Monday, April 16, 2012

Essential Pieces

By Kerry Lippincott, Education Coordinator

Maybe you've seen them around.  Many have a special interest so they have written articles for The Chemung Historical Journal or given a program during one of our lecture series.  Every March several serve as judges for Southern Tier Regional History Day.  During the summer some man the historical society's booth at community events.  There are also others who work behind-the-scenes.  To assist in the managing of the historical society, several serve on the board of trustees or on committees.  Others help care for the archival and 3-D collections by cataloging artifacts, conducting inventories or doing data entry.

All this work is done by our volunteers and interns.  Though I and the other staff members take every opportunity to express our appreciation for all the work done by our volunteers and interns, I firmly believe that you can never say 'thank you' enough.  This being National Volunteer Week I wanted to especially take a moment to express my gratitude to our volunteers and interns for the time and dedication they give to the historical society.

When a volunteer or intern begins at the historical society I always say "Welcome, to the CCHS family!"  and I truly believe that we are family.  Whether you are a staff member, volunteer, intern or trustee we are all part of a family tied together by the love of local history and a belief in the historical society's mission.

A few years ago I found a saying about essential pieces, which I think applies to our volunteers and interns.  "Essential Pieces - Isn't it wonderful thing how we're all different? Each of us has strengths and skills to share and when we link our individual strengths together we're invincible."

To our essential pieces (and to all essential pieces out there) I give a heartfelt THANK YOU.



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