Executive Director’s Report July 7, 2015

Newnan-Coweta Historical Society

SUMMARY During June the McRitchie-Hollis Museum and the Depot have been host to a number of events,

including an auction, a funeral, four weddings, a movie shoot, a “Night at the Museum”

children’s acting class, a quilting class, and a new exhibit opening. We have also applied for and

received a $2,000 programming grant from the Georgia Humanities Council. The new art project

for the Children’s Museum was also unveiled this month, to great acclaim. Over 4,000 archival

items were entered into the new Past Perfect collections management system. We also published

a new book and computer app for the new “Golden Era if Hollywood” exhibit. Three new rental

contracts were signed, totaling $3,500. New employee Ellen Jenkins also came on board.

Volunteer Hours

Ellen Corker volunteered approximately 103 hours this month. She assisted by giving tours,

turning lights on and off, preparing for events, welcoming visitors, updating the website and

social media, cleaning up, purchasing office supplies and refreshments, assisting with research

requests from the public, writing correspondence, taking down and putting up exhibits, etc.

Dorothy Pope volunteered approximately 80 hours. This included time working on organizing

and cleaning the archives and setting up new shelving.

Various committee members also volunteered their time this month, including volunteers with

the Childrens Committee and the Collections Committee. Over 250 total volunteer hours were

logged this month.

Events / Exhibits / Programming

Director Jeff Bishop spoke about Newnan history and the historical society’s mission at the

Coweta County Public Library on June 11 and at the White Oak Golden K on June 4.

On June 7 the new art project to support the Children’s Museum was unveiled at the Powell

Expo Center. The event was well-attended and the debut of the new art on the Square resulted in

positive coverage on the front page and editorial page of the Times-Herald newspaper.

The newest exhibit at the McRitchie-Hollis Museum, “Herb Bridges’ Golden Era of

Hollywood,” featuring original movie poster art collected by Herb Bridges, opened June 27.

Approxiomately 50 people attended the opening. These amazing images are original paintings

done by artist Sid Smith and others for the Loew’s theatre in Atlanta to promote first-run

features.

We are also prominently featuring a green bonnet worn by Vivien Leigh as part of this exhibit.

This is the bonnet Rhett Butler purchased for Scarlett from Paris, France.

We also have recorded and transcribed a 45-minute interview with Herb Bridges discussing his

“Gone With the Wind” and movie poster collections, and part of this was integrated into the new

exhibit with interactive push buttons and a special tour book.

The new exhibit has been prominently featured in the Times-Herald and Citizen newspapers, and

should be featured in a future edition of the AJC.

During June, the McRitchie-Hollis Musuem continued its monthly “Scrapbook Crop.” The

“Scraptacular” meets on the third Wednesday of each month, encouraging people to celebrate

their own personal histories and stories through the art of scrapbooking. Jessie Merrell is heading

up this new activity.

We collaborated with the Newnan Theatre Company in June for their “Night at the Museum”

summer kids’ camp. Approximately 20 students participated and held activities at the McRitchie-

Hollis Museum and at the Depot.

We also held a one-week quilting camp for kids, headed up by volunteer Barbara Reed, who is

also assisting us with the upcoming Quilt Expo this fall, and accompanying exhibit.

The June auction of the Blackwell estate resulted in the donation of a new $400 lectern / podium

from Robert Hancock, as well as over $15,000 to the Children’s Museum. Thank you letters have

been sent.

We receive “thank you” notes from time to time regarding the exhibits and tours. This one

arrived from Tom Barnett last week:

Upcoming:

We have been approved by the Georgia Humanities Council for a new $2,000 programming

grant. This series, called “The Reel Past,” begins next week, July 15 and 19, with “Murder in

Coweta County”-themed events, and continues through the fall with events focused on Erskine

Caldwell, Dunaway Gardens, and the Senoia film and TV industry. Look for more information

on this in the next week. Currently the “Reel Past” programs are slated for July 15 (a “Flies at the

Well” update and roundtable, with a preview of scenes and songs), July 18 (a lecture on

Mayhayley Lancaster, with local fortune teller Crystal Lynn and writer / academic Melissa

Jackson), August 20 (Dr. Randy Hendricks will speak about Southern stereotypes in the work of

Erskine Caldwell); September 13 (a joint program at Dunaway Gardens featuring the Newnan

Theatre Company and Dr. Charlotte Canning of the University of Texas at Austin, an expert on

the old Chautauqua circuit and women in early American theater); and October 15 (the impact of

film and television on Senoia and Coweta County).

Future exhibits will feature the art work Millie Gosch, opening late this fall, and of David Boyd,

Jr. and his father, cartoonist David Boyd, opening in the winter. Other upcoming exbits examine

the evolution of the long-running “Possum Eater’s Convention”; the art work of local folk artist

Sherry Cook; a transportation-themed exhibit with the local Art Association to coincide with the

opening of the new Children’s Museum exhibit; a Quilt Expo and new quilt exhibit at the re-

opened Male Academy Museum; the Hugh Buchanan uniform exhibit; and student art movie

posters at the McRitchie-Hollis. Future programs include a Pilliard Dickle one-man show and a

harp concert recital, as well as Elizabeth Beers’ program on “How to Speak Southern.”

