave me a lovely warm reminder about the years of research I’ve put in working my way through microfilm. They themselves are in the midst of a big project to digitise microfilm, and are looking for volunteers to process batches of transcripts so that everything can become much easier to search. I don’t think that this was new news, but it was good to hear what they are up to.
Margaret Haig (IPO) talks copyright and family history
Finally, I sat in on Copyright and Family History – a talk by Margaret Haig from the Intellectual Property Office (IPO). She gave a fascinating talk on the law and the minefield of copyright when it comes to family history. There were loads of questions after, but I poppe along to their stand to ask them my one: Who owns the copyright of a Will? The answer I was given was that they are not under copyright because they are not a creative piece, they’re a commissioned piece of work that follows a formulaic formal process. This wasn’t really the answer I was expecting.
I managed to meet Eric Knowles, and he was able to shed light on my mystery spoon… But I’ll write more about that soon too!
I was flicking through the latter when the stall-holder asked me if I had criminal ancestors. I said ‘yes’, but reassured them it wasn’t for fraud as I handed my card over.
Anyway, more on DNA, the spoon and the criminals another day. Day Three is calling…
SOCIETY SPOTLIGHT: Today is the final part of the blogging theme of history societies, and I now explore ways that you can get involved, or ways for societies to overcome their hurdles.
In this, the final part of my Society Spotlight series of blog posts, I look back on the last five posts, and try to conclude and speculate on the future of our history societies based on their answers.
Photo: Andrew Martin.
Q1. What is the Society’s biggest need?
For the first question, all three Societies were pretty much united in their answer. Their biggest need is people.
Societies rely on the time and expertise of those who can spare even just an hour a month, through to those who can offer a more regular amount of time. Not only does this volunteering offer skills to a society, but often those skills have value to the volunteer – particularly if they are looking to build their CV. Volunteers help societies to develop, and ultimately work more efficiently, and actively contribute to their evolution. Without those people who give their time for free, some societies may end up lost forever, along with all that they worked to achieve.
“Our biggest need is to encourage the next generation so that we maintain interest in the future in order to fund projects that preserve original material.”
Where do volunteers come from?
I’m pretty sure that the societies are being pro-active in seeking volunteers, but where might they be advertising? Word or mouth? Events? Their own publications? Perhaps even the media or online?
Volunteers can come from anywhere, and all will have their own interest area, so it can be hard to advertise generally when there are so many nuances that might be the hook to bring someone into helping.
Some volunteers might like to have a firm idea of what they might be doing before they offer themselves up. A few years back, I was working for a charity, and needed about 2-3 days per week help when my workload escalated. I worked alone and we didn’t have the skills in-house, so I wrote a ‘job’ description but for a volunteer, that clearly outlined the type of work they’d be doing and roughly how much time per week this amounted to (although I was clear that it could be flexible). We advertised it through the local business network community and a few local job (online and offline) boards. Within a couple of weeks, and after holding an informal ‘interview’ to work out whether there was a match of interests, the volunteer began working alongside me – they were perfect for the role. She eventually went on to take over my paid role after i left.
Some kind of structure at the outset, helps to give a volunteer a sense of purpose and a goal. If they’re just to do bits and bobs here and there, it might not be so appealing (although that approach might work for some too), as they won’t be able to see where or how their contribution fits in to the overall goals and aims of the society. By giving a volunteer a sense of purpose and responsibility, it can surely only help to keep them happy and interested.
For a bigger and fuller-time society, it might be an option to offer an internship – paying expenses in return for their time (during which they’ll pick up skills), but there’s probably a few legal hoops to jump through with that one, so worth checking before you leap into that.
Q2. What is the Society’s biggest challenge?
It would seem that awareness is the biggest challenge, again for all three societies, and particularly when pitching alongside the behemoths of online genealogy – Ancestry, FamilySearch, MyHeritage, FindMyPast etc.
