Unknown Speaker 27:38 All right, good morning everyone. My name is Ben Anthony, and I'm the Community Engagement department manager here at The Ohio History Connection. But today, I am your humble tech host, and we'll just be hiding in the background, once we get going here. This is a Ohio's America to 50th commemoration and the local history community. Just a few tech reminders for everyone involved. We are recording this event. If you have questions, please use the q&a section. If you'd like to share comments or resources that's what the chat is best for the, we do have closed captioning available on this, if you look at your, the black bar on your screen for zoom, you should be able to click on that option, if that live transcription would be helpful. If you do run into tech problems, you can certainly add them to the chat, or send them to just the panelists and myself. Normally, however, your best bet is usually to just leave the meeting, the webinar and then come back in that normally fixes. Most problems. So with that, I'm going to hand it off to Christy Davis, and she will get this wonderful webinar going. Unknown Speaker 28:56 Hi, and welcome to our session, I will get our slide up here, so that you can see a little bit about what we are going to be talking about started. I am the current Ola president. And Wendy Zuko who joins me is our immediate past president. And let's see, trying to make it so that I can see everybody. And are you seeing. When do you Can you unmute, let me know when you can see what I'm trying to Unknown Speaker 29:36 do there for a moment and then disappear. Okay. Unknown Speaker 29:40 It worked when we were practicing I just wanted to make sure that it was there. Okay, so we're here to talk about the Americas UCSD commemoration and its role with the local history community and our state. America's 250 Semi quincentennial, which I can now say easily but have a hard time spelling. It's still early, we have math. We have a few years ahead of us, but it's not too early to start thinking about it and considering what you can plan, who you can plan with. And really what were our initiatives are moving forward. So, go to the next slide. Unknown Speaker 30:26 Yeah you're right you're, you might, you're actually in the Edit Frame. Chris Yeah I don't know if you can go to. Yeah, still. Well, well, she's a fine tuning that, let me share I have an official countdown I went to the American 250 page and the official countdown is four years, nine months and three days. So, it is counting down, we realized we being the Ohio local history line super got it realized this was coming down the pike. We started thinking about this in 2019, and we thought what an opportunity for Ola, what generational once in a lifetime opportunity to share our stories and connect museums to communicate with our audiences so 2019 We started thinking about it, by 2020, we were in our strategic plan starting in February of 2020, putting together our new five year plan. And we now have that we are now in that plan, it's a 2021 to 2025 plan, and our number one objective in this plan was America 250 To create an America 250 strategic collaboration with other statewide and regional organizations, you'll see that out there. Our number one goal, we have other goals, they're important. This was our number one goal in the process of that we wanted to make sure that we were not stepping on toes, we have some great museum leadership in the state. So we reached out to the Ohio History Connection. And we reached out to the Ohio Museum Association, and told them what our intentions were, and they immediately got on board and were supportive and said you know, we want to be a part of this, but we understand you alliances, is willing to take the lead. So we're good with that. This is a really big initiative for for the Alliance, and what we said in our strategic plan is that the alliance will provide leadership. In Corbin with a statewide initiative that will be a catalyst for transformational change generational advancement for Ohio local history and museums. So that's where we were and then we were able to put it into a plan, but other things have had to happen across the state to make this worthwhile. So Chris Yeah, I'll let you talk about the state commission. Okay, so, Unknown Speaker 32:57 get my computer to cooperate with this. So we were kind of, we were ahead like Wendy said, and we came up with a plan. We were waiting for the powers that be to really get the ball rolling for us. To get started, and we finally heard back with House Bill 110, and basically saying that they are established to plan encourage develop and coordinate the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, and the impact of Ohioans on the nation's past present and future. The State Commission consists of 29 members from all different areas, from our state representatives and senators and the Governor and I think this Ohio Supreme Court has a seat there's all kinds of variety of voices coming into this but what's important is that along with all those names. The Ohio local history Alliance, got a seat at the table. So with that, we are aimed to implement our Ohio America 250 History and Culture committee Unknown Speaker 34:14 is as Christie said you know we had this desire and this strategic plan, we had to wait on the state but even then, that didn't guarantee us a seat at the table there was a lot of lobbying a lot of contacts going on and, and I do want to thank Todd ties when I know he is on this webinar. And George St George, we couldn't have done it without them. And I know I was holding my elected official, so it really was critical, critical that we got a seat at the table because we want to be able to bring that in, have a voice there and bring that information back to our committee. So we thank them for that. So our committee we realized okay how are we going to do this, how are we going to share this information across the state. And we realized one thing that the alliance was perfectly positioned, we have regional representatives across the state. We are probably one of the groups that is actually in a perfect situation to convey information across the state. So we have that but we realized we need to create a committee, so we went immediately proactively to create a committee that is similar number about 30 people. We wanted to reach across across the state being inclusive in areas as well as topics and history. And let me first start though with the leadership, how are we going to have leaders across this period of time, which it goes to actually 2027. So we decided that the leadership would automatically have our committee be the leadership of all law so it has co chairs, past president and president, and we went down the line of our folks who are aligned to move up our slate of officers to make sure they were willing to step up to make sure we had continued consistent leadership throughout the university and they were, and they can never leave. If you're on this webinar so we're counting. From that point, we have leadership in place we needed to reach out and I will tell you that the structure is still being confirmed, but if there were existing organizations, such as the Northeast Ohio inner museum Council or the museum Leadership Exchange, or the southern museum organization, we got we all lose them into representation, We have reasonable people for example, there, there was not a museum group in the north, nor set would be West corner so we we tapped into like Hayes Presidential Center we made sure we had representatives from all areas. We have important partners on this committee like you have Museum Association how History Day. The Society of Ohio archivists, we just the Ohio aerospace heritage network so we're really trying to reach out as best we can. Obviously, we can't have everybody on this committee because it has to be manageable, but we've reached out to all corners and are making sure that, that we have good representation of the state. Unknown Speaker 37:23 So our role like Wendy said we can't have everybody on the, on the committee because that would just be an unwieldy, the number of energized people that we would have interested in partaking, but we do want to be the clearing house we want to engage all of the museums in history organizations represent all of the vast history that our state encompasses to the best of our abilities, and we want to support museum initiatives. We want to serve as a sounding board if you have an idea, or if you have something about your area that you feel is very significant to the summit quincentennial celebration share that with us. Maybe there's another community that we can put you in contact with across the state, and different collaboration efforts and connections can happen. We want to have communication open communication with everyone. We have plans. Obviously it hasn't been established yet but for mailing lists and things like that to really keep everybody in the loop and informed on what's going on. Unknown Speaker 38:36 So sort of the specs of the structure and the hierarchy you have the state commission. We knew that we would be under that umbrella, and there's gonna be other committees, under that umbrella of course. Well, all the folks that are interested we can encourage them to, you know, there can be other committees, under our umbrella. For example, Cincinnati was an area that just had like so many people that want to be involved and we couldn't have them on the committee but we encouraged. Since downtown Cincinnati to make their own regional meeting, there can be affiliation groups like I think there already is in the works. And Christy has talked to them about a Presidential History group, there can be, I know there's an aviation group, so they can be regional groups that can connect back to us and we just want to make sure we're clearing house going back and forth to the to the state commission and telling them what's going on. And that's our goal as Christie said to have robust initiatives, and a full inclusive story. And we, what the national Commission's goal is to educate, engage, and unite, they have pillars that include invite involve imagine, inspire, we want to make sure we're seeing what the national folks are doing what the Ohio groups doing and make sure our initiatives fall in line and that it's just an overall better. Better celebration because we're communicating and being involved. Unknown Speaker 40:09 So, going back to and I feel like we keep reiterating certain pieces but a lot of that has to do with the fact that we are at such an early stage. It really July was when the