We have negotiated with Speedee films for the loan of four costumes from the new Michael

Keaton movie about “The Founder” of McDonald’s, Ray Kroc. We will have these costumes on

display from January through April at the McRitchie-Hollis Museum.

Research Aid Requests

We continue to receive regular requests to assist local residents (as well as out-of-towners with

local connections) with research assistance concerning local history, local businesses, families,

genealogy, and architecture. Ellen Corker has been handling most of these requests, especially

when they take more than a five-minute phone call to resolve. She received this thank-you note

from one of the people she assisted last week:

Membership / Admissions / Gift Shop

Memberships continue to come in, even though the official membership drive for this year is

over. We have exceeded 150 paid memberships, compared to 130 in 2014 and 128 in 2013. Paid

memberships total $12,800. Our newest members are Tippie Conner and Ashley Reeder. June

admissions totaled approximately $127. They included visitors from Savannah; Newnan; Coca

Beach, FL; Grantville; Centerville, OR; Sharpsburg; Graniteville, SC; Santa Fe, NM; Dallas,

TX; Silver Hill, AL; Augusta; Valdosta; Hamilton, AL; Louisiana; Bellevue; KY; and Peachtree

City . Gift shop sales totaled $306.99 (136 items).

We have established, for the first time, an online gift shop, which will be “going live” later this

month. You can see it at giftshop.newnancowetahistoricalsociety.com. This will allow people

who live out-of-town or who don’t want to physically come by the museum to purchase items

from our gift shop.

Rentals

There were three new Depot rental contracts signed during June, for a total of $3,500. These

were for Ashlyn Hill, Carter Campbell, and Theresa Parham. Rentals during June included the

Sandlin wedding reception at the McRitchie-Hollis Museum; the Nell Blackwell estate auction at

the Depot; Speedee film productions use of the Depot for the filming of the Michael Keaton film

“The Founder”; and weddings / receptions for Chip Gordon, Hilary Snapp, and Hillary Garner.

Facilities and Grounds

Mark Johnston, Facilities and Maintenance Director from the City of Newnan, is soliciting bids

to repair rotten flooring, install new insulation, and re-paint the interior of the Male Academy

Museum in anticipation of a fall, 2015 re-opening. The exterior work (re-painting, replacing

rotten boards) is also on the city’s calendar but may not occur until the following fiscal year due

to the costs involved.

We took the Millie Gosch horse from the court square and re-located it to the grounds of the

McRitchie-Hollis Museum.

City crews have been working on improving the outside of the Clark Street building. New gutters

have been installed and work has been done on the front porch.

New door handles have been installed on the exterior doors of the Depot.

Collections / Projects

Over 4,000 items from the collection were successfully entered into the new Past Perfect

collections management system this month. Assisting us in this effort were students in the Public

History program of the University of West Georgia who are taking Museum Collections

Management courses this summer. These students are helping us document the items in our

collection by assisting with research and additional photography of the items.

Thousands of photos that appeared in the Coweta County Remembered feature in the Newnan

Times-Herald, which ran for over 30 years on a weekly basis, are now in the permanent

collection. They are currently being sorted and organized and a finding aid is being developed.

These will all be digitized and copies will be made available for purchase by the public. These

are a treasure trove of local history that will greatly aid in the development of future exhibits,

books, and educational literature. As a follow-up to the successful “Newnan” photo book

published by Arcadia Press (proceeds of which go to the NCHS), a follow-up book focusing on

the rest of the county is being developed this summer by Jeff Bishop and former president Tom

Camp. Some of the Coweta County Remembered photos will be utilized, as well as new photos

that are being taken of historic properties. The proceeds of this new book will also go to the

Newnan-Coweta Historical Society.

Items that were deemed not to be designated as part of the NCHS permanent collections have

been auctioned to the public last month, which generated over $2,500 for the acquisition fund,

which will be added to the $250 that was generated earlier, in addition to existing funds from the

Hollis Testamentary Trust.

The Collections Committee also met and discussed areas of focus for the collections as we move

into the future. Items of focus may include areas that are currently under-represented in the

collections, as well as increasing items related to local celebrities.

Marketing

Several articles appeared this month in the Newnan Times-Herald, featuring the Newnan-Coweta

Historical Society and its museums and programs. We have also been featured / listed in 85

South, the Coweta Citizen, the Newnan-Coweta magazine, etc. The new brochure has been

distributed around town again after the first run ran out. We are about to surpass 1,000 “likes” on

Facebook.

The analytics on our web domain, www.newnancowetahistoricalsociety.com, show our traffic

has nearly DOUBLED since January:

“Unique visitors” have increased from 1,065 in January to 1,766 in June.

“Number of visits” have increased from 1,541 in Jan. to 2,728 last month.

Pages visited has gone up from 7,341 to 18,797.

Hits have increased from just over 30,000 to over 43,000 in a month.

Here is the complete breakdown:

This completes the July, 2015 Executive Director’s report.

Respectfully submitted,

Jeff Bishop

Director