History Project Needs Help

The project to write volume three of The History of Ashfield – this one to cover the half-century from 1960 to 2010 – is beginning to gather momentum.
The Editorial Board continues to meet on the first and third Wednesdays of each month in Town Hall. We are grateful to the Select Board and to the Town Hall staff for their cordial hospitality and support.

We have received a most generous offer from the Ashfield Historical Society to set up headquarters for our editorial work in the basement of the Society’s building on Main Street. The Belding Library and Town Hall also kindly offered space, but we are inclined to begin with the space at the Historical Society. Stuart Harris will take charge of preparing it for our occupancy by late spring.

We will need help with this project: both volunteer labor and materials (boards, paint, wall covering and ceiling insulation, etc.) Anyone who is able to help or who has materials to donate should contact Stuart or another member of the Editorial Board: Phyllis Kirkpatrick, Don Robinson, Grace Lesure, Eleanor Ward, Alden Gray or Tom Carter.

We will also need office supplies: folders, pens, pencils, felt markers, paper clips, etc. Also, a three-hole punch, stapler, sticky notes, a calculator, envelopes…. You get the idea. Also filing cabinets. And flat files for 2’ x 3’ sheets and on up. And 30” x 72” tables.

Books these days cannot be produced without computers! We have the promise of two computers from Smith College, one primarily for word-processing, the other for data-processing and graphics. We will need tables to put them on, as well as a printer and a scanner. Anyone who can tell us where we might get them will be a certified local hero.

Our next step will be to organize our research. Stay tuned!

by Don Robinson