Jaffrey Center Village Improvement Society Holds 104th Annual Meeting at 4 p.m., Saturday, July 24

The Jaffrey Center Village Improvement Society will hold its 104th Annual Meeting on Saturday, July 24 at 4:00 pm at Melville Academy, at the corner of Thorndike Pond Road and Blackberry Lane in Jaffrey.

Individual VIS members and all who are interested in joining the society are encouraged to attend, said Kenneth Campbell, president.  Members live in all parts of Jaffrey, in other New Hampshire towns and in eight states from Maine to North Carolina to Ohio.

In addition to electing officers, the JCVIS members will hear a report on the Society’s work regarding holding conservation easements from land owners who wish to maintain the open space and historic character that is represented by the Jaffrey Center area, which includes a National Historic District.

The members at last year’s annual meeting voted unanimously to authorize the holding of such easements in order to preserve the character of the Jaffrey Center and its environs.  The JCVIS took the action because parcels in the Jaffrey Center area may not meet the conservation easement requirements of major conservation organizations

Contact president@jcvis.org.

Jaffrey Center Village Improvement Society Votes To Conserve Small Plots in Historic Village Area

103rd Annual Meeting Endorses Saving Character of Area

The Jaffrey Center Village Improvement Society voted Sunday (7/26/09) at its 103rd Annual Meeting to empower the non-profit organization to hold conservation easements from land owners who wish to maintain the open space and historic character that is represented by the Jaffrey Center area, which includes a National Historic District.

Kenneth Campbell, president, said, “The members voted unanimously to authorize the Board of Directors to proceed with the recommendations and steps of the Conservation Easement Committee.

We intend to model our procedures on those developed over the past decades by the Monadnock Conservancy and the Forest Society.”

The recommendations of the VIS Conservation Easement Committee can be found here; the initial proposal by six home owners would conserve some 30 acres of contiguous open spaces in Jaffrey Center, where zoning requires just one acre per house. “The development of all this open space to its highest marketable use would likely destroy the Jaffrey Center landscape,” said Richard Ames, the chair of the committee

The VIS, in addition to maintaining at private expense the Horsesheds, Melville Academy and 16 acres of parks and commons open to the public, organizes a variety of community events and assists the Town in maintaining the Meetinghouse. It also maintains a website, www.jcvis.org, and operates the Melville Academy Museum, which opens its doors on summer weekends from 2 pm to 4 pm.

The nearly 300 members of the VIS live in all parts of Jaffrey, in other New Hampshire towns and in eight states from Maine to North Carolina to Ohio.

Following the meeting, the JCVIS Board met and voted to amend the articles of agreement–its charter– to authorize explicitly the holding of easements, which was an implict power in the existing charter.

Articles sold by the VIS include sets of the VIS Centennial Plates by Spode, depicting old scenes of the village and Mt. Monadnock, and the VIS history, “Marshal the Willing Forces,” by Robert B. Stephenson, an entertaining record of the preservation of the area.

Contact president@jcvis.org.