So ... unless there’s history missing from our main website (or I’m missing it), all signs seem to indicate the society was founded in 2003.
If that’s true, we’re celebrating 10 years of existence.
Is there a more specific date marking the founding? Should we celebrate? It’s kind of a milestone…
Seems to me a heraldic society would use any excuse to exhibit some pageantry. Perhaps it would be appropriate on this occasion for the Society to adopt a crest to accompany its arms, or a badge available for members to use.
Just some thoughts.
Well, a traditional gift for a 10th anniversary is aluminum, so let’s all have a can of beer!
According to this thread, June 4, 2004 was the official incorporation date of the AHS. We were later incorporated as a 501(c)(3) organization in Texas on April 10, 2007, and our current by-laws were adopted on June 4, 2007. June 4th seems to be as good a date as any for a "birthday".
-Phil
PBlanton;99461 wrote:
According to this thread, June 4, 2004 was the official incorporation date of the AHS. We were later incorporated as a 501(c)(3) organization in Texas on April 10, 2007, and our current by-laws were adopted on June 4, 2007. June 4th seems to be as good a date as any for a "birthday".
-Phil
I suppose that would give us time to plan something, if we wanted to. Though most signs seem to suggest 2003 was when the Society began - even if it wasn’t technically on the books.
Well, if you refer to this thread in the Rec.Heraldry forum, you will see when Tom Sheehan "proclaim and announce the establishment of the American Heraldry Society, on this the fifth day of November, 2003 In the Year of Our Lord." That same thread contains the original arguments of why the name was chosen over USHS or USHA or AHA or anything else, a discussion on the development of the original by-laws, the rationale behind the original membership dues, and the creation of the first website and domain name. Lots of good history there!
-Phil
The entry about us on Wikipedia (which I think was composed by one of our members) says: "The Society was formed on 5 November 2003 by Thomas Shehan and others who followed a thread on the Usenet rec.heraldry newsgroup discussing the need for an American heraldic authority".
There was a slate of officers elected for 2003-2004 as well. But, I don’t think that means we can say that our beginning should be celebrated as occurring in 2003 necessarily. I would prefer celebrating the anniversary of incorporation as the real "beginning" of the Society proper.
But even if we do look to 2003 as the date of our beginning then it wouldn’t be until November 5th which is still a ways off.
PBlanton;99464 wrote:
Well, if you refer to this thread in the Rec.Heraldry forum, you will see when Tom Sheehan "proclaim and announce the establishment of the American Heraldry Society, on this the fifth day of November, 2003 In the Year of Our Lord." That same thread contains the original arguments of why the name was chosen over USHS or USHA or AHA or anything else, a discussion on the development of the original by-laws, the rationale behind the original membership dues, and the creation of the first website and domain name. Lots of good history there!
-Phil
As I am reading that I see that after November 5 it was still mostly an idea of a group being discussed on that Rec.Heraldry forum and that things like a charter, etc. hadn’t even been adopted yet.
I’ll let those who were here decide on what date, if any, we should choose as our founding, but clearly it was sometime between November 5, 2003 and June 4, 2004. The oldest post in the archives of this forum is dated April 30, 2004, so clearly there was activity prior to official incorporation.
Kenneth Mansfield;99468 wrote:
I’ll let those who were here decide on what date, if any, we should choose as our founding, but clearly it was sometime between November 5, 2003 and June 4, 2004. The oldest post in the archives of this forum is dated April 30, 2004, so clearly there was activity prior to official incorporation.
Indeed - let any remaining founders choose the date. We have at least until November 5 this year to plan 10th Anniversary celebratory activities! :D
As I remember it, the date on which Trey posted his announcement was the day that things started happening. He was, if I recall correctly, still in high school and I was still in college. After he posted his declaration of foundation (or whatever he called it), I sent him an e-mail and we started writing up documents to make it "official." I believe that, at the time, we had some help from Corey McHenry (also in high school at the time, methinks) and Justin Swanstrom and Mike McCartney (they were actually grown-ups).