ball started to finally get moving a little bit on the state and the things and, you know where we are as we have a seat at the table. That's the first step and now we're just waiting for the commission to meet hopefully at the end of this year. Once that begins, then we should have more information that we can disseminate to everyone. We're still in the process of confirming our subcommittee, making sure that those that we talked to in the summer, you know, we're still in this whole pandemic thing, and people are changing jobs constantly, and everything else has been going on as a result of those circumstances, we need to confirm still that they're able to join our committees that they're still in the role they'll say we're. Or if not, who can we have fill that spot. And then, otherwise we're beginning together. The idea is to brainstorm have a form, think tanks, of how we can best serve our communities. Through this anniversary, and really make a difference and something, you know, for the Bicentennial there was a barn, something that kind of stands out and then help not only signify the anniversary but then further on, Maybe tourism and other opportunities. So Unknown Speaker 41:44 Christy mentioned, the barn. So one of the huge resources and areas for us to draw upon was the Ohio Bicentennial which was a very big deal with state of Ohio, so the Alliance members, Our executive Governance Committee met with Steve George and Todd cosmet to, what can we learn from that. And so their signature things were bombs and bells and we certainly hope that that's something. A similar thing that we'll have some very clear initiatives for the state of Ohio length that. And as, as, Christie said Our job is to tell you right now, start thinking, you know, we're going to be poking you what's your ideas. And I just want to give a couple, just a couple of quick examples. Lindsay Wagner who is at the Dawes arboretum who said, you know, What if we encourage every county to plant a special historic tree a historical site that gives a story. How simple is that, you know, that's just one example and Chris, you have another example to share. Unknown Speaker 42:47 Yeah. The other example is a mural project where, Maybe somewhere in each of our counties. Ohio is so vast with our history, we have so many amazing historical stories, good and bad, throughout our state. And the concept is to maybe celebrate your county's role in the larger scale of our nation's history and maybe mural project where and artists, you know, within your county choose a building that would take this on, and there would be a mural that tried to commemorate it that event or maybe multiple events, depending on where you are. So those are just a few of the ideas. But we want to hear more, because you're the ones working with your history, process, and you're going to have the best intel on what might be a great idea for your county your area. Possibly the state. Unknown Speaker 43:55 I wanted to dive in and just answer a couple questions that have been posed to us already, Christy if I could. One is who is the main camp contact for this organization. Well, Christy is the President, the main contact. So she, it would be. Christy, for the organization or Betsy Heather as our executive secretary, if you want to talk to us specifically about America 250 There are co chairs which are Christy and I and at the end of this, we're going to give you an email that you can American 250 email because we started thinking, oh my goodness, our emails are going to be flooded so we've created a separate email that you can start chatting with us, which is temporary, to we start getting into our commission, and having databases and things like that our plan does include to have a project manager, and media person, I will share that. Right now the commission unless it's changed and Todd can tell us there is no money dedicated at this point for the State Commission, we think that will change as it moves forward, and we will be seeking funds so that we can hire those two positions and then we'll become much more sophisticated with our communication system also like the idea of the, the National oak tree. That's a great idea of planning. I just wanted to also share that drawing again upon that the Hale bicentennial. We sort of are stealing from them that we want to think about our projects in terms of commemorative projects celebratory projects legacy projects, those are really important that lasts way beyond the event, and the educational, of course, and I think Todd may have answered us and said that he's confident that money will be coming relatively soon, ish. And I'm pretty sure it will. But that will come when the commission starts to meet. Turn it over you Christie for the next slide. Unknown Speaker 46:03 Oh, the next slide is really what can you do create your own regional committees like Wendy you touched upon, You know we have some representations that we think, kind of encompasses everything but what we found as our, I guess, wish list of members of our subcommittee started snowballing was that there's so many areas within our history, and it's hard to really nail down all of them every time we thought we had every group represented, someone else would come into the picture, so feel free to create your own regional committees, create an