Finding that niche
Societies hold a vast amount of information around their focussed locale, occupation, surname etc, and these often take the form of personal stories and amateur family histories, family trees, film and audio material that’s been donated to them, physical objects relating to their focus, and a wealth of other gems that hold an important but niche connection to the society’s focus.
Such niche gems are unlikely to be as desirable for the larger websites – who are trying to cater for a wide online audience, and make money from subscriptions by digitising desirable historic ephemera.
The stories from people such as this member of the Women’s Land Army may provide societies with their niche. Photo: JamesGardinerCollection via CreativeCommons.
The written history of say, Albert the coal delivery man, or Judith the land girl, might be an incredibly useful historical record of culture, occupation, locale, but of little interest to a wider audience.
My own personal opinion here, is that societies need to focus on finding their niche – something that’s popular and that they can easily handle/facilitate. Maybe it’s events and lectures, or maybe it’s the wealth of these unique records/objects, that are not found elsewhere, and using every PR opportunity to shout about themselves and what they do, in a bid to gain new members and raise awareness of the society.
In the words of Abbie Black from The Society of Genealogists;
“The biggest challenge for a genealogical society is that people are not aware of the vast amount of services a society can provide for members.”
Looking up census returns, family tree research services, and parish records, have all been wonderfully done in the past, but with these large online genealogy sites taking these activities to just a couple of clicks away, I feel that these unique items are the niche, and a society needs to capitalise on them now, and make them accessible and relevant to their niche audience.
Check out this innovative and brilliant example of a one-family-centric reunion event – that was packed with information and was so personal to a smaller group of people. Perhaps a more personal touch to events might help boost societies too?
Q3. How does the Society plan to preserve its knowledge for the future?
Thankfully, all three society representatives showed that their societies have a plan to preserve their work so that our history can continue to exist in the future. Whether this is by their own pro-active programme of evolution (like the Society of Genealogists or Cambridgeshire Family History Society), or more eventual, by depositing its records and data with another larger society (the Newman Name Society).
Updating technologies will be one way of preserving history for the future. Photo: Andrew Martin.
In yesterday’s posting the Channel Islands Family History Society commented that utilising technology will be one way to keep a society up to speed with the bigger more well-known genealogy organisations/services.
How can we help history societies focus on the future?
Thinking back to the society that Linda McCauley talked of, it may have been that the society had grown out of a labour of love, or maybe it was just too hard to find anyone else who was genuinely interested in (or able to) help.
Geek Taming
If your society is pondering what to do with it’s data or has a technical conundrum, then there are ways to get this moving. It might cost a little, but think of it as an investment into your data or website that would bring it forward and help you and your society be more visible, and ultimately gain members, and funds.
One society that I know (I won’t reveal their name), has a large database of their member’s trees – packed with information. But the database was custom written in what is now old tech called MS DOS which was discontinued in 2000, and the person who wrote the database is sadly no longer alive. The legacy of this is, whilst the data is there and perfectly useable – it relies on an older PC to run it, and it is currently locked in time – without the skills available to unpick it, and export the data into something more modern. It also means that events rely on that old PC being transported to venues in order to delve into their database.
If you’re stuck for the free help of volunteers, a solution might come in the form of outsourcing that through sites like Elance.com and Freelancer.co.uk, where you can identify the job you need undertaking, and then allow people to bid for the work. You can then choose the best deal, and they’ll do the work for you. Each freelancer has a rating – much like sellers on eBay – so you can see which bidder is the most reliable and best for your budget and job.
Another solution, might be to pitch your tech problem (if it’s like the example I gave above) to your local college, to give them a real project to work on. This will give valuable experience to the students, a great PR opportunity for the college, and may well solve the issue.
Locally to me, there’s many active MeetUp groups, one of which where individuals can pitch to a wide range of other experts including developers, copywriters, and designers, in a bid to get them interested in your project.
