Sackett Family Association members: As I sat down to recap the September meeting for you, I thought wouldn't it be great to hear more from the rest of the Sacketts in the world? How can we do that? We held our business meeting at the 2012 Sackett Reunion in Westfield. Anne Murray graciously volunteered to take the minutes of the meeting. I would like to strongly recommend that you visit the website and read over the minutes. http://sackettfamily.info/committee2012.htm I would like to present to the Association membership those items, much abbreviated, that I feel are especially important to the members. I hope that we can generate some feedback and other ideas. I hope you will stick with me on this! *At the time of the reunion we were at 380 members, now 394. *Thurmon told us about "Find A Grave" - very neat check it out! *Chris Sackett received "The Guild of One-Name Studies Award of Excellence 2012" Great job, but then we already knew how neat it is! *Thurmon's database has 37,000 names in it. We discussed changing the "born by" cutoff date. After much discussion it was decided to leave it at 1920. *The Simon Sackett Plaque effort has been revitalized. Members are working to get estimates of a flat block that would be laid in the pathway. An application is being drawn up that will be submitted to the Cambridge Historical Commission for approval. Once we get approval and a cost estimate it was decided to fund it from commitments by the membership for a specific contribution. ie $30. Once we know the cost of the stone, engraving and the installation we will know how many commitments we will need. If you would like to help in any way with this project, contact anyone on the committee and we will gladly accept your help!! *The next Sackett Reunion. After much discussion there was no clear decision. In the end it comes down to this: If no one steps up to convene the next reunion, it will likely take place in Salt Lake City. Please look at the minutes and see what other ideas were tossed about. Hosting the reunion was fun for Sharon and myself. I got a new friend; Steve bought me a new camera and new printer!! Now that was a great deal for me!!! Think what you could work out!!! *Cemetery restoration. Do you know a cemetery that has head stones that are crumbling away? I will be looking into replacing a stone for Reuben Sackett in Warren, Ct. This will be a test case to see how we can work within the organization to do projects such as these. Maybe we will use the same commitment idea as we are planning on using for the Simon Plaque. *Genealogical materials and what to do with them when you inherit them. After much discussion it was decided that the best thing to do would be to CATALOG the items before donating them to an appropriate historical society. It was stressed how important the cataloging would be. *The Association Committee is composed of 14 members, please think about running for a spot in the next election. We can always use new ideas and new faces!! *The Newspaper Project was discussed and has been idle for a bit, but Chris will be relaunching it shortly. Check out the website. *General discussion included some thoughts for the future. Chris would like to write a book on English Sacketts or US Sacketts through the 2nd generation. Is there anything that you might have that would benefit the organization? Pictures, letters, Bible transcriptions, wills??? Who knows what might smash someone's brick wall! Thanks for reading through this, nothing will replace the actual minutes, but at least you get an idea as to where we are headed. As we are heading into the last few weeks of 2012, I want to thank you for your support in 2012!! Debbie Barbee TSFA President