President's Messages
President's Message to
The
Holland Society of New York
Board of Trustees
October 9, 2008
I trust that all of us have had an excellent summer. I began summer on a victorious note, as a member of the winning
Holland Society Executive Team with sailing teammates Past President and Princetonian Kenneth Demarest
and Peter Rapelje at the 3rd Annual HSNY Branch Presidents Sailing Challenge at beautiful Seawanhawka Corinthian
Yacht Club. Thank you once again Adrian Bogart, Jr. for hosting our members for that fine event at your
yacht club and thank you Stuart Van Winkle and your Committee for staging a very successful weekend of events
for our organization this past June. Diane and I enjoyed ample time on the water in the Pacific Northwest with many
Holland Society members and their families, along with a member of the Society of Daughters of Holland Dames.
Now as we look ahead to the fall and winter there is much to report to you.
First, I encourage all of you to review the website for an exciting list of branch meetings this fall. By the time that
you receive this report, Diane and I will have traveled to Portland, Oregon for the Pacific Northwest Branch meeting
which will include an exciting outing to the Oregon wine country and dinner arranged by Branch President Edwin Outwater.
After the October board meeting, we will travel to Poughkeepsie to attend the joint meeting of the Ulster and Dutchess
County Branches. There we will stay at the Beekman Inn, the oldest continuously operating inn in the United States, and
will attend an excellent presentation on events planned upstate for 2009. Thanks go to Branch Presidents Kenneth Barricklo
and George Banta for arranging this joint meeting at George and Phebe's beautiful property. We will enjoy a trip down the
Hudson River Valley by car and end up at the Potomac Branch Meeting which also includes a joint meeting with the Society of
Daughters of Holland Dames. Thank you Mary Park, Directress General of the Society of Daughters of Holland Dames and HSNY
Friend and Felicia Stidham, Holland Dame and new HSNY Friend, for this invitation to join you and also for your
arrangements to secure the Chevy Chase Club in Maryland for this very special Directress General's Luncheon with the
Holland Dames and members of the Netherlands Embassy. A very successful Patroon Branch Meeting was held on September 27th,
arranged by Branch President Robert Van Vranken. The day began with a luncheon hosted by the Branch and included a tour
of the ship Half Moon by Captain of the ship, William "Chip" Reynolds, Executive Director of the Half Moon Museum and
Society Gold Medalist. The Texas Branch is meeting the first weekend in November as part of the annual meetings of the
Texas Hereditary Societies. I will tell you more about that meeting later in this report. As we look ahead to November,
we eagerly anticipate the New England Branch meeting arranged by Branch President Charles Zabriskie Jr. at the Peabody Essex
Maritime Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. I urge you again to participate in your Branch activities for the chance to gather
together with your members and their families for excellent programs and fellowship and thank all our Branch Presidents for
their work for the Society.
Secondly, we have changes to report to our 2009 Celebration Committee. Following our Trustee Meeting in June, during Summer
recess, Executive Committee has stayed engaged in defining our roles supporting the organizations and events in the year upcoming.
Thank you Stephen Wyckoff, Robert G. Goelet and William Van Winkle for joining me in New York City for a face to face meeting
with Bromme Cole and Jim Van Wagner. Parties had constructive conversation about our level of financial support with an
understanding of how to proceed. Tonight we will have an opportunity to further discuss our course. I am pleased to
report, we have a new Chairperson for 2009, Patrick Van Pelt. After his phenomenal success in the Membership Committee,
Patrick has come forward at my request to serve to replace the two chairs who have moved on to 2009NewYork! responsibilities.
I do wish to once again thank our good members Jim Van Wagner and Trustee Bromme Cole for all they have done these past two years
to set up the groundwork for many of the organizations participating in the Celebration. Watch our website for a calendar which
will combine all scheduled events. As 2009 rapidly approaches, we should all be encouraging our members and their families to visit
New York City and New York State to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the landing of Henry Hudson. As one of the first
responsibilities of his Chairmanship, Patrick Van Pelt generously offered to travel to New York in September to be part of
the official announcement by the Netherlands and New York of organizations participating and events being staged in 2009.
I have provided the Board of Trustees with a copy of that document, and inform you tonight we are listed in many of the events
as supporting organization, financially and otherwise. Patrick is reporting tonight to you his Committee recommendations
concerning the Hudson 400 Celebration.
Third, Chairman of Library Committee Charles Wendell, with help from Vice-Chairman Alec Simonson and members of that Committee,
recently reported to me that we have drawn together a list of over a dozen qualified candidates to fill the position of Holland
Society of New York Librarian. Until we actually do find that individual, please welcome back as Interim Librarian, Dora Koutelas.
We should have a new librarian in place by the beginning of 2009 so that our many visitors who will be interested in the library as
part of the 400th anniversary celebration will be able to find exactly what they are looking for during their visits.
Fourth, Edwin Outwater and his RAPP Alliance continue to meet and arrange to preserve New York's first records. Iron Mountain and
PTLP corporations have agreed to donate thousands of dollars worth of record preservation and storage services to our organization
in this extraordinary venture to save our archives and rare books and records. My deep appreciation to Edwin for making this idea
a reality, and for Dr. David Voorhees and the Library and Archives Committee Chairs Charles Wendell and Courtney Haff for bringing
their members to the table to assist. We are pursuing this initiative with Collegiate Church and New York Historical Society
as partners and have an opportunity to once again get back to our Constitutional imperative "to discover, collect, preserve"
and I will add present all the archives and other material "respecting the early history and settlement of New
Netherland by the Dutch" All parties participating in this agree that our Archives have been seriously neglected and
I welcome and strongly support the attention we are giving to this important asset of our Society.
Fifth, the Membership Committee has continued to work all summer. They have reported the results of the Membership
Survey to the Branch Presidents. The members have implemented a new very robust database management system called Sharepoint.
Several Membership Committee members are training our administrative staff and Branch Presidents in the use of this system.
Not only does this new tool enable us to better communicate with members and friends, but more importantly it allows us to
track all of the prospective applicants identified in the survey. Currently the Membership Committee is tracking and
assisting over 700 new prospects for membership, and the Committee members are going to most likely be able to meet their
desired goal of obtaining 400 new members by the end of Hudson's Celebration 2009, already more than a quarter of way towards
that goal. Heartfelt thanks again go to Chairman Patrick Van Pelt and Vice-Chairman Dr. Robert Schenck, and Committee
Members Richard Ten Eyck, Martha VanDerbeek Unger and volunteer consultants Lisa Lasher, Jill Jasso and John Fitzgerald
and the members of the Genealogy and Aims and Purposes Committees, lead by Chairman David Riker and Chairman David Nostrand,
helping to qualify those Members and Friends for vote by this Board of Trustees. I would like to again tell the members at
this leadership table tonight to welcome Patrick Van Pelt to the Board Meeting and take an opportunity following this meeting
to thank him for financially accepting all of the costs of this very important Committee work with his all volunteer Committee
in place as well.
Sixth, the Capital Campaign continues to be extraordinarily successful thanks to the efforts of Capital Campaign National
Chairman Charles Zabriskie, Jr., members of his committee and his able administrative assistant, Nancy Stokes. I do wish to
remind you to take a moment to thank our fine Trustee Charlie for his gift to the Society, as he too has conducted this
significant endowment campaign without asking the Holland Society for any financial reimbursement of his substantial costs
of administration. Charlie reports that he has successfully reached the initial goal of $800,000 in contributions and pledges.
He is expanding the campaign in the final months of this year to raise another $200,000 so that the total campaign will
have generated one million dollars and will report tonight that this Campaign will be completed in 2009. Thank you so
much Charlie for all of your efforts and thanks to both you and Star not only for your prior generous contribution but for
your recent additional gift of $20,000 contribution to encourage others to donate to raise the last $200,000 of the Campaign.
David Lent, Chairman of our Auditing Committee also worked for the Society this summer and I do appreciate how much time he
donates to our organization in those financial areas. On behalf of us all, thank you also Peter Van Dyke for your years of
excellent leadership and decision making of our current portfolio investment management program, especially now in this very
troubling economy. And thank you Peter and Judy for your very generous donation of new office equipment for our Society.
Seventh, I have been asked to be the keynote speaker at the Texas Conference of Hereditary Societies meeting in Dallas,
Texas on November 1, 2008. The meeting will include participation by the Texas branches of the Royal Society of St. George,
the Sons of the Revolution, our own Texas Branch, the Society of Colonial Wars, the Society of the War of 1812, and the Order
of Founders and Patriots of America. The theme of my speech will be methods for generating interest and increasing membership
in historical societies, and I'm pleased to report to that audience some of our organizations' recent accomplishments.
Certainly we have had incredible success in these areas due to the efforts of everyone involved in strengthening our local
branches and outreaching to communicate with our membership, in updating our website, preserving our archives and library,
establishing our first endowment, and giving the hard and continuous efforts always to increase our membership. The upcoming
2009 events will continue to generate interest in the Holland Society of New York and I hope to use this celebratory year to
reflect upon our achievements in these endeavors.
As 2009 approaches, it is my personal goal to engage more of our members in our society in these above-listed efforts.
The annual banquet this year is on Thursday, November 13. I hope to see many of you and greet you personally at this
event and several other events during 5 Dutch Days beginning November 12th. During that week, I am pleased to report
we are hosting the National Leadership of Wyckoff House and Association, with HSNY member Jeffrey Wyckoff and new HSNY
Friend President Naj Wikoff leading that hosting assignment.
And finally thank you members and friends of Holland Society of New York who have gathered together in this leadership
circle to preserve and promote our organization. I know I am so fortunate to have the number of very competent
individuals around me that I do. Together, through our offered efforts, our society continues to grow and prosper.
I ask that as we go forward in this second year of my Presidency, in order to take the right steps to advance the
purposes of our organization, that we lead together with gentlemanly conduct and orderly discourse and that we all
continue to be very involved for the benefit of our beloved organization, Holland Society of New York. Thank you all.
My best to you tonight,
John Barcalow VanDerbeek IV
President, Holland Society of New York
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