ESU National Meeting, Newport Rhode Island, 17-19 October, 2014

Event Recap

The 2014 ESU National Meeting was held at the elegant Hotel Viking in Newport, Rhode Island. Rhode Island's history for religious tolerance dates back to colonial times; Touro Synagogue is the oldest synagogue in the U.S. Newport has many historic "saltbox houses", in addition to the grand mansions from America's Gilded Age. The Seattle branch was ably represented by eleven members: Sarah and Ed Atwood, Loveday Conquest, Fred Kleinschmidt, Bill Maschmeier, Patricia Haggerty, Clinton and Elizabeth Miller, Sandra Boyd, Susan Thurston-Grathwohl, and Clarke O'Reilly Jr. As for Region VIII, Laura Phelps (San Francisco) was recently elected Vice Chairman of ESU, and Donald Best (S. Francisco and Los Angeles) is a newly elected member to the National Board. Other Region VIII people on the National Board are Polly Cox (Denver), Bill Maschmeier, and Loveday Conquest.

Friday included the National Board meeting and Presidents' Conclave. ESU National Chair Si Bunting always manages to convey a history lesson in his opening remarks. He mentioned upcoming anniversaries regarding the Battle of Waterloo and the Battle of New Orleans (1815), the end of the Great War (1918), and signing of the Magna Carta (1215). 2016 also marks the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare. The new Alice Boyne Visionary Education Fund raised about $61K at its launching in May, and the National Board Giving Campaign is well on its way toward reaching its goal of $35K. There are now at least 180 National Patrons, including over 50 new ones. The ESU currently has about 5000 members.

The ESU Revitalization Committee has produced "Straight Talk", a "best practices" document for branches. (It and many other resources may be found at esuus.org under "Branch Resources".) Topics include increased communication, organizational restructuring, and increased utilization of the branch website. Some branches have membership categories for teachers and other educators. A National Membership Category is being considered for "isolated members" who do not have easy access to a local branch. Some branches who are closing can still keep certain programs going, such as San Diego
and Delaware, who still have their Shakespeare Competition or their "Shakespeare Set Free" program facilitated by National.

The ESU National Shakespeare Competition is tentatively scheduled for late April 2015. Teachers and schools can now register online; webinars are available for branch Shakespeare coordinators and for teachers. Carol Losos, Director of Educational Programs, is expanding national exposure through presentations at various conferences. Carol hands out informative postcards advertising ESU programs at meetings of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). She also has an article highlighting ESU Shakespeare activities coming out in the NCTE professional journal. ESU is working with WordPlay Shakespeare (a company specializing in digital books showing the performance of a play alongside the
complete text) to offer digital teaching materials to educators and schools as prizes. ESU's long term objective is to have every branch offer some kind of Shakespeare professional development for local
educators. Other ESU programs include Middle School Debate (currently NY and NJ), English-in-Action (we have a program in Seattle and former Seattle residents may start one in San Diego), the International Public Speaking Competition, Secondary School Exchange, Walter Hines Page Scholarship Program (Seattle has hosted Page Scholars in the past), and the Luard Morse Scholarship.
The ESU's British University Summer School (BUSS) program is now 50 years old; ESU provides about 15% of the students for the program each year. Teachers and administrators at the Globe and the involved BUSS universities continue to be impressed with the high quality of ESU BUSS scholars. National would like more branches to consider BUSS fellowships; some branches have sent community college English teachers as BUSS Fellows.

The Andrew Romay New Immigrant Center (ARNIC), which helps newly arrived immigrants in various fields of work, is funded by Andrew Romay for the next three years. ARNIC provides English language improvement, programs, and a welcoming place to network and to improve one's confidence and knowledge of American culture. Mr. Romay chose the ