Vice President Bob Appleby called the monthly meeting to order at 7 PM at the Hope Historical Home. Also present were: Joe Berry, Donovan Bowley, Hope Chase, Dan Dalrymple, Faith Hart, Mary Ireland, Bill Jones, Ann Leadbetter, Barbara Ludwig, Arthur Small & Ron Smith. [LIST IS INCOMPLETE. PLEASE HELP.]

Secretary Bill Jones read the minutes of the June 15th meeting, which had already received additions & corrections after e-circulation. They were approved as read.

Treasurer Faith Hart reported that our bank balance in June 1st had been $654.53 and that today it was $566.06. Principal expenditures were $1,503.68 for fuel, $312. For insurance and $26.93 to CMP for electricity. Income (to the nearest $) was $609 from the election-day food sale, $75 from collection ofreturnables, $28 from sale of Florance Merrifield's crafts, $25 from our funds appeal and $25 from dues. The report was unanimously approved.

Reports

For the Website Committee, Vice President and Webmaster Bob Appleby reported that use of www.hopehist.com was 157 visits per day in June as it had been in May!

For the Program Committee, Ann Leadbetter reported that Mrs. Best had been unable to come and present what she knew about the Victorian hair wreath she presented to us. Ann will see whether Mrs. Best can come to a meeting in future and, if that is not possible, will try to visit her to learn what she can about our wreath. She also reported that the committee had met. We are trying to get Ken Bailey to speak at our annual meeting.

The South Hope School Committee had nothing to report.

Bill Jones reported on a visit by Bob Appleby, Joe Berry and him to Kevin Johnson of Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport. They saw the collection of glass-plate negatives from Eastern Illustrating & Publishing post cards, how they are restored and how they are stored. They were impressed by the extreme precision and clarity of prints made from the negatives. Johnson informed that there are perhaps another 20,000 of the negatives "out there" in private collections, of which he had identified about 6,700 in one collection that he was negotiating to purchase for $6-7; towns could "adopt" the negatives of their town for $10 apiece. Three more from Hope have been identified. The delegation indicated that Hope Historical Society would probably like to adopt its town negatives and that they would consult the members.
Johnson explained a deal the museum has with other historical societies under which the museum prepared prints from the town's negatives to be sold by the town society for prices set by the museum with proceeds split 60% of the museum and 40% for the cooperating historical society. The museum would prepare sample prints so interested parties would know what they were buying. The delegation showed interest in the arrangement.

Old Business: none

New Business

It was moved and seconded that the Society pay Penobscot Marine Museum $30 to have it acquire the 3 identified Eastern I & P negatives of Hope known to be in a private collection and express an interest in being informed of further such discoveries. A member moved to amend the motion to make payment on establishing that the photographs in question were unique. The amendment was defeated. The original motion passed unanimously.

It was moved and seconded that we arrange with the Penobscot Marine Museum to be agents for the sale of photographs according to the terms proposed. The motion passed unanimously but for one abstention.

* * *

Bob closed the business meeting and began the program, projecting slides of Hope from Penobscot Marine Museum's collection one by one as members tried to identify the dates, places, people and buildings in the photographs. Discussion was lively. We were only able to complete review of 13 slides before having to adjourn due to the late hour. Our conclusions on slides 101043, 101044, 102520, 102521, 111928, 102624, 106957, 106958, 106959, 106960, 106961, 106962 & 106963 will be presented by the secretary later.

Respectfully submitted,

Bill Jones, Secretary