Jaffrey Center Village Improvement Society

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Jaffrey Center VIS Elects New President

August 20, 2007

The Jaffrey Center Village Improvement Society (JCVIS), which owns and maintains a local history museum at Melville Academy and 16 acres of green space in Jaffrey Center, elected Kenneth D. Campbell to a two-year term as its 23rd president at the JCVIS annual meeting.

Campbell, of Mountain Road, succeeds Anne S. N. Webb, who led the JCVIS through two very active years of the JCVIS, a charitable organization founded in 1906. Mrs. Webb presided over 13 Centennial Year events, notably the Historic Homes and Garden Tour in June, 2006 and the dedication in July, 2006 of Centennial Park at the corner of Main Street and Bryant Road. Webb’s family holds the unique distinction of having two family members who have been presidents of the JCVIS. Her father, Robert Newbegin, was the tenth president, serving from 1969 to 1971.

The Centennial Year also included publication of “Marshal The Willing Forces, A Centennial History of the Jaffrey Center Village Improvement Society,” by Robert B. Stephenson and the sale of Spode plates with four scenes of Jaffrey Center and Mount Monadnock.

Treasurer Robert B. Stephenson reported that generous Centennial donations and fund raising increased the permanent JCVIS endowment, initiated in 1997, to more than $104,000.

Re-elected to two-year terms at the July 21 meeting were Sean M. Driscoll and John O. Field, vice presidents, and Janet S. Grant, corresponding secretary. Mary R. B. Payson, who has served eight years as president, was elected a permanent honorary board member.

Other board members, elected last year, are Patricia H. MacIsaac, vice president; Christine Pedott, recording secretary; Margaret Pokorny, vice president, and Robert B. Stephenson, treasurer.

At the annual meeting, Sean Driscoll reported that the windows on the west side of Melville Academy have been replaced, the building is being repainted and the deteriorated steeple is being rebuilt

John O. Field discussed maintenance of The Swale, the beautiful large wetland that is north of Main Street and east of Thorndike Pond Road. Mary Jo Marvin, curator of Melville Academy Museum, reported on the status of the museum’s collection of local historic objects.

Margaret Pokorny reported that seven new disease-resistant elm trees have been planted in Cutter Park, which is bounded by Main Street, Meetinghouse Road and Laban Ainsworth Way. Five new teak benches have been installed in Cutter Park and Centennial Park. John and Geneva Bliss donated a bench for Cutter Park, and Mary Payson and Robert Stephenson each donated a bench for Centennial Park.

Other green spaces maintained by the JCVIS are the Blacksmith Lot at the corner of Thorndike Pond Road and Main Street; the Wetherell Common, at Main Street and Harkness Road; and the Morgan Lot, west of Gilmore Pond Road on the southern border of Rte 124 at the beginning of Mountain Road.

At the end of the meeting, Catherine S. Pond spoke about her new book, “Pantry,” which features several pantries in Jaffrey.