National Society Magna Charta
Dames and Barons
Electronic Newsletter, March, 2013
TO:
MEMBERS AND FRIENDS OF THE NATIONAL
SOCIETY MAGNA CHARTA DAMES AND BARONS, POTENTIAL MEMBERS AND THOSE WHO SHARE
OUR INTEREST IN THE PRINCIPLES OF CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTY
FROM:
LEWIS L. NEILSON JR., CHANCELLOR
DATE: March 31,
2013
If this is the first
Electronic Newsletter that you have received from our Society, please read
the paragraph OUR E-MAIL LIST below. The link to the Website is:
www.magnacharta.org.
Highlights:
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Subscribe to our Dinner in Washington DC on Saturday April 13, 2013. We
continue to provide educational information concerning Magna Charta.
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We continue to add new information to our website at magnacharta.org.
Please check the “what’s new” page regularly. Of special interest: new
video and text from Sir Robert Worcester at our April 2012 dinner, a
copy of the talk (with pencil notes) from the Dedication of the ABA
Memorial in 1957, the Prospectus from the 2014 Library of Congress
Exhibit – and more.
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Start with our website at magnacharta.org. It
has our Lost Member and Deceased Member searchable (still resulting in
found members) and has links to content sites and the link to the
password protected site for members.
-
The planning for the Magna Charta 800th
Millennium publication is turning out to be impressive.
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We encourage contributions to support our Celebration of the 800th
Anniversary in 2015 – please help with the expenses of assembling and
presenting educational information.
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Call our office at 215-836-5022 with questions.
Editorial Comment: When we sent a mailed Newsletter to over 20,000 members
and potential members the cost was significant as we tried to include
considerable content. Then the cost of postage increased and I was reminded
that small print was hard to read. The electronic news has provided an
alternative and we would like to expand circulation to our members and
potential members without email.
Annual Dinner
in Washington DC - Saturday, April 13, 2013 - Subscriptions and Patrons
Welcome
We are pleased to announce
the 2013 Annual Dinner for Saturday, April 13, 2013 in Washington, DC. Our
speakers include Ambassador Hughes and Chancellor Neilson.
Ambassador G. Philip Hughes is a Senior Director at the White
House Writers Group (whwg.com) as well as a Senior
Associate at the Center for Strategic & International Studies.
He will speak
regarding the
importance of educating the world on the values of the Magna Carta during
the 800th Anniversary celebration.
Ambassador Hughes has served in many senior
foreign policy posts in the White House and Department of State, Commerce
and Defense. He was U.S. Ambassador to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean
from 1990 to 1993 and for almost five years he held the position of Deputy
National Security Affairs Advisor to Vice President George Bush. He served
two tours of duty on the National Security Council staff during the
presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George Bush as Director for Latin American
Affairs and, later, as the Executive Secretary of the Council.
Mr. Hughes is a graduate of the University of
Dayton and holds graduate degrees from the Fletcher School of Law and
Diplomacy and Harvard University. He is currently a Senior Associate at the
Center for Strategic & International Studies, and Secretary of the Council
of American Ambassadors.
Chancellor Neilson will provide an update on the
800th Celebration activities and will offer perspective on the
role of our Society in continuing awareness of Magna Charta and the legacy
which can be embraced by the future.
Mailed invitations to our
April 13, 2013 dinner have been sent to those who have expressed interest in
attending, those who have recently attended, recent contributors and
leaders. It is not too late to request an invitation. Mailed invitations,
like mailed newsletters, involve significant cost and we appreciate that
our members with internet access share information. Electronic Newsletters
especially can provide considerable information (including links) and
lasting information which supports our educational mission.
I encourage you to attend the dinner and to consider how the 800th
can be celebrated in your community. Contributions, especially Patron
Contributions, are welcome and encouraged.
Reports from the Magna
Carta Trust & 800th Anniversary Plans
The 800th
Anniversary is meeting regularly in London to achieve the aspirations
identified by Sir Robert Worcester at our Annual Dinner in 2012. Updates on
their progress are provided on the 800th website.
In the Unites States a number of initiatives are planned. The Library of
Congress (as reported at our Annual Dinner in 2012) is planning for a Magna
Charta Exhibit to open November 28, 2014 to continue until February 2015 The
American Bar Association is planning to launch a traveling exhibit in August
2014 and to refurbish the Memorial at Runnymede. An exhibit is planned for
Philadelphia in 2014 and additional exhibits are hoped for throughout the
United States.
The Charter Towns are planning celebrations in
England for the 800th Anniversary. The first will be at St.
Albans, August 2 to 4, 2013. The celebration in Bury St Edmunds is planned
for November 2014 and Canterbury is planning for June 9 to 17, 2015. A
significant celebration is being planned for Runnymede in June 2015.
Salisbury and London are also planning celebrations.
The Castle in Lincoln is being refurbished to include
an interpretative center at a cost of approximately 20 million pounds and
the official opening is scheduled for April 2015.
Each of these public events can provide educational content if the
process of collection is supported by our members and friends.
If any of our members are interested in participating
in any of the events in England please let us know. If there is sufficient
interest then we can plan some exceptional educational tours.
The Video Initiative:
The June 15, 2012 Magna Carta Lecture by the
Archbishop of Canterbury in at Royal Holloway in England was recorded by our
Herald Nicole Escue and the video is shared on our website.
The Regent of the Houston Colony, Mrs. Gilpin,
arranged for their meeting talk given by Dr. Louis Markos to be recorded so
the video is shared on our website.
We recognize that our Divisions, Chapters and
Colonies have educational and substantive talks which are usually presented
to a limited number of people. Since 1993 I have recorded every talk when I
am present with plans for those talks to be assembled as curricula based
programming which could provide educational information for classrooms. I
continue to be impressed with the quality of the recording equipment which
is available today at a modest cost and encourage all of our members to
record, with permission, of course, those presentations which provide
educational content relevant to Magna Charta and to send them to us for
presentation on our website. We utilize Silverlight (like Netflix) to
provide high quality video.
Too many groups waste time and energy by having
relatively small attendance and talks which are shortly forgotten. Our
substantive recorded presentations could have an unlimited audience and
inspire significant accomplishments.
The Third Millennium Publication – Our Society Edition
The
most impressive recent publication I have seen is the limited edition book
prepared for the December 18, 2007 auction by Ross Perot’s foundation of the
1297 Magna Charta. I received permission from a representative of Southby’s
to reprint the content for our website but not the pictures, I was recently
informed that the Third Millennium publication (benefiting the Magna Charta
Trust for 800th Anniversary Programming) will be written by the
same author, Professor Nicholas Vincent, with more information and
especially including the pictures.
The
publicartion is by subscription and if there are enough subscribers (to be
listed in the book) who request our Society Edition then they will provide a
few chapters specifically for our Society.
Last year we
announced that we plan to recognize the efforts of others participating in
support of the Celebration and the Magna Carta. Consistent with this effort,
the 800th Anniversary Committee commissioned a major illustrated
book to celebrate the 800th Anniversary, which it believes will be of great
interest to the Society's membership. London-based international publisher,
Third Millennium, has produced books for many leading world famous
institutions including for the 800th Anniversary of Cambridge University in
England and most recently for the approaching centennial of UCLA in
California (see their website at (tmiltd.com). Third Millennium have devised
a subscription-based model whereby interested buyers can support the
publication by subscribing in advance and have this support listed in the
publication itself (the Cambridge University book lists over 3000 of such
'subscribers'). Importantly, the royalties from the book will go to the
Magna Carta Trust supporting the programs of the 800th
Anniversary Committee. The estimated cost is $75.00. Please let me know if
you would be interested in subscribing to this publication.
The Password
Protected Website – Link from magnacharta.org
Our regular websites are unrestricted which is consistent with our
educational mission.
Our members’ restricted website provides information specifically for our
members and provides the opportunity for our members to share information.
Many of our members and potential members (who have provided their email
address) should have received a username and password. If not, then please
send us an email requesting registration. If you have received the username
and password and the password does not work then you should observe a screen
which allows you to reset the password using the username (which has been
assigned to you) or your email address. We continue to work on the site to
provide additional information and welcome reasonable suggestions.
You may also register online for this site if you are not a member of our
Society and we anticipate that the information available for the lineage
community generally will be expanding.
There are two main features now within the "members" site:
There is a page (accessible to members of our Society) for each Division,
Colony or Chapter with contact information, names of officers and upcoming
meeting dates (for many). If there are any changes you can go to the page
using the “blog” feature and provide additional information which we can
then add to the page.
There is a drop
down list of immigrant ancestors (accessible to anyone who registers for the
site) (about 200) (we anticipate this number will grow to exceed 1,000)
with a direct link to the ancestor page on the Brookfield site, each page
listing Baron Ancestors (most qualifying immigrants descend from multiple
Barons). An addition to the dropdown list for each is a page which has
“[name of ancestor] – Share Information”. These pages (which are accessible
to members of our Society) have a “blog” feature to add information about
the ancestor. This information can include discussions and can also include
information which can then be added to the ancestor page on the Brookfield
site which is public. The immigrant ancestors will be added to include
both those qualified for our Society as well as other immigrants who were
prominent in the colonial period. We anticipate that this site will be a
significant genealogical resource providing educational information
concerning the descendants of the Magna Charta Barons.
Reaching Out
I wish all of
our Divisions Colonies and Chapters well with your programs and meetings.
We have also
sent an email to Regents explaining our initiative to inform the Regents of
members in their geographic area to contact and encourage participation in
local programs.
Our Divisions,
Colonies, and Chapters have a special role in our Society, enabling our
members throughout the United States to participate in educational programs
with friendship and fellowship. We continue to look to our Divisions,
Colonies, and Chapters to encourage membership development and to provide
educational content for our web presence. If you share our passion for the
purposes of our Society and wish to start a Division, Colony, or Chapter,
please let us know.
Greetings and Thank You
On behalf of the Officers and Council of the Society, I bring greetings with
this Newsletter. We continue to develop awareness of Magna Charta and its
message. We ask each of you to participate with us in continuing the long
tradition of friendship and fellowship which has continued over many years.
We continue to be pleased with the response from our members to update
addresses and provide new addresses for those who have been lost. Many
members who were eligible to do so have appointed successors.
Magna Charta Partners
We are emphasizing Magna Charta Partners for those who share interest in our
purposes but are not members. We plan for an Advisory Council. You may be a
MC Partner by application, either by explaining your service in support of
our purposes or by including an annual contribution, currently $125.00.
There is detailed information on our website. While we have grown to over
17,000 members, I am still surprised at the number of people who are
proposed for membership but have not completed the lineage forms as well as
the number of people, who have responded to our “lost members” pages but
have not taken the next step to become members. We would like you to
participate as Magna Charta Partners in support of our Society and our
purposes. Please look at what's new.
News From Brookfield
Publishing
Additional information continues to be added to the Brookfield Publishing
Web Site. Please use the links on the entry page to go to the "beta" site
and to the 2015 Page.
A Lineage Form has been added which can be completed by computer and then
printed out and mailed with supporting documentation. Original signatures
are needed for the application and the supporting documentation needs to be
included.
Indexing continues of archival information and we look forward to exciting
and interesting initiatives.
Potential Members
If you are not a member of our Society and are eligible, I hope that you
will join. If you are not eligible
but share our interest in history and genealogy, we encourage you to remain
on our Email list and to become a
Partner. We also welcome your participation in our ongoing genealogical
research projects and our Tours. We welcome and encourage new members and
remind those submitting lineage information to include copies of referenced
material.
As mentioned in prior E-Newsletters, membership continues to be of vital
importance to our Society. If you wish to speed up or facilitate the
membership process, please include with the Proposal Form a well-documented
lineage (including copies of the documentation) to either a known ancestor
or to one of the qualifying Barons. If you have sent lineage information
without the copies, you may also speed up the process by sending copies of
the documentation. Lineage Forms are provided on the Website.
Contributions
We rely on member contributions for our Society operations and we plan to
build our endowment in connection with the 800th Anniversary of
the sealing of Magna Charta. We hope you will consider contributions,
including contributions of appreciated securities. Our Society is a public
charity under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
Our E-Mail List
We continue to significantly increase our e-mail list. To those of you who
are new to our list we welcome you to receive our Electronic Newsletter and
hope that you will find our Society and our mission to be interesting. Since
the primary mission of our Society is to develop awareness of Magna Charta,
we wish to expand the circulation of our Electronic Newsletter by increasing
our e-mail address list. We particularly wish to include those who are
members of lineage societies and/or those who share our interest in the
principles of Constitutional Liberty. I would like to thank those who have
shared their email lists since our last Electronic Newsletter.
We encourage you to check our Website regularly for new developments and
information. The link to the Website is:
http://www.magnacharta.org
Our E-mail list is made up of those who have sent us e-mail, of members and
friends of the Society who have responded to our Newsletter request for
E-mail addresses, and others who we believe might be interested in our
Society or mission. If you would prefer not to receive future Electronic
Newsletters, please let us know. If you have friends who you believe
might be interested in our Society, please forward this e-mail. If you have
received this as a forwarded e-mail, please visit our Website at for more
information about our Society. You may also contact our Society Office at
215-836-5022.
Do not hesitate to contact me with questions or suggestions.
Chancellor@magnacharta.org
Sincerely,
Lewis L. "Ted" Neilson, Jr.
Chancellor
National Society Magna Charta Dames and Barons
Email:
Chancellor@magnacharta.org
Website:
www.magnacharta.org
Telephone: 215-836-5022
Fax: 215-836-5056
Mailing Address: PO Box 4222, Philadelphia, PA 19144
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