HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-05-02-MMC-min
Monuments & Memorials Committee, Lexington, MA
Minutes of Meeting
May 2, 2024
By Zoom Teleconference
Members Present: Linda Dixon, Chair; Avram Baskin, Glen Bassett, Liz Huttner, Leslie
Masson, Nick Wong.
Members not present: Bebe Fallick, George Gamota.
Guests: New prospective member Mirela Vaso; Bill Poole and Regina Sutton, volunteer
workers; Dawn McKenna, Zaq Landsberg, and Thomas Robinson, community members.
Business
Chair Linda opened the meeting at 4:05 and declared that a quorum was present. She announced
that Nick Wong and Liz Huttner were officially appointed to the committee at the Select Board
meeting of April 29 and gave them a warm welcome on behalf of the committee.
The minutes of the meeting of April 4, 2024 were approved on a roll call vote.
Introduction of Revised Database
Linda, Bill and Nick presented the revised Monument Spreadsheet, reflecting the
changes made at our prior meeting. The committee reviewed the organization and
layout of the various monuments and made quite a few adjustments on the spot. Over
the past two decades, Bill Poole has written stories, profiles, and general texts about
dozens of people, places and events from the Revolutionary era. Bill has volunteered
to edit these texts into narratives of 250 words maximum, thus allowing committee
members to focus on monuments of more recent vintage. Linda will send out new
assignments over the next few weeks.
Mini Writing Workshop
Linda shared some slides on tips to write a clear, interesting, and succinct descriptive
text for a monument. She stressed the importance of answering the reader’s questions
of “who, what, where, when, and why”, in the first couple of sentences.
Other
The discussion of the monument approval process with the Historic Districts Commission will be
held at a later meeting. There was no Lex250 report due to absence of Bebe Fallick.
The meeting adjourned at 5:30 p.m. Next meeting: June 6, 2024.
Respectfully submitted,
Linda Dixon, Chair