In this, our first Presidents’ Blog entry since being elected as co-presidents at GPA’s June 24, 2013 annual business meeting, we would like to thank outgoing president Harry Haskell for his faithful stewardship of the organization during the length of his tenure as GPA president. We would also like to thank outgoing board member Nancy Arnold for her many years of tireless service to GPA and its board, as well as to welcome our two newest board members, Sheila Sohlberg and Walter Corbier. We would also like to thank our colleague, Sharon Olson, for agreeing to re-up her membership on the board for another term and for remotely managing our website as its indefatigable web editor!
As Harry’s farewell message to our members indicates, GPA has been active on a number of different initiatives and projects in recent years, all of which contribute to sustaining the quality of life in Guilford and make significant contributions to conserving our built and natural environments while strengthening our local economy.
A few updates on some of those efforts would seem to be in order as we take the helm.
First, GPA’s Historic Guilford Walking Tours, under the leadership of board member Dennis Culliton kicked off its second season of student-led tours of the downtown historic district with significant ongoing financial support from the Guilford Foundation. In addition to this year’s earlier starting date for the tours over the Memorial Day weekend, bus-based tours for Guilford seniors are being added to our offerings on a limited, reservation-only basis. Those tours will expand the physical scope of the tours to North Guilford while affording the opportunity to participate to some community members who might find the walking tours physically challenging and are the idea and initiative of one of our existing tour guides, Megan Vanocur, as part of her Girl Scouts activities. The walking tours will once again offer two differently themed tours of the downtown historic district, one focusing on representative architectural styles and the other on the history of Guilford since its European settlement in 1639.
Second, as an outgrowth of the cooperative approach taken by our Heritage Tourism Initiative, representatives of each of Guilford’s 5 house museums have been meeting twice-monthly since January of this year to better coordinate the museums’ hours of operation and to create a first-ever, professionally designed information handout describing the museums, as well as their collections, locations and hours of operation. GPA has helped to underwrite the production expenses associated with printing 5,000 copies of the handout, and Mr. Brian McGlone, the town’s economic development coordinator, Ms. Janet Testa, the executive director of the Chamber of Commerce, and Ms. Kathryn Greene of the Green Merchants have graciously agreed to assist with their distribution around town and at designated locations elsewhere in the state for disseminating tourism information.
And finally, GPA’s efforts to create a visitors’ information kiosk in the vicinity of the Green took some significant steps forward in recent months. First, GPA was the recipient of a significant planning grant of $14,300 from Connecticut Humanities to assist in planning activities associated with creating the kiosk. In addition, our efforts to secure a suitable site for the kiosk in the vicinity of the Green have been favorably received by the Park and Recs Commission and preliminarily reviewed by town staff and the Historic District Commission. We shall keep you updated on further developments as we move through the various stages of the planning process. When completed, the kiosk will serve as GPA’s gift to the town as part of its upcoming 375th anniversary celebration.
There is much that GPA is trying to accomplish in a variety of ways for Guilford and we would like to invite you and other members of our community to step forward and join us in the months ahead. Your participation, ideas and time would be a gift to us all and we want to make sure as we start upon our co-presidency that everyone feels welcomed and invited to join us in our efforts at Guilford Preservation Alliance. Together, we can really make a difference to this town which we love to call our home.
Best regards,
Shirley and Rob