I think the first website simply had a form in which prospective members could submit their information and they were in! By December, we had had elections and Corey, Trey, and I were made officers and Justin became secretary (he was a lawyer who was, as mentioned earlier, an actual grown-up, so we thought it would be a good idea to have him on board).
The original goal was threefold. We were going to register arms, educate people about heraldry, and lobby the government. Very quickly, we realized that arms registration like we were proposing was redundant and unnecessary, so we dropped it. We also had some initial inclusion of information about using bogus orders and the like in the educational mandate, but we dropped that, too, because it didn’t seem like a can of worms that we wanted to open.
For the first few weeks, we simply used rec.heraldry as the de facto "message board" of the society and most other communication was done via e-mail. I remember that, rather quickly, we set up a dedicated message board (the name Bravenet, or something similar, is lodged in the back of my mind as a free service that did that sort of thing). I have no idea what happened to those messages, before we got some more techie folks involved (T.R. Griffith was an early officer with some technical expertise on websites and web fora). Eventually, we started to present enough of a show of respectability that more respectable people joined up (Father Guy, Joe McMillan, Mike Swanson, etc.) and we actually turned into a pretty decent society.
All that is to say that I think 5 November would be the appropriate day on which to celebrate our founding. If any one would like, I can try to write up my remembrences in a more formal format for use in the celebration festivities!
Peace,
Dave
It looks like the earliest version of our website can be found at http://web.archive.org/web/20040215214301/http://americanheraldry.tripod.com/. Unless someone is able to find something earlier. I think this was the website that was used pretty much from the beginning, but the earliest Archive of it comes from February of 2004. We were quite the web designers.
I concur with November 5th. I wasnt around for the start of AHS, but I feel that its appropiate.
I would point out two things. First, the archived original website that Dave provided a link to does speak of the fact the Nov. 5, 2003 was the date on which the original proposal was made on rec.heraldry about having an AHS. I know a lot of people here want to see that as the date of our founding but to me that sounds a lot like saying the USA came into existence when the Continental Congress first heard a proposal from Virginia that we declare Independence rather than when the Congress voted to adopt the resolution on Independence. I wonder if it seems more attractive to people to see 2003 as the year the AHS was started so that we can celebrate the 10th anniversary this year rather than wait until next year and celebrate the 10th anniversary of incorporation?
Second, the Board, at its most recent meeting, decided that the annual meeting for 2014 will be an actual rather than a virtual meeting to be held at a physical location for people to attend. It seems that this first "in person" annual meeting of the AHS would be a great way to celebrate the society’s 10th anniversary by celebrating the 10th anniversary of its incorporation in 2004.
So, whether a celebration is held on Nov. 5, 2013 or on June 4, 2014 this is a matter that should ultimately be decided by the Board.
gselvester;99478 wrote:
So, whether a celebration is held on Nov. 5, 2013 or on June 4, 2014 this is a matter that should ultimately be decided by the Board.
I agree it’s a board’s decision and am not married to either. In fact, a 2014 celebration would give us more time to plan.
gselvester;99478 wrote:
I know a lot of people here want to see that as the date of our founding but to me that sounds a lot like saying the USA came into existence when the Continental Congress first heard a proposal from Virginia that we declare Independence rather than when the Congress voted to adopt the resolution on Independence.
These dates are definitely negotiable. It is, of course, interesting that we don’t actually celebrate US Independence Day on the day said vote was made. We celebrate it two days later when the the Declaration of Independence was actually finished. So we could make a strong case either way, but from someone who was there, I’d say that the date is 5 November. History could prove me wrong as it did John Adams when he wrote on 3 July 1776 that "the Second of July ... will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival."
The point is, Dave, one doesn’t celebrate the anniversary of when a thing was conceived but when it was accomplished…otherwise you’d celebrate the beginning of your life nine months earlier than you actually do and not on your birthday.
