What will the Germanna Association be and do? First, most anyone can be members, but only Germanna descendants can be Trustees. Please note that I am only repeating what I remember and it should not be taken as authoritative. The actual membership rules will be set by the Association Directors. So far, there are no rules which have been set down and it will be a first order of business to establish the rules and purposes. The votes of the Association members will be to elect new Directors, three each year. The business of the Association will be conducted by the fifteen Directors. (The first fifteen Directors have already been elected; I can’t find my list of these names so perhaps someone else could give us these names. Also, it would be good to have their addresses so we could communicate our thoughts to them.)
One Director has already told me that he/she has four pages of questions, concerns, and agenda items. Some of this could be discussed publically before the Directors meet.
One of the first items for the Directors of the Association will be to determine their relationship to the Germanna Foundation. The two are independent, but working, hopefully, toward some common objectives.
Second, will the Germanna Association have any budget? How will this money be raised?
Without some money, a group is rather powerless. Or can they only recommend a specific action to the Foundation and gain its approval?
What are some of the outstanding needs of all of the Germanna people? It would seem to me that publications are high on the list. First, there is the short term need in the form of newsletters. Then there are the long , or semipermanent, publications.
To give an example, I noticed that Germanna Record 13 which treats the Blankenbaker, Weaver, and Willheit families has been republished by merely reissuing the old volume with all of its errors and omissions (there are several serious ones). This was really sad to invest the money in the propagation of the errors which are known and in omitting the new history which is a part of the public domain by now. To continue to publish these out of date volumes only weakens the image of the Foundation. For starters, the Foundation should give the Association the projected end dates of the inventory of the Germanna Records. Then it should be decided which of these should be reedited before the next edition or printing is issued.
Where is the labor to come from? Let’s leave that for a future note.
(25 Jul 06)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.