Just a few notes to bring us up-to date.
As you will see on the Website-Newsletter info page, we are trying to meet the challenge of not being able to find someone with enough time to be our webmaster, by dividing up the process. We are incorporating our HMC Family page on Facebook.com, that John Carlisle started a few years ago, into being the interactive part. The articles, comments, discussion, etc. that family write and contribute will happen on the Facebook page and from there be included on the website. That will keep the website easier to manage and make it easy for family to join in. Those that do not do Facebook can email their contributions to newsletter@hmcfamily.org. We are looking for volunteers to help post their entries onto Facebook and the website.
On the Family Books for Sale page, you will see another process we are trying to simplify is the book sales. All requests can be sent to familybooks@hmcfamily.org, where you can leave the names and numbers of books you want and your contact information with Bill McKinney.
At the Reunion we have started what we hope to be an ongoing tradition of having Donna and Mark Hines perform their interpretative dramatizations of Daniel and Mary Matheny, as they do at historic Champoeg State Park. They will not be able to attend this year, but we look forward to seeing them in 2017.
Another new tradition is what is tentatively called Family Out Standing in Their Field. 🙂 With great family cooperation and increasing coordination, we line ourselves up in a giant family tree in the field at the park. Laying out signs for our ancestors and then our own places, we can virtually see how close or distant our relationships are, while we have a good time sorting it all out. We should have it down by the centennial of our Reunion in 2019.
The first Reunion where minutes of a formal meeting were taken was in 1919. The family had been meeting prior to that and did not meet for a couple years during WWII, so 2019 will be approximately 100 years of Reunions. If you have not come before or not for a while, please come and join in the fun and bring your ideas and suggestions.
And join us on the website and Facebook throughout the year.
Your co-presidents,
Barbara Kerr and Merrilee Johnson