My first month as APHNYS President has been busy as I adjust to the role and transition some of my previous activities as 2nd Vice President to our Vice Presidents Julie Madlin and Lauren Roberts. And the rest of the board has been busy too.
The program and local arrangements committees have met to discuss our fall conference, to be held September 18-20 in Ithaca. We expect soon to have the conference theme set and will be issuing the call for proposals. The local arrangements committee is finding a number of tour options – the committee’s big challenge will be winnowing them down to a manageable number. Ithaca has a lot to offer.
The membership committee, comprised of our regional coordinators and chaired by Julie Madlin and APHNYS Director Babette Huber, met in late January, mainly to discuss the spring regional meetings that several regions are planning. A list of our regional coordinators is at Association of Public Historians of New York State - APHNYS Officers, Directors and Regional Coordinators. We still are looking for coordinators for Regions 1 (New York City), 3 (Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, and Westchester Counties) and 10 (Broome, Chemung, Chenango, Schuyler, Tioga, and Tompkins Counties).
APHNYS Director Jason Parkman has been working with the William G. Pomeroy Foundation on their plans for the inaugural Historic Marker Day, set for April 28. The purpose of the day is to clean historic markers. The Pomeroy Foundation would like to make this an annual event. More information about this is located at National Historic Marker Day | William G. Pomeroy Foundation (wgpfoundation.org). This is a great opportunity to involve various members of your communities in taking care of these markers. The site includes information on how to properly clean these. And it isn’t limited to just Pomeroy markers but all historic markers.
A reminder that all local government historian’s annual reports are to be submitted, not only to their appointing authority, but to the New York State Historian. An on-line form is available at Historian Annual Report Form | The New York State Museum (nysed.gov). The site also gives you an option to download the form and submit it that way.
I want to alert everyone to scam/phishing e-mails that our board have been receiving. Messages appear to come from me or from our treasurer Zach Studenroth. They often, but not always, reference the need for assistance in carrying out some type of financial transaction. Sometimes the ones coming to me are more along the line of “do you have a few minutes to talk today?” They appear to come from the publichistoriansnys@gmail.com address, but if you look more closely or hit reply, you’ll see a totally different address.
We have not heard of any of our members getting such messages, but we thought we should alert you just in case. If you ever get something like this from us, do not respond to it. There isn’t much we can do to prevent this. Scammers often go to public websites and harvest the information. The main thing we can do is be vigilant. Whenever you get an e-mail from anyone that makes you a little nervous, listen to your instincts and check it out before making any response.
Don’t forget to renew your APHNYS membership if you have yet to do so. You can do it on-line with your credit by going to Association of Public Historians of New York State - Join (aphnys.org). You can download a membership form if you prefer to mail in your check. The form is at 2023 APHNYS Dues and Membership Form.pdf.
Ray LaFever, APHNYS President
