THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2011

The faculty and student body at St. John’s Prep under the direction of Ms. Dale Bryant conducted their Empty Bowls Night and raised almost $4000 for the food pantry in Peabody – Haven from Hunger. Congratulations Dale and boys - keep up the good work.

Speaking of St. John’s it appears as if they have put their legal issues surrounding the dismissed employees behind them. A settlement has been reached on repayment to St. John’s of some of the money that was misappropriated has been returned. I believe that the school has learned a very valuable lesson from this experience and now audit procedures have been established for the future.

For many of the not-for-profit organizations in this region some very good news was announced the other day. The Danvers Savings Bank has agreed to continue their foundation which is been most generous to this region. In fact there is some chance that some additional funds may be allocated from the People’s Bank in Bridgeport, Connecticut that purchased Danversbank. Essex Heritage has been the beneficiary of many of these funds in the past and this announcement was good news for us to hear. In fact, just recently the foundation has agreed to be a major sponsor of the spring heritage heroes award dinner.

I recently learned of the death of another St. John’s classmate from the class of 1954. Edward Caden, a life long resident of Peabody, recently passed away bringing the number of deceased classmates from the class to 66. We were a class of 100 so we are down to only one third of the original group of graduates still alive.

On Tuesday of this week Essex Heritage held a trustee meeting. The trustees approved a list of potential commissioners to be elected at the May meeting. Among those nominated were John Farmer, a senior commercial lender at Eastern Bank and who has been very instrumental in our efforts with the development committee. In addition to John for other commissioners recommended were Marianne Clancy who is a marketing officer for the Newburyport Institution for savings and the former mayor of Newburyport was recommended and approved. The third nominee was Peter Weber who is the Executive Director of the Cape Ann Chamber of Commerce. Peter has worked in tourism in many capacities including working for a time for the State of Massachusetts. Ms. Susie Moulton of Moulton Consulting in Salem was also approved as was Sam Cleaves who is the Executive Director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. All five of these nominees will be elected at the May meeting and will certainly add a substantial amount of expertise to the commission going forward.

It is never too early to get a notice out regarding the location and date of the Essex Heritage 2011 annual meeting. As we have always done in the past we tried to find locations that are not readily accessible to the public. We think we have done this again this year as the spring annual meeting is now set for April 12. We will hold th meeting at the Shale in Blue Performance Center in Rockport. We will be sending information in the not-too-distant future which will provide directions to the Performance Center and more details about the time and agenda for the spring annual meeting.