The Southborough Historical Society is inviting the community to join their Annual Meeting tomorrow. It will be combined with a celebration. And they have a lot to celebrate.
They also presumably have a lot of work to do. So, it’s a good time for supporters to check in with them on what’s going on.
The group will hold its Annual Meeting followed by a celebration of the “soft” re-opening of the Southborough Historical Museum. The event begins at 4:00 pm on Saturday, April 29 at the museum (25 Common Street):
We’ll host our annual meeting from 4:00-4:30 to discus renovations to date and our plans for the future; afterwards you can enjoy some delicious nibbles and a glass of wine as you view our newly renovated research area and gallery meeting rooms, decorated with images and objects from our collections — many never before on view!
It’ll be a fun introduction to both our new space and your fellow Southborough history buffs; plus you can learn about some engaging volunteer opportunities we’ll be offering over the next year.
Festive spirits are sure to be buoyed by preservationists’ (mostly) wins at this year’s Annual Town Meeting.
The Society’s Community Preservation Act projects were approved. As their website describes:
Articles 15 & 16 are requests from the Historical Society to finish the climate control work at the Flagg school, and to seek CPC funding for curatorial work on the collections. We’ve made vast strides since our flooding disaster, but we still have a long way to go. This year we will begin working with the Digital Commonwealth Project, digitizing the vast majority of our paper collections to make them widely available for the first time. The curatorial funds we are requesting are a critical step in this process.
Plus, fellow (and overlapping) history buffs at the Historical Commission helped create and pass these articles:
- Articles 26-30 to allow Adaptive Reuse of Historic Buildings. That bylaw changes will encourage owners of historic buildings to preserve their facades. And it increases the chance that the facade of historic Fayville Hall, which the Town will be seeking to sell, will be preserved.*
- Article 34 to hire an expert to complete required paperwork to secure the Town’s National Register District for the Main Street area. This will hopefully encourage property owners in the area to value and preserve historic buildings.
In addition, the Historical Commission will be creating a senior tax write-off position for someone to work on the Town’s Historical Records. And Article 21 approved increasing the potential workoff limit to $1,500.
And CPC’s Article 17 will allow removal of invasive species from Breakneck Hill Conservation Land.
*There was also one “loss” in some preservationists eyes. An amendment to require the Fayville Hall sale require a preservation restriction failed. But Selectmen did promise that they would value preservation in their decision to sell.
