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ANNUAL REPORT, 2006
It gives me a feeling of great accomplishment to give this 2006 and Final Annual Report. Without the gifts of time, thought, inspiration and generosity of many people, this day could not have become a reality! By the end of the year 2005, your Board of Directors was delighted to receive to very last and generous donation needed to fund the very last plaque: the Woolens Industry plaque. We were given this donation by the Board of Directors of West Falmouth Library, which through the years extended hospitality to us with the use of their handsome meeting room for our annual meetings, several displays of the plaques as they were cast, and the use of their historical materials. This year, 2006, has been the time for checking donor plaque wording, arranging the details of the final installation for the last five bronze plaques in Sarah Peters' series Looking Back: Falmouth at Work, the accompanying donor plaques as well as the installation of the important title plaque introducing our gift to the Town of Falmouth. This year also, we applied for the final money grants needed to fund the last five definitive historical articles written by Jennifer Stone Gaines and edited by Jacki Forbes. These appeared in the Falmouth Enterprise during the summer of 2006 in the Regional section which goes to all four towns covered by this newspaper. This work was funded by the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities. Additional grants from the Woods Hole Foundation and the Friendship Fund make possible our partnership with the Woods Hole Historical Collection to publish all eleven articles by Jennifer Gaines, comments by artist Sarah Peters and augmented illustrative materials in two issues, Winter 2005 and Summer 2006, of WHHC's distinguished journal, Spritsail, A Journal of the History of Falmouth and Vicinity. Most of you joined us for the public Celebration honoring the final installation of all eleven bronze plaques on Saturday, June 17th during the 2006 Arts Alive Weekend. We will re-live this happy event a little later when we see the video tape made by FCTV that afternoon. In remembering our humble beginnings in 1998 as an ad hoc Committee to Encourage Public Art, it is important to recall how far we have come to this Final Annual Meeting. Originally Carol Chittenden urged some of us to include an artistic gesture celebrating the Revitalization of Falmouth Village and celebration the year 2000, the New Millennium. We planned one, possibly two bronze plaques set into the new blue stone sidewalks. Challenged to raise the moneys necessary to create the whole series of historical industry plaques suggested by artist Sarah Peters,we worked to become a non-profit organization in early 2001. We were then able to move beyond funding our activities from our own pockets and ask financial help from many others. Throughout our progress, we have received unfailing support from the Board of Selectmen, the Town Administrators, especially the Assistant Town Administrator, the staff and the Board of Directors of Falmouth Public Library, the Department of Public works and all other town officials concerned. It is important that we recall that the Falmouth Council for the Arts, now the Falmouth Cultural Council, gave us three very significant grants of money: to launch us as a Committee and to fund our search for a Massachusetts artist to design the plaques. Some of these funds came from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and some were raised by the local Council itself. We gratefully remember the many individuals who helped us make this significant gift to the Town of Falmouth. I think especially of those who served as members of the Board of Directors: Polly Seliger Egelson, our former Vice President who worked tirelessly from the first and whose death in 2005 we mourn, and our former Treasurer Lawrence Colman, also no longer living. Some of you here today were with us from the beginning, came to those formative weekly meetings and some of you became members of our important Advisory Council. I salute each person who affirmed our purpose, carried those heavy plaques for display at organizations, spoke for us, gave generously of time, thought, and financial support. This day has seemed a long time in arriving. It has been my distinct privilege and pleasure to work with you, count you as my dear friends and to be a part of the Committee to Encourage Public Art.
The Committee to Encourage Public Art, P.O. Box 646, Falmouth, MA 02541
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