affiliate group, like when you mentioned the Presidential sites aviation historic homes. Whatever you may be, and interact with us, share your ideas I saw John Burns and mentioned that a slhs five interpretive themes for everyone to use unfinished revolutions Power of Place. We the People American experiment and doing history. So maybe that's where you start with ideas and groups and kind of see where that fits within your narrative. Unknown Speaker 47:14 And so we, we absolutely do not want to recreate the wheel here, we want to use ASL H's toolkit. So one of our jobs will be sort of to take all these sources of info from the National Commission, the state commission SLH, you know, sort of bring that back to museums okay this these are the suggestions the initiatives, how do we take this forward. As our goals for Ohio, and you can go and, and, because he's going to talk about that a little bit, check the other states info, one of our neighbor states Pennsylvania has just been like gangbusters going to do things so that's a whole nother area that we can check similar states are surrounding states and what are they doing and how can we connect into a total a lot of gathering of information and ideas and then creating the direction and action plan for Ohio museums. Unknown Speaker 48:16 This is a graphic I actually stole from the American 250 Foundations website that kind of shows what states are already at work. And I don't think that there's really any difference in what they use between the turquoise and the purple, but it just kind of shows you those in gray have an establish, really, a working group, yes, Ohio, obviously we know the commission has been created, but it's not out there with a web presence, Pennsylvania. Again, if you look at their website, it's, it's kind of dream worthy. We would love to be at that point right now and have, they have a great, great tagline of America started here so so should you. So things like that that you can do. So I guess we shouldn't feel too bad because there is a lot of gray here. I do say that it's coming. Unknown Speaker 49:14 I do think that you know Ohio will have a tagline, we'll see what that is and we definitely want to, you know, have our own tagline, like, make sure you're visiting Ohio museums during the anniversary, obviously that's too long but some kind of museum specific tagline. And just to bring in some more thoughts, Kim, I love your idea of a historical schoolhouse group. Why don't people throw into the chat. Some other groups that they, they are thinking of as we said we know there's presidential we know there's aviation I'm sure there's others also the idea of tick tock while our goal. We have a big tick tock fan haven't quite got into making our museum channel yet, but our media person that we hire would be great if they can make museum tiktoks I see historic village group of Jacob, that's you. Yeah, Unknown Speaker 50:01 it's gonna say Wendy, I saw the question What about sharing I don't know if you're aware that sunburn village is celebrating its 50th year it also. So, Unknown Speaker 50:11 there are actually some things that we look at that as a precursor you know we're doing, it's next year. There are some things coming about prior to the 250 and we've been trying to get the governor to come to Schaumburg because we're like this, this is the first day it kicks it off, but in our own neighborhood we have bought Lauren's engineering hat and so many of you may have things that are coming even earlier than the official kickoff. And then we have to look at the long term, this is a really long period of time and how do we sustain this and everything project that we do we're going to have to be able to sustain it over that period of time so there's a lot of things to consider as we go forward with the plans. The question on our working calendar Yeah, that's one thing that we really want to have is what is everybody doing we need to be Clearinghouse, we need to take this info, and get it out to the public so our goal is to have an online calendar, and we're going to use the committee and we are going to use the all our regional reps to continually bring this information back to their regions, so that everybody has opportunity to know what's going on and what way they can get involved. On the state level and the local level and the regional level. Unknown Speaker 51:25 Yeah, it'll basically serve as the our liaison on the actual commission will then bring back everything that they've learned to our Ola meeting our board meetings and then also the subcommittee meetings, and then from there, it'll be disseminated through the region rep. So in the local historian to. Unknown Speaker 51:50 We, so there you go, there you. There it is like the first one who emails us get a prize or something but sighs Christie, and she and I are going to tag team it and try to answer, and start collecting names and addresses like just collecting information so when we need at the end of the year we sort of decided at this point, it made sense for our committee not to meet till after the commission meeting, so that we are not wasting people's time and have a clearer picture of what the objectives and goals are there. And so she and I'm going to be honest with you struggle on what all to tell you because this is where we're at. A lot of work, a lot of work has gone into getting to this point, but we don't know anything else. Yeah, so we Todd can tell you there was a whole we can do a whole session on the struggle to get this through the ohio legislature, and what happened there, and are our pains of creating this, this, this committee. But we thought we'd just keep it brief and tell you where we are. Unknown Speaker 52:58 Well, and as far as our next steps I mean it's really kind of just getting our the office keep housekeeping stuff in order, leading up to when the commission meets, and then at that point then we'll have, we should have everything in place to be able to share the actual next steps moving parts with everyone. And as far as the question about will most people be celebrating two memories from August playing 25 to July 2026 Or will it only be the 2026 year. I think that really depends on your site, I think it depends on what works for your organization. Depending on the type of programming and exhibits you're planning those take a lot of work, and I know everybody right now is feeling a little bit of burnout, so don't stress thinking that you have to do something every single year. I know myself with my museum we're planning a large exhibit. That would be from November 2025 Going into March of 2026 with some other exhibits around it that touch on American art history. But the one big thing and then other things all around it just to continue with the momentum affiliation groups be formed, I think, you know that really, what is your group, and who do you know already that works, I mean, we're a relatively small. I guess somewhat community we, we have a lot of networking connections and I'm sure that you know for example with the historic school houses you probably know somebody else has done a historic school house, talk to that other site. If you're a Presidential Library Museum talk to another Presidential Library Museum reach out to them, see if they're interested in forming, you know, your affiliation group, and then keep in contact with us. That way we know what will connect with what you're doing. Unknown Speaker 55:03 I think that's exactly right. So the only these affiliation groups will sort of start organically with your partners, so maybe I want to create a railroad affiliation group or World War Two military group. And, or as we go through this process, we may find a story you know like what we really need is this, this group to step up and create an affiliated affiliation group so that we can make sure there is sort of a story that's being missed what our organization will do is keep a list of affiliated groups, and what we're going to want is a contact, we're going to want to know that contact, you don't need to know the whole committee or when you meet and all that stuff. We're going to need to know the contact and what your goals are, what your projects are so that we can communicate Qaeda in some of those are going to, you know, cross paths on projects and we can say hey you, you school people there's also a village people and you know I have a school house in the village so you can connect to each other. So the other Unknown Speaker 56:02 part of it. I think the other part is, you know, I know we have a small staff, we want to do some amazing things, you know at my site, my museum. And for some of those bigger things. It's hard with the numbers that you might have especially if you're a volunteer, primarily volunteer run or you have, You know, we have nine full time staff members and that might even be generous compared to some. But another option is to within your county, join forces. You know, so maybe a start county group where my museum is working with the Maslin Museum, And you know the McKinley Museum and the Pro Football Hall of Fame and we all kind of join forces and you can do that with like your peers that you know are local to you. Unknown Speaker 56:52 Right, we struggle with this with this a schonbrunn village where we were looking at a two year anniversary and how could we keep that going, one of the easy things we did was a speaker speakers panel, so you can create something like that and have all your partner museums in your region, hey, you know, you're in charge of this month, somebody else has another month, sort of delegate. So yeah, you do not have to do the whole multiple years it could be one big shebang, it could be multiple, it could be a partnership ongoing program. It could be a traveling exhibit that you're going to travel across the state for the length of the of the celebration. There's many ways to get involved so I guess what we're suggesting is go back to your regions and your organizations and start thinking and brainstorming and connecting with Christina and thinking about how, what level of involvement, do you want to do, and what are your ideas. Unknown Speaker 57:59 So, yeah, we think they'll meet at the end of the year, or at least the end of the year for single hopefully commission does is decided on some money getting money, and then we will be going and asking for a portion of that to help us if we don't get that portion of money we'll find another way to get some funding to hire some help, so there will be a regular project person that you can connect in probably a part time position and immediate person that we can all connect with. Unknown Speaker 58:33 Going back to the question, how can non history museums get involved. Technically, you know, I'm from an art museum, so it's not traditionally viewed as a history museum, although we're an American Art Museum, so we are American history, kind of, by default, but, um, get creative. Like I said I, the exhibit that I'm working on is about women, of American art who really elevated American art and going through the 250 years and highlighting some of those names. Some of those, that kind of got lost through time. And as far as anyone from the arts community. I've been talking with locally, Archie Stark and, you know some people we had a project in Canton, with the Hall of Fame. That was the 11 projects that was outdoor sculptures murals, highlighting the 11 greatest events of NFL history. And with that, I'm trying to pick the brain of those that were involved in that project because as we consider the mural project kind of gauging the feasibility and what we can do there. I don't want to invent the wheel, reinvent the wheel, we want to go off of what others have done and kind of build onto that for our project. So, Unknown Speaker 59:58 by all means, I would strongly believe that the art museums will have an affiliation group, and I would expect it to be a very active one. And probably already has some representation on the Ohio commission somehow. But we do have Unknown Speaker 1:00:14 the Ohio Arts Council does have a seat on the commission. And then we also have somebody from the Ohio Arts Council on our committee. So, we are involving the arts and we're hoping that we can, you know, really get some great initiatives going, Unknown Speaker 1:00:35 and credit to Christie like from day one, she's like, this has to be include non history museums, art museums as well. Unknown Speaker 1:00:43 Are you reading the questions, yes I'm really quite you know go ahead I'm just starting to catch up with him. Go ahead. I'm a template for 250 events I think it's too early to really kind of know those details until after we meet with the Commission guidance on addressing indigenous history in relation to the 250th anniversary. That is an area two that we're hoping to have covered on our committee with. And Wendy Sowmya Unknown Speaker 1:01:22 definitely very important piece of our history and our interpretation, and we have a seat for the American Indian relations person's person from the Ohio History Connection, because we want to make sure we're including that history as well so what's happening. Okay, so what Jacob was sharing that yes, I'm sure that there there's going to be standards from American 250 from the state that we will continue to use in terms of yes, there probably will be a template created for different things there will be, press releases, there will be standard taglines there will be standard hashtags all this stuff. I'm sure it's going to be developed and shared with us and then there's a point where we can be creative and create our own, but yes there there's going to be consistency and we want consistency and then we can share that info with the affiliation groups so that they continue the standards high standards that we have set in the state of Ohio for America 250 Questions Christy. Unknown Speaker 1:02:38 I don't think so. I think really it's just one of those. Keep watching for information, it's coming. We promise as soon as we get more information. We will share that information because it's of no value for us to have it and just hold on to it. Because you're the ones that make everything happen, so. Yeah. Are there any other questions. Unknown Speaker 1:03:06 Just to recap, go forth, start thinking of ideas go forth and start contacting your peers and think about affiliation groups continue to read what America 250 is doing and what our neighbors are doing, because those are going to make our ideas, even better. Since, Christy and I some emails. Some questions you put some things in here today we haven't even thought about yet. It is very true we're making this up as we go. We have some great committee people and leadership at Oh H C and O Ma that's helping us. And I think our committee we're putting together is excellent. So that Ohio's not gonna miss out on this celebration, we're gonna make the most of it, and we want to bring everybody along with us. Unknown Speaker 1:03:53 Absolutely. Unknown Speaker 1:03:59 Well, if there's no other questions, I'm sorry it's a short session I really honestly don't have much else to say at this time. Unknown Speaker 1:04:11 I'll stop the share. Unknown Speaker 1:04:14 Like when Jacob said so Hieros leader in many things let's be a leader here Yeah, you know, we're all looking at Pennsylvania, let's when we catch up, people are gonna be looking at Ohio, what is what are they doing for this and we'll be done a Unknown Speaker 1:04:27 lot in Ohio that I think people forget that we are the fourth of two. And I think that this is the perfect opportunity to bring all that back to everyone's minds, Unknown Speaker 1:04:37 and we have history, we have stories we have culture. This day tell everybody. Unknown Speaker 1:04:44 Thanks so much, Christy and Wendy. With that, let's conclude Yeah. Unknown Speaker 1:04:50 Thank you so much. Unknown Speaker 1:04:51 All right you. Transcribed by https://otter.ai