If you’re stuck for budget for your big development, crowdsourcing might be the answer. It has been highly successful – funding films, music albums, books, apps and all kinds of things through sites like Kickstarter or IndieGogo – where members of the international public can give money to projects they like, often in return for some small incentive (perhaps a free family tree search by one of your members?)
Society Spotlight – and that’s a wrap!
Hopefully some of these ideas will give you inspiration to either join a society, or if you are a society, to find the help you need to keep preserving our heritage for generations to come.
Thank you for the feedback this week, and for all the readers, and sharers of the blog posts. I hope that you have enjoyed my Society Spotlight theme, and perhaps have now become inspired to offer some of your time and/or expertise to a history society local to you, or at the very least, become a member.
Of course, I’d like to say a big thank you to Else Churchill and Abbie Black of The Society of Genealogists, Robert Newman of The Newman Name Society, Muriel Halliday and Lisa Newman of The Cambridgeshire Family History Society, and Linda McCauley. Without their willingness and openness, this series of posts would not have been possible. I hope that my week of blog posts will, in some way, help to bring new opportunities to our beloved history societies.
Society Spotlight: In today’s post, the history societies take a look at if and/or how they are planning the legacy of their work for future generations.
It tackles the big question, that will help ensure that a Society and its members leave a lasting legacy to their community or the history that they work so hard to preserve, avoiding the fate seen by the Cross Family History Society:
‘How does a society plan to preserve its knowledge for the future?’
As all family historians, professional genealogists, and organisations know, if you’re going to invest your time in researching and creating records or filling databases with data, then you need to know that what you’re spending your hours doing, will actually survive into tomorrow, next year, and further beyond.
Where once keeping meticulous paper copies sounded like a good idea, it moved on to formats like microfiche, film, cd-roms, GEDCOM, and more recently that mystical place called ‘The Cloud’, but all of them have pros and cons, so what plans do the Societies have to preserve their work and leave a legacy?
Here’s their answers…
Abbie Black, The Society of Genealogists
“Many societies, including the Society of Genealogists, are always receiving new materials that are in the process of being preserved. Digitization of original documents makes genealogical materials easily accessible to people who simply can’t come to the Society. Digitization and preservation are also important for the future of a society in the case of a natural disaster. Coincidentally, Dick Eastman’s blog Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter recently published an article on 2 July 2013 concerning a society affected by the Southern Alberta flooding disaster.”
“Understanding the concerns of natural disaster, the society had all of their society’s family history backed up in a cloud storage system, which protected their information from disaster. Societies are constantly storing, backing up, and protecting their data that will preserve information for the future through technology.”
“By reaching out to a new generation of genealogists, societies will be able to preserve their future. Younger people have interest in their own genealogy, and societies are reaching out to those individuals through lectures and social networking to help preserve and continue the work that the society holds most valuable.”
Lisa Newman, The Cambridgeshire Family History Society
“Other than continuing to adapt to new technologies and platforms and by encouraging interest in the Society so that we can engage new members to join the Committee to keep doing the good work that has gone before.”
Do you have a plan?
What are your own plans for preserving your research for a future generation? Do you have a plan? Or are you now beginning to wonder what might become of it? Leave me a comment below, or over at the Geneabloggers LinkedIn group.
This question is probably the one with the most variation between organisations, as each one identifies what it is that they are trying to overcome.
Some of the themes in these answers were straight forward and as you might expect, but all of them surprised me with a comment about the expectations of those who contact them – which has probably become more prevalent by genealogy and research TV shows.
Let’s delve into their answers…
Abbie Black, The Society of Genealogists
“The biggest challenge for a genealogical society is that people are not aware of the vast amount of services a society can provide for members.”
“At the Society of Genealogists, members are allowed free access to the Library, which houses the largest collection of parish register copies, as well as many other record types. The library is helpful for beginners as well as seasoned genealogists. Members also have free access to the online Society data which is always being updated. This includes digital images of original documents, as well as searchable indexes. Members also have access to free advice from volunteer genealogists, including a telephone advice service, one-on-one consultations, search services, lectures, and society published magazines. Members make provision for non-members to use the Society’s Library on payment of a daily search fee.”
