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Tuesday, June 07, 2016

2016: THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF HAMILTON IS A BLAZING SUCCESS!

We have found the secret of a successful local historical society! After assuming the leadership of the Historical Society of Hamilton Township, a few years ago, Dr. Jim Federici, Ms Lois Majarowitz and I have had our suspicions confirmed as to how to increase interest in our programming. we find that our historic poor attendance centered around former officers program choices. (Those former officers include Tom Glover and Dr. Jim Federici.) We found that the average citizen would really love to hear and see programs that were relevant to them personally: BROAD STREET PARK, WHITE CITY, NJ. STATE FAIR, KUSER FAMILY, CHAMBERSBURG, and on and on. These programs have proved to be successful with large crowds attending as opposed to programs such as "open hearth cooking," "tile making in Trenton," "Flemington NJ," and other bland and boring subjects of interest to only a select few. The attendance began to decline during my time as president when we were lucky if 15 people showed up for our meetings, most of whom were senior citizens. Now with what I have termed our "New Departure," we are experiencing incredible attendance numbers of attendees who are avidly interested in RELEVANT local history.
The photo is from last evening's BROAD STREET PARK - WHITE CITY" on screen presentation. It was taken before the program began at 7 P.M. The final count was 59 or 60 attendees, all of whom enthusiastically asked questions or contributed to our on screen photos and articles. Former Sheriff Gil Lugossy and local Broad Street Park Historian Jim Colello loaned us their historical expertise on the neighborhood and the program was a huge success!.
Our future programs will include material of interest to Trenton and outlying areas for those citizens who are interested in Trenton as it was in earlier years.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tom, for those of us who would like to attend but live far away, how about videotaping your programs and putting them on your website to view? It's really pretty easy to do.

Thanks,

Square Boy

Anonymous said...

Tom - A wonderful evening - thanks for your expertise and the information from Gil Lugossy and Jim Collelo.
Lakeside Girl