Jack Arnold, President, presided. There were two reasons for holding this meeting. The first was to discuss moving Historical Society Journals. The Times Record building, where they are now stored, is to be imploded the first week of September. Jack has talked with Larry Evans at Ft. Chaffee Trust. They will let the Hstorical Society have a building there and will palletize and pastic wrap journals for the move.
There was discussion on leaving the wrap around the journals - perhaps further deterioration from moisture already there. Jack will ask if there are shelves available in the building. There is no time to inventory the materials before the move, but an inventory must be made after. The building at Ft. Chaffee will be there 5 to 10 years.
Carole Barger asked if anyone else had ever offered office space. Jack said they had requested space in the civic center, the old library building, Parker School, the Frisco station, and the Museum, but were refused at all of them.
The other topic on today's agenda was the establishment of a web site. Ben Boulden said we will need to rent space and have everything hosted on a server. There will be a charge for storage space and memory consumed, and a date of transfer when someone downloads. He showed rates from SBC, NewRoads, and Dayton Creative. Dayton offered the best price, and could be used with Ben's Macintosh computer. The initial investment would be between $400.00 and $500.00 to get the site and domain name. There was discussion on the advantages of having a web site. Carole suggested putting an index of the journals, transferring parts of, or whole journals, and photographs or photo albums. Also, web sites could connect with cemetery sites. Jack asked if people could order journals on the web site and urged that we do not sell journals using credit cards. Ben said we could have a bulletin board listing functions. He invited Joe Wasson to assist with the graphics, using his scanner. There was discussion of getting Nancy Steele to publicize the web site in the newspaper.
A quorum being present, a motion was made by Amelia Martin and seconded by Chloe Lamon to establish a web site. Ben will pay the necessary expenses, and then be re-imbursed by the treasurer. The domain name will be www.fortsmithhistory.com. There was discussion of a meeting place with computer connections to view our web page.
Ameilia mentioned the need to print more brochures. We will need to
add our new web site and domain name to the brochure.
The next meeting of the Historical Society is scheduled for Thursday,
November 13th, from 2:00 to 3:30 in the Rose Room at Creekmore.
The meeting was adjourned by the President.
Chloe Lamon, Recording Secretary
Gallery