Robert Newman, The Newman Name Society
“Our biggest challenge is to get more people to join and be active members. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, people joined and we all worked together searching the county archives, transcribing records and sharing their finds.”
“Nowadays I find attitudes have changed, due I expect to so much information being on the internet, now some people find they have a spare couple of days, so they decide ‘to do’ their family tree, they contact me and expect our archive to have the details of their family sitting there waiting to be given to them.”
Lisa Newman, The Cambridgeshire Family History Society
“Our biggest challenges are retaining membership, engaging the next generation, getting the message across to go out and explore the archives and not sit behind a computer screen.”
“Thinking about what we can offer, that the Internet cannot – perhaps ancestral tourism, education, an opportunity to meet with like-minded people and learn from each other.”
Competing with the giants
What stands out here is that the smaller societies are feeling the weight of the larger online family history websites – the Ancestry, Geni, FindMyPast, GenesReunited types, and the ‘instant’ trees that they can seem to give their users (i’ll skirt round the quality of that elephant in the room for now).
Whilst the Society of Genealogists is a much larger society that is perhaps more able to digitize content, what’s next for the smaller societies? How can they attract new members and interests? How are they going to compete in the future?
In tomorrow’s Society Spotlight post, I explore their future, when they answer my question of ‘How does the Society plan to preserve its knowledge for the future?‘.
Three history and genealogy societies reveal what they feel that their society, and societies like them, see as their biggest need.
In today’s Society Spotlight themed blog post, I reveal the answers to the first question that I asked the societies:
What is the society’s biggest need?
Before approaching the societies, I had a few ideas as to what the themes of this answer might be – people, time, items/records. However, I was surprised that the other of my guesses – a financial theme – doesn’t get mentioned here.
Here’s what the society representatives had to say:
Abbie Black, The Society of Genealogists (SoG)
“A society’s biggest need is dedicated individuals who want the work of a society to succeed. Volunteers make up most of the workforce of societies, and they do excellent work in continuing the goals of preserving the past. Volunteers digitize documents, create indexes, and help members of the society do effective research.”
“In larger Societies like the Society of Genealogists paid professional staff are also important to a society’s function; they provide professional expertise and competencies, not only in subject specialisms as genealogists or librarians but in management accountability, finance and human resources. Genealogical Societies with professional staff are more common in the USA but the SoG is unique in the UK.”
Robert Newman, The Newman Name Society
“Our biggest need is for more members and for people to share their Newman record finds so that we can build up our archive.”
Lisa Newman, The Cambridgeshire Family History Society
“I would say our biggest need is to encourage the next generation so that we maintain interest in the future in order to fund projects that preserve original material.”
“We also need support from the FFHS and (in a perfect world) the big internet sites to encourage people to join FHS’s.”
“With ever increasing competition from the big internet sites, why would someone join a society when they think all of the answers are available at the touch of a button? My colleague this week asked me if she typed her name in ancestry.co.uk would it work out who was related to who in her family? I think I visibly deflated at that point! So I guess we also need to educate people to manage their expectations!”
Society Spotlight: In today’s post, I cover the demise of The Cross Family History Society – seemingly a one-person society, that ended with the death of its founder.
In this, the second of my history society themed blog posts, I take a look at a society that helped me significantly with my research, until one day the silence fell.
Some history societies were born out of an individual’s love of an interest (perhaps a particular industry, or geographical place), and grow until it becomes all consuming for the founder. This leaves the society and its precious work at risk of dying with its founder (as we heard yesterday from Linda McCauley).
Silence
Back in the late 1990s, I was in contact with a Pam McClymont from Australia. She was the sole worker behind The Cross Family History Society, and she had amassed a vast amount of information about the surname and its journey to Australia from its home in Ely, Cambridgeshire.
Her research enabled me to point me towards answers for vast parts of my own Cross family tree (making it easier to verify the data from the UK too). She didn’t have email, or a website, and I don’t think she had a computer either, as she would mail me vast amounts of paperwork covered in her handwritten notes, and even a self-published ‘Who’s Who’ guide (this was typed).
Who’s Who Cross Family Vol 1 – Pamela McClymont
Suddenly the correspondence stopped. I wondered whether my letters back to her had been lost in the mail, but I found out just under a year later via another researcher who was more local to her, that the reason for her silence was because she had died.
It now makes me wonder whether I hold her most up-to-date research, and what percentage of her work, and whether I have a duty to perform by making it available in some way – perhaps find a way to obtain permission to create Volume Two, perhaps create it as an eBook to help reach a new audience?
What should I do?
Have you been a member of a family history society that ended abruptly? What happened next? Did the society’s trove of information make it into safety, or has it been lost forever?
Leave your comments, thoughts, and experiences in the space below, or join in the discussion over at LinkedIn, and perhaps you can help save another one from an untimely end.
Every day this week, I’m focusing on History Societies. Three societies have each kindly answered three questions, and I’ll be covering their answers that reveal their needs, challenges, and plans for survival.
I’m a supporter of history societies. I think they’re great resources, and that they play a very important role in preserving and sharing information to communities. However, these treasure troves of information face a real risk without a healthy long-term plan of survival.
Whilst talking with genealogist Linda McCauley a few weeks ago, she recalled a story of a society in the US that has nearly been wiped out after the recent death of its treasurer. The treasurer had pretty much run the society single-handedly and was the only person who knew where the membership list was kept. Now, that society faces a bleak future unless the list is found by the grieving family when their home is cleared. If not, it brings an end to the individual’s dedicated hard work for which they surely must have hoped would have a long-lasting legacy.
Genealogist Linda McCauley.
“It’s so easy today for a society to back-up their critical information. All it takes is a few files stored online and multiple officers with the ID and password to access them” – Linda McCauley.
This story struck a chord with me and got me thinking – how can we help history societies survive?
Hold on, why should we help history societies?
Societies are often run by volunteers, and with little or no funding behind them. This means that they rely on the donations from members, events, making a profit on their publications, and membership subscriptions. It also means that they don’t necessarily have the funding to digitise their archive, or to put it securely online for people to browse (or even just to digitally preserve, and/or put a searchable index online).
The kind of records that societies hold varies considerably, but often include items that are otherwise ignored by the larger organisations that have the monopoly on digitizing records and making available online – items include items such as personal collections from local people, self-published family stories, one-off types of items, personal photograph collections, and many other types. These records are likely to be ‘small fry’ for the likes of Ancestry, FindMyPast, Genes Reunited etc, as they won’t have such a wide appeal, and therefore won’t be the money-spinner worth investing in. One society I know, holds their parish gravedigger’s note book, which alongside the parish register, provides a useful corroborative record of burials.
How do history societies want to be helped?
The best way to know the answer to this is to ask them. So I contacted five different UK-based societies to see how they would answer three questions. Three have replied since I contacted them back on 29th June 2013. The respondent three were:
The Society of Genealogists – a large genealogy society which holds the largest collection of parish records and is based in London. It is widely known and visible through the events and training courses that it organises, and appearances on television.
The Cambridgeshire Family History Society – a county-wide family and local history society in England, with a wide range of publications, international members, and support courses.
I asked each of them the same three questions, and for the next five days i’ll be sharing their answers to each question in turn, and looking at ways that you can help your local society, or the society local to your ancestors. The questions were:
What is the society’s biggest need?
What is the society’s biggest challenge?
How does the society plan to preserve its knowledge for the future?
I hope that you will find this series of posts interesting, and perhaps find it inspiring enough to contact your local society and offer them even just a few hours of your time and/or expertise, or at least become a member to help fund them.
If you’re a member of a society already, or already helping a society in some capacity, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below (and feel free to post a link to their website!). Let’s promote them!
History Repeating 