The Pulaski Area Historical Society Meeting Monday, November 28, 2022 – Minutes

Present: Larry Puzen, Rock Mannigel, Pam Mannigel, Maria Deau, Mike Brzezinski, Norine Heuser, Steve Karcz, Steve Peplinski, Chris Jaworski, Tim Prokash, Bob Brusky, Ron Maroszek

Call Meeting To Order: The PAHS November 2022 meeting was called to order by President Larry Puzen. The secretary’s minutes from the meeting in October were reviewed. A motion to approve the secretary’s report, with revisions, was made by Rock. Chris J. seconded it. All in favor. Motion was carried.

Treasury’s Report: Norine Heuser shared the Treasurer’s report. We have $19,165 in our endowment fund currently. There needs to be $100,000 in the fund to start paying out. A motion to approve the treasurer’s report was made by Steve P. Pam M. seconded it. All in favor. Motion carried.

OLD BUSINESS Donations:

By Laws: Larry would like to distribute the finalized bylaws to all members.

Pulaski News Archive: We had a spike of 115 visitors to the archives website per day, but otherwise stable from 100-180. Steve P. is still figuring out how to migrate from a physical server to a cloud server and who he is going to freelance to do it. He created an account, a user, created a server, and installed software. Steve P. might be able to do it himself with the help of the guy who helped him initially set up the cloud server. PACE is committing to $60-70 per month to run it. More P. News’ were added and Steve P. is scanning a “Franciscan’s Chronicles” to add.

Review of Dinner: A lot of the food was cold, but most people loved that we did something different. Otherwise, it went well.

NEW BUSINESS

2023 Budget for January Meeting: We received $650 more in membership funds last year. There was a 26% increase on electricity and gas for 2021 and 2022 and will probably go up more in 2023.

There is $2,400 left in operating funds and $10,825 left for our back parking lot project. It won’t cost more than approximately $12,500 in labor for the back parking lot. We are going to put the CD in a 3 month plan. There is $0 in the scholarship fund for the students. We received a $500 donation in memory of John Wigman from Jeanne Wigman Stangl. The Legion will be donating $500 to the museum and become a lifetime member We raised $1,746 for the P. News project and need a total of $3000 to pay for the whole project. If someone makes a donation and specifies where they want it to go, 100% of the donation should be used for the specified project. A motion was made to take 20% out of every donation, unless otherwise specified,

and put it into the endowment fund by Steve P. Seconded by Rock. All in favor. Motion carried.

Election of Officers: We have to fill the President, vice president, secretary and treasurer positions. All are up for re-election. The president will be Larry, the vice president will be Tammy, Norine will continue the treasurer’s position, Steve P. will be the secretary for 2023. A motion was made to accept the officers by Pam M. Tim seconded it. All in favor. Motion Carried.

Membership Letter: Norine wants to know if she should list everything that people can donate their money to in the membership letter. The board thinks we should add a list and people can pick which one they want to donate to. Maria will help Norine make the membership letter. It will go out in January.

Housekeeping Upstairs Status: We have room to bring the lights over from the storage unit. They are in the garage by Parkside and should be stacked in the southeast corner. We are going to rewire the old ones and jump it to the next one. We also need to figure out how to hang them. Tim and Bob are going to try and move the 50 lights on Friday afternoon(12/2).

Casimir Pulaski Week: Tammy put things up on the website. We want to do the bus tours and some other events. The museum will donate some money to the event.

Christmas Display: The stove and kitchen will be brought back out and we will be setting up a dining area, showcasing Polish Christmas traditions, and setting up multiple trees

Curator’s Report:

  • Saw everything with the Blue Moon Tavern
    ●  Barb McKeefry asked to volunteer at the museum and do data entry and web design. Steve K. will get back to her around mid-December
    ●  Steve wants to do a demo for a hedgehog ornament class. We will have to get in contact with Mark Heck. Steve also wants to do one movie night at the museum
    ●  Steve would like to make a new display stand
    ●  Working on a genealogy project
    ●  Looking into the antiquarian grant and preparing to apply to restore the buggy. It will have to be done in phases
    ●  Would like to make a small library so people can look at old photos of Pulaski
  • A family found a Japanese doll in the rafters of the basement – Mylinda Allen. It is only about
    1.5” tall. Steve thinks a soldier brought it back from war?

Snow Removal: Rock wants to know if we do anything about the snow this year or if we should make a deal with Van Asten’s to have their plow guy push it to the back corner of the gravel parking lot, but not on the grass.
Board Member Comments:
●  Linda Blohowiak and Rock got a plaque engraved for Mike Blohowiak and would like to hang it on the wall. Rock would like to put it right under the clock. We will get an easel for it and put up a little shelf.

  • Pam would like her roller back that is under the baptismal fountain.
    ●  We will send some cash to Tammy and her family for the lawn upkeep they did for the museum last summer with a thank you card.
  • Steve K. wanted to thank everyone for sending the sympathy card and appreciates the support.

Adjournment: Norine made a motion to adjourn the meeting, seconded by Bob. All in favor. Motion was carried.

Next meeting: January 30th at the Museum. 

Minutes