TO MEMBERS AND FRIENDS OF THE NATIONAL SOCIETY MAGNA CHARTA DAMES AND BARONS, POTENTIAL MEMBERS AND THOSE WHO SHARE OUR INTEREST IN THE PRINCIPLES OF CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTY
FROM LEWIS L. NEILSON JR., CHANCELLOR
DATE: JUNE 24, 2007
If this is the first Electronic Newsletter that you have received from our Society, please read the paragraph OUR E-MAIL LIST below. The link to the Newsletter on the Website is: http://www.magnacharta.org/enews062007.htm The link to the Website is: http://www.magnacharta.org.
Topics: New Information ***
Short Term Goals - Long Term Vision
*** Luncheon in Washington, DC- June 27, 2007
*** Magna Carta Exhibit 2007 - Philadelphia - Opening July, 2007
*** Video from the Magna Carta Exhibit 2007 - Virginia Beach - Opening March 30, 2007
*** Video from the DC Reception and Dinner April 14, 2007
*** Membership Initiatives
*** Reissue of Magna Charta in
2015 - 800th Anniversary
*** Future Events
*** Magna Carta/USA Week - 2007
Participation in State Divisions
Greetings - Please send new email addresses
Thank you
Potential Members
Contributions
***Enhancement of our E-Mail list
OUR E-MAIL LIST
I wish all of our Divisions well with your recent meetings.
Continuing Theme: Short Term Goals - Long Term Vision
We introduced a page on our Website which identifies the short term goals and long term vision for our Society, consistent with our purposes and supporting our mission. This page will be periodically updated and we invite suggestions. Please look at the "What's New" Page on our Web Site for information.
Luncheon in Washington DC - June 27, 2007
We are considering an informal luncheon for members and guests on Wednesday, June 27, 2007 in Washington, DC, the cost and venue to be determined. Please let me know if you might be interested in participating.
Magna Carta Exhibit 2007 - Philadelphia - Opening July, 2007
We are delighted that the National Education Association is presenting an Exhibit of Magna Carta at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia beginning July 4, 2007. We encourage all to view this extraordinary document. Our Society has been encouraging this exhibit for a number of years beginning in 2004 when we invited the Dean of Lincoln to visit the Constitution Center as a potential venue. The current United States tour of the Magna Carta started on March 30, 2007 with an opening in Virginia Beach which is explained in the next paragraph. The Philadelphia Exhibit includes the Emancipation Proclamation and a printing of the U.S. Constitution. I believe that this is the first time the 1215 Magna Carta has been in Philadelphia which provides a very special opportunity.
The NEA has provided a webpage describing the Exhibit: http://www.nea.org/takenote/magnac07.html
We are considering a Society event the third week of the Exhibit. Please let us know if you would be interested in participating.
Video from the Magna Carta Exhibit 2007 - Virginia Beach - Opening March 30, 2007
On March 29 and 30 we attended the opening dinner and ceremony of the Exhibit, Magna Carta and the Four Foundations of Freedom, in Virginia Beach. We have included in our website video of the opening and have prepared a page with links to the video. The talks include remarks by The Honorable Leroy Rountree Hassell Sr Chief Justice of the Virginia Supreme Court, Rev. Canon Philip Buckler, Dean of Lincoln, and Reg Weaver, President of the NEA. There is also video of the Exhibit.
The Exhibit is titled Magna Carta and the Four Foundations of Freedom, including a Dunlap broadside of the Declaration of Independence, the James Wilson First Draft of the U.S. Constitution, George Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights, penned in 1776, and the Emancipation Proclamation. I am pleased that the Historical Society of Pennsylvania is loaning the draft of the Constitution and the Emancipation Proclamation for the Exhibit.
In a previous Newsletter we included a page with information about the Exhibit at the Contemporary Art Center in Virginia Beach. The website for the Contemporary Art Center is: www.cacv.org.
Video from Washington DC - April 14, 2007
Our website includes the video from our Washington, DC dinner held April 14, 2007 at the College of Clergy, Washington National Cathedral. In addition the text of the talk by Michael West, Chancellor of Lincoln Cathedral is included. The College of Clergy provided an excellent venue and we appreciate the efforts of their staff to provide an excellent reception and dinner. The dinner was fully subscribed. We were also pleased that the Honorable Oliver Franklin, OBE, Honorary British Counsel in Philadelphia and Steven Frank, Vice President of the Constitution Center, attended our luncheon in Philadelphia on Friday, April 13, 2007.
Membership Initiatives
We are pleased that many of our members have appointed their successors. On the first page of the website there is a tab for Successor Information which will explain succession in our Society.
If you are a member of our Society you may Propose your children for membership using the Proposal Form for our Society. Your signature on the form will be accepted as primary proof of descent and no additional documentation will be necessary. If you propose another relative then descent would need to be established from your common ancestor on your qualifying line.
Reissue of Magna Charta in 2015 - 800th Anniversary - Reminder
We are continuing with planning for the Reissue and welcome interest in a Committee to be established for this purpose.
Our March Newsletter provided information concerning the Reissue Project and I encourage you to review that information.
Future Events
We are also planning for an educational program in Philadelphia this Fall. We will plan to send an Electronic Newsletter with details and a notification by regular mail to our local members.
Magna Carta/USA Week - 2007
This year Lincoln Cathedral is planning a Magna Charta/USA Weekend on July 26 to 28, 2007 with the Tastes of Lincolnshire Banquet on Thursday presented by former Dean Fiennes and the Magna Carta Lecture on Friday presented by Mayor Meyera Oberndorf who has been Mayor of Virginia Beach for over 20 years. I encourage our members to attend. I have used rail transportation from Manchester Airport to the center of Lincoln with a short cab ride to a B & B at the top of the hill. If our members are interested in attending please let us know and we will explore the availability of tickets for the events.
If there is interest in our organizing a tour. including Lincoln, please let us know.
The purpose of our educational tours is to visit locations of cultural and historical significance primarily relating to the Magna Charta. We are undertaking to reduce the cost while maintaining quality.
Participation in State Divisions and New Divisions
I am pleased that we have sent lists of new members, up to May 31, 2007, to most of the State Division Regents or local Regents. If you are a member and wish to participate at the State or local level, please let us know.
Several of our members have expressed interest in forming new Divisions. Thank you for your interest and we look forward to assisting with this effort.
Greetings
On behalf of the Officers and Council of the Society, I bring greetings with this Newsletter. We continue to develop awareness of Magna Charta and its message. We ask each of you to participate with us in continuing the long tradition of friendship and fellowship which has continued over many years. We need to increase the number of members and friends on our email listing. Please ask your relatives or friends to send us their E-mail address. Please also send us the E-mail addresses of friends who are interested either in lineage societies or in memorializing Magna Charta. For the future, please propose new members for our Society. Please also attend your local meetings and include your children and grandchildren. We have a very special organization and I hope that you will help us to maintain its traditions.
Thank You
We continue to be pleased with the response from our members to update addresses and provide new addresses for those who have been lost. . Many members have appointed successors who were eligible to do so. Updated address lists will be sent to the State Divisions. I am, however, saddened to learn when our members are deceased. I and the Society are grateful for the time, dedicated effort and financial contributions that many of those members have given to our Society. As I update the deceased role with members who I have worked with and known during the past seventeen years, I am reminded that we need to express appreciation on an ongoing basis to all of those who are helping to make our Society a wonderful organization. Thank You!
Potential Members
If you are not a member of our Society and are eligible I hope that you will join. If you are not eligible but share our interest in history and genealogy we encourage you to remain on our Email list. We also welcome your participation in our ongoing genealogical research projects and our Tours. We welcome and encourage new members and remind those submitting lineage information to include copies of referenced material.
As mentioned in prior E-Newsletters, membership continues to be of vital importance to our Society. If you wish to speed up or facilitate the membership process, please include with the Proposal Form a well documented lineage (including copies of the documentation) to either a known ancestor or to one of the qualifying Barons. If you have sent lineage information without the copies you may also speed up the process by sending copies of the documentation. Lineage Forms are provided on the Website.
Contributions
We rely on member contributions for our Society operations and we plan to build our endowment in connection with the 100th Anniversary of the founding our Society in 1909. We hope you will consider year end contributions, including contributions of appreciated securities. Our Society is a public charity under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
Enhancement of our E-Mail list
Our email list is a separate list from the roster of the Society. Initially we used Outlook for the list and we did not indicate who was a member or which state they lived in. If you are a member of our Society, please send an email message to Chancellor@magnacharta.org and write MEMBER in the Subject field followed by a space and then the abbreviation for your state.
OUR E-MAIL LIST
We continue to significantly increase our e-mail list. To those of you who are new to our list we welcome you to receive our Electronic Newsletter and hope that you will find our Society and our mission to be interesting. Since a primary mission of our Society is to develop awareness of Magna Charta we wish to expand the circulation of our Electronic Newsletter by increasing our e-mail address list particularly including those who are members of lineage societies and/or who might share our interest in the principles of Constitutional Liberty. I would like to thank those who have shared their email lists since our last Electronic Newsletter.
We encourage you to check our Website regularly for new developments and information. The link to the Newsletter on the Website is: http://www.magnacharta.org/enews062007.htm The link to the Website is: http://www.magnacharta.org.
Our E-mail list is made up of those who have sent us e-mail, of members and friends of the Society who have responded to our Newsletter request for E-mail addresses and others who we believe might be interested in our Society or mission. If you would prefer not to receive future Electronic Newsletters, however, please let us know. If you have friends who you believe might be interested in our Society, please forward this e-mail. If you have received this as a forwarded e-mail, please visit our Website at for more information about our Society. You may also contact our Society Office at 215-836-5022.
Do not hesitate to contact me with questions or suggestions. Chancellor@magnacharta.org
Sincerely,
Lewis L. "Ted" Neilson, Jr.
Chancellor
National Society Magna Charta Dames and Barons
Email:
Chancellor@magnacharta.org
Website:
www.magnacharta.org
Telephone: 215-836-5022
Fax: 215-836-5056
Mailing Address: PO Box 4222, Phila., PA 19144
Office Hours: Monday - Wednesday - Friday 9:30am - 3:00 pm
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