Yesterday being May 1st, this was my response...........
May 1st turned out to be a very good day for me. I have days when i feel like education, experiences, skills, ideas i have are not valued by anybody any more. But, a few weeks ago i read in the Historyo News Newsletter about an event called a “History Camp”, basically an “unconference” where people just show up at a pre-arranged place and time and decide what they want to talk about, within a perimeter.
I was one of the founders of the Alice Paul Institute, an agency that owns AP’s house and whose mission is to keep women’s history alive – especially the suffrage and ERA history, and is a center for training women and girls in leadership skills. I thought it might be an event that they would be interested in collaborating on, so i sent it on to several women involved with the Institute with not much hope of getting a response (as with most public history sites and especially those related to women’s history, they are very short staffed and short of funds).
Surprisingly, it was apparently the right idea at the right time. Yesterday, two API staff members, a public historian from Rutgers U and i had an initial brainstorming session for a “history camp” type of event in the Spring of 2015, for public history sites in the South Jersey/Philadelphia area. It was exactly the kind of grass roots, brainstorming/planning exercise that i have missed so much having retired about a decade ago and having only intermittent brain-challenging activities since then. As the meeting ended i recalled that i had once heard someone say that her Mother had told her “if you can’t find an event/activity that you want to participate in, start it yourself!” I thought “maybe i just did that.”
I left there and stopped at my library to pick up your book The New Senior Woman which was on hold for me, having requested it after hearing about “Elder Chicks” online or on tv, don’t remember which. So June isn’t bustin’ out yet, but May started out pretty well for this Elder Chick. I’m looking forward to your book and your blog in the coming weeks.
