Greetings: The Winn Parish Police Jury voted unanimously tonight to furnish a permanent residence to house the Winn Parish Genealogical & Historical Association in the Winn Parish Health Unit (old Martin's Hospital) Last week, Juror Edward "Cabbage" Hamilton and I went to the Health Unit and Mrs. Inez Anyan, director, gave us a tour of the available space. Mrs. Anyan was more than accomodating and welcomed us to locate in the Unit. Juror Hamilton handled the motion for us tonight at the jury meeting. (A letter of appreciation rom our organization to him and the rest of the jury would be in order-Chris or Annette, don't you agree?). I will attempt to obtain a key tomorrow and begin hustling materials, etc., needed to get the space ready to use. Also, I plan to get locks on the respective rooms as soon as possible for various reasons, first, because I am stingy and don't want to fight with anyone who might try and grab this steal from us, and second, I hope to begin amassing some materials for needed work on the rooms. Now, for some info concerning all this. The main drawback I forsee is that the rooms are on the second floor, and the elevator in the building does not work. Our access will be from the outside stairway on the south side of the building, nearest Church Street, or the east side of the building. There is plenty of parking in the alley between the Health Unit and the Citgo U-Pak-It, as well as parking beside and around the building. For those of you on the lists not familiar with where we are talking about, the Health Unit is next door to the Winn Parish Library and across the street from the First United Methodist Church. Secondly, the rooms are in pretty good shape. The carpet appears to be fine, and the walls are painted nicely. I am not sure these rooms have ever been used. However, some renovations be necessary, and will entail getting rid of some non-functioning sinks in a couple of the rooms. We have a total of three rooms, all next to one another. The largest room, a corner room, is in the middle. I propose knocking out a wall between it and the adjoining room that does not have a bathroom between the two, enabling us to have a large room for meeting. Remember, these are old hospital rooms. Also, the hall outside is big enough to sit folks in an assembly in the event we ever need to. As our meetings are on Saturdays, we will not have much worry about sharing the building at any time with any other groups, etc. The other room could not be connected to the other two without major cost. A shower, commode and sink are in the way and major bucks will be necessary to undertake such a renovation. I propose to use that "other" room as our "office" and library. At present, I see no way to maintain any type kitchen facility due to the cost of renovation. We'll have to make do. I will have someone with more sense than I, and that could be most anyone, to talke a look and see if it would be feasible and without a lot of trouble to put a small bar or sink in the place. We are dealing with old plumbing, etc., and we don't want to be the one to cause a leak on those below us. I wouldn't want to get kicked out before we get kicked in. A public restroom facility is down the hall. It ain't the best one that's come down the pike but those of us raised in olden days are familiar with outhouses. This one is is better than an outhouse. Don't be disappointed. Now, I have probably left out something, but don't want to leave out the most important part. As we have begun accumulating quite a library and certain equipment, and hopefully we will continue to do so, we must begin making preparations to get this space in order. That will require some funding. At the last monthly meeting, we voted to spend from our small reserve whatever we could afford, toward this project, if the police jury passed on it. They have and we now must begin whatever we are going to do. We might possibly need more money than we have to get this space in the condition it needs to be. Bookshelves, furniture (desk, tables, we have 20 nice chairs we have already bought, which will not be enough) and lighting (the other drawback I forgot to mention-the lighting is terrible and non-existent in one or two of the rooms so we need some flourescent[?] fixtures) are all needed and I am making a personal plea to those of you who can afford and wish to do so, to please make any contributions to this effort. I do not propose to lavishly furnish this new home of ours as Donald Trump or Bill Gates might. I pledge that I will not be extravagant, but, I won't this home of ours to be presentable. We are fortunate to get it. We now have a permanent home, rent and utility free so I say we should proudly make it presentable and usable. What we thought a year ago to be a dream is now a reality and we should take full advantage of it. I would like to hear feedback from everyone in the association and maybe some of you have some ideas that would be of help. I know I don't have all the answers. I do plan to get as much as of the material, labor, etc., donated. I don't think we will run into a huge expense, but, some expense none the less. Thanks for indulging. Comments or curses? Gregg Greggory E. Davies 120 Ted Price Lane Winnfield, LA 71483 [email protected]