Lenox begins preparing for 250th anniversary

The Lenox Historical Committee, housed in the Acade- my Building (above) has begun work on the celebration.

LENOX – The town’s 250th anniversary may be five years away, but Lenox has already begun preparations to make sure it’ll be a memorable one.

Lucy Kennedy of the Lenox Historical Commission introduced the idea of planning for the town’s 250th anniversary at the select board’s meeting on July 25 and the board suggested she send some ideas about what could be done. At the Sept. 5 meeting, Ms. Kennedy gave a presentation on these ideas.

In her presentation, Ms. Kennedy produced records of some of Lenox’s previous anniversary celebrations. She also pointed to Sandisfield’s recent bicentennial celebration as having some worthwhile ideas.

“This is not the first time we’ve done this but I think we could make it the best time we’ve done it,” she said. “The historical commission is anxious to see this get started but we’d really like to make it a town activity.”

Ms. Kennedy also advocated for the formation of a new committee to craft and implement the anniversary plans.

“I was hoping to come away from the meeting tonight with a sense of having…a select board take on setting up a charter for the committee, maybe thinking a little bit of who would be on it,” she said.

With the approval of the select board, Ms. Kennedy then gave her thoughts on what that mandate should entail, thoughts she’d also included in her note to the selectmen.

She gave a number of suggestions, including gathering ideas from local residents organizations and committees, examining other 250th anniversary celebrations and evaluating activities based on the engagement of Lenox residents, attracting tourists and contributing to education.

“I think for a 250th, Lenox residents may be more important than tourists,” she said.

Ms. Kennedy also talked about leveraging existing town activities, coming up with a budget and developing a plan that could be presented to the select board. She suggested that after an agreement was made on a budget, the proposal could be brought before the May 2014 Town Meeting.

“Everything should probably be in place by June 1, 2016 for a 2017 yea-long celebration,” she said.

Ms. Kennedy also suggested the anniversary committee could have subcommittees that could concentrate on specific areas, such as Lenox Dale and the schools.

Lenox Historical Commission Chairwoman Olga Weiss also spoke and said the commission had come up with lists of different organizations that could be included in the anniversary plans, which she presented to the selectmen. She also said they were thinking that a student and senior oral history project could be incorporated into the 250th, where students would interview seniors for oral history over the course of a year.

As for why the commission was asking the board of selectmen to form a committee, Ms. Kennedy said the commission wanted it to be an all-town activity and doesn’t have the manpower, or the budget, to do a 250th anniversary on its own.

Select Board Chairman Kenneth Fowler said he foresaw the commission playing an important role in this endeavor.

“I almost feel like that we…[should be] careful that we don’t get in the way,” he said.

“Somewhere along the line some magic needs to happen that makes it an all-town activity,” said Ms. Kennedy, pointing out how Lenox’s 200th and 225th celebration seemed to have been very hands-on.

Because of this sentiment, the board of selectmen agreed to make a new committee, as opposed to just a subcommittee of the historic commission, in order to organically involve more organizations and committees in the planning.

“The good news is it would disband in 2017,” joked Ms. Kennedy.

As for who will be on the committee, the board decided to look at Ms. Kennedy’s suggestions, and present an idea for whom would be on the committee, as well as its mandate, at their next meeting.

“May I suggest that we would like to participate in that process,” said Chairwoman Weiss.

She suggested that the historic commission could generate more suggestions about the committee’s composition, and the selectmen agreed, so long as they were given before the next meeting.

The historic commission also requested that they be involved in the decision-making process once the selectmen receive applications for membership to the committee.

“Once we make up the committee then there’ll be a two-week period or four-week period for people to put in their applications,” said Selectman John McNinch.

Posted by Bera B. Dunau on September 20, 2012. Filed under Community News,Featured,News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry