Membership
Any person who applies for membership, shall be enrolled as an individual voting member. In order to remain a member in good-standing, each individual must contribute to the Society each calendar year through either 1) a financial contribution, or 2) volunteer hours, or 3) participation in one or more Society meetings.
Membership Meetings
The annual meeting of the Society Shall be held in the month of April at the call of the president, at which meeting the officers and standing committees shall present their annual reports. The election of officers and directors shall be held as prescribed by the constitution, a majority vote electing. Ten (10) members shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business at the meetings, but a lesser number will adjourn the meetings.
Honorary Memberships
Honorary and gift memberships may be awarded by the Board. They shall consist of persons who may be distinguished for important public service to the cause of historical research or education, or a benefactor of the Society. Such members shall be entitled to full voting rights at membership meetings for a period of one (1) year.
Volunteer
Thanks to the generosity of Cheshire residents over the years, the Cheshire Historical Society's Hitchcock-Phillips house has accumulated a varied and often extraordinary collection. Items such as the Titus Moss letters reveal the hatred of slavery that moved him to sacrifice his life in the cause of abolition. Tools used by farmers, carpenters, blacksmiths, home-makers and others can help remind us how difficult life was. They can help us appreciate innovations of the era. They can bring a sense of reverence for the sacrifices of those who went before us. But not every item is of equal value either for instructional purposes or for its connection with the town.
Despite the many interesting objects, much of the house is now devoted to storage rather than space for exhibition. Thus, with help from an outside consultant, former CHS President Cayetana Navarro began the process of taking inventory of exactly what the CHS has in its collection. Over the past three years or so, teams of volunteers have thoroughly gone through the CHS’s holdings and created a spreadsheet that captures what an item is, where it came from, and what condition it is in. Now we are going through the items again, in order to determine what to keep and what must go.
President Mitzi Romano has asked me to take a lead role in moving the process forward, which I have been honored if not exactly fully qualified to accept.
The end goal is to have a pared-down collection that hosts items of special historical value to Cheshire and that help to tell our story.
De-accessioning an item will require Board approval if the item rises above $500 in value, so we are planning to bring in knowledgeable appraisers to assist with the process. We are making every effort to determine whether an item belongs to the Society by gift or remains a loan (very few of these).
We are always seeking additional volunteers who take an interest in learning more about local history and helping improve the preservation work we do and the historical education we provide for visitors.
— Peter Prohaska, Board Member, CHS
Please consider helping out! We’d love to see you.
E-mail if you can help at any of these events;
Phone the Society at 203-272-2574; or
Just come by: 2PM - 4 PM on the 2nd and 4th Sunday of each month.
The Society welcomes gifts of money or property, and will invest or care for such gifts to ensure the mission of this Society in perpetuity.