SUPPORTING HISTORY IN THE BAY AREA
BACKGROUND
On Saturday, 8 March 2025, a face-to-face meeting was held with members of the old Bay Area chapter of the Great War Society to discuss the possibility of restarting in-person meetings in Oakland, California. This meeting was organized by Dana Lombardy of LombardyStudios.com who hosted it. The consensus was positive to move forward, so the next step is to gather information.
IMPORTANT
This project is not intended to compete with or replace other organizations’ meetings, but rather augment and promote the existing abundant and diverse bay area historical groups.
Some of you may remember the big, multi-media conferences called Celebrate History that Dana created and ran in 1998 and 1999. This plan is a more affordable and less complicated version of Celebrate History (CH) that would support the many historical groups, clubs, and organizations that made the CH conference so special. Some of the ideas discussed included:
FIELD TRIPS (some, such as museums, may require an entrance fee)
Free sites such as the Veterans Memorial Building in San Francisco have large 8-foot-by-8-foot banners on display that commemorate the 100th anniversary of the American participation in World War One and 75th anniversary of the end of World War Two in 1945 and founding of the United Nations in San Francisco. Dana was the consulting historian for these banners. The tours would be recorded and posted on Dana’s YouTube channel so people anywhere can watch – including locals who could not attend the tour.
SUPPORT LOCAL BAY AREA HISTORICAL GROUPS (some may require purchasing a meal)
We would coordinate with other history groups to attend one or more of their meetings to learn about what they do to preserve and remember history. We can also invite speakers from these groups to visit one of our in-person meetings or via Zoom meeting. With the host group’s permission, we can record such meetings and then post them on Dana Lombardy’s YouTube channel and use his Lombardy Studios social networking and email marketing to promote these groups as well as our own organization. The groups involved would be asked to cover the recording and editing costs – and would get a copy of the video to post on their website, Facebook page, etc.
MOVIE NIGHTS (OR DAYS) BY THE OAKLAND HISTORY GROUP (Clubroom rental fee required)
Several critically-acclaimed historical motion pictures were suggested for our group to watch. We cannot charge admission for these events, but we can host them in the Clubroom in the Alice Street complex which requires a rental fee and has a large TV monitor (we are working on getting a stronger sound system).
BOOK EVENTS (Clubroom rental fee required)
A report on new history books that were published in the prior year could be presented as well as asking an author to talk about their latest book.
IN-PERSON MEETINGS IN OAKLAND (Clubroom rental fee required)
We can accommodate around 20 people in the Clubroom or about 60 on the rooftop at Alice House. Therefore, we would need people to reserve a spot and not simply show up. Other historical groups may have similar restrictions on space. In-person means that an author can sell and sign books.
FREE ZOOM MEETINGS (no fees)
Rather than rent the Clubroom, the above list of in-person Clubroom meetings can be held via Zoom and people can “attend” via their computer. Field Trips and visits to other history groups would still require in-person attendance and associated fees. We may not show movies via Zoom.
Your answers to this survey will help us organize and accomplish these goals.