P.O. Box 447 Carmichael, CA 95609

Minutes for the January 12, 2008 Meeting

Fenton's Creamery, Nut Tree Village
Vacaville

The meeting convened at approximately 1:30 PM, with 14 members in attendence.

Chapter President Norm Root addressed the group briefly, and apologized for some confusion regarding the date of the meeting. He also stated that he would make a point to convene business meetings each quarter, along with the local tours and other activities.

Election of Officers for 2008: Norm Root will continue as President, Paul Gilger as Vice President, and Bob Dieterich as California State Director. Gary Kinst will continue at editor of The Traveller.

Changes: Miriam Hull needs more time to complete her Master's program, and so has stepped down as Secretary. Kell Brigan was elected as the new Secretary and will also continue to serve as Treasurer. She also will work with Jimmy Lin, Association webmaster, to take over some of the website posting duties for the California Chapter's section of the national website. [Update 1/20/08: Kell now has access to the website, and will be able to make routine updates as needed.]

Evanston Conference Art & Photo Show (Kell Brigan): Kell gave a brief update on the status of the Art & Photo exhibition to be held at the upcoming Evanston, Wyoming National Conference. All application and website text and graphics have been prepared. In addition to a dedicated web page within the Conference area of the national website, notices will also appear in the Forum, and in hard copy materials. [Update 1/20/08: the Show website is up! kb]

At Myron's suggestion, the Association will provide "Certificates of Appreciation" for those artists and photographers participating, as resume fodder and as verification for those artists who might be eligible for course credit for participating.

[Update 1/27/08: Brian Butko graciously mentioned the Art & Photo show in his January 22nd blog entry.]

Treasurer's Report (Kell Brigan): no unusual activity. Chapter assets as of January 12, 2008: $1,932.14 overall, $819.15 from tours.

The News from Altamont (Mike Kaelin): Plans are moving ahead smoothly to install "Historic Lincoln Highway" signage on the east side of the garage (soon to be a gift shop). Efforts to obtain historic site or corridor status are still underway, but no new news.

The Traveller (Gary Kinst): Gary had some reader responses, one about C Markers, and one from Long Beach about historic Goodrich signage.

KVIE's Street Signs Lincoln Highway Segment (Bob Dieterich and Gary Kinst): Bob announced he would be meeting Friday, January 18th with Tish Buchanan and other staff from KVIE (the Sacramento PBS station) to film a segment on the Highway. They estimated the segment would be about six minutes long. Bob also asked the group for help locating historic photographs for use during the show. The segment will likely air February 13th. Gary also had some media-related news. He has been attempting to contact Huell Howser of California's Gold regarding the Highway, and also with some specific information on snow sheds up at Donner Pass. The word from KVIE generally is that it's better to communicate with Mr. Howser in hard copy, partly as a preference, and also since his company's routinely deluged with emails. To be continued...?

Survey Results (Norm Root): the biggest suggestion to come from the survey results (which were few) was Myron Gershenson's idea for preparing a Powerpoint Presentation to make available to groups for those times when a speaker is not available. In her ongoing efforts to overextend herself, Kell Brigan offered to help out, since she wrangles Powerpoint as part of her day job.

News from Illinois (Paul Gilger): the Illinois Lincoln Highway Coalition was just awarded a $500,000 grant. Wise guys.

Tours -- Call for Volunteer Drivers (Paul Gilger): Paul reported that driving and guiding on the tours is a bit taxing on both people and vehicles, and asked for additional volunteers to step forward. The smallest tour so far has been three people, and the largest nine people.

Map Sales (Paul Gilger): Since August 2003, 270 hard copies of the California driving maps have been distributed (50 free, and the rest as sales).

2010 Illinois Conference (Mike Kaelin): Mike is also involved with the Route 66 community, and hopes to convince Kay Shelton, Director of the Illinois Lincoln Highway chapter, to move the 2010 Conference to Joliet, allowing a tie-in with Route 66.

2011 South Lake Tahoe Conference (Paul Gilger): Bob's going to look into having Paul Gilger officially listed as 2011 Conference Chair. Caroline, Grant and Greg stepped forward to serve on the 2011 Conference committee. Paul has already been in communication with South Lake Tahoe Community College about using the college as the Conference HQ. Kell Brigan and Mike Kaelin will research renting vans for tours during that week.

Speaking of Conferences...: Should we have a standing Conference committee at the national level? Bob's going to investigate.

Next Meeting: April 12th -- Hayward or Tracy. Will likely include a tour of the East Castro Valley. Mike Kaelin will help coordinatre.

The meeting was then adjourned.

Norm and Gary made a brief presentation of "Historic Lincoln Highway" signs to Fenton's, for posting in their lobby with other historic items. [Update 1/27/08: Brian Butko also mentioned this dedication in his January 23nd blog entry.]

About half the group briefly toured the School Street pedestrian mall in Vacaville (including the Ulatis Creek arch bridge and the two city blocks marked with a herd of "Historic Highway 40" signs), the alignment off of Cherry Glen Road, and other nearby highway sites.

Respectfully submitted,

Kell Brigan
Secretary/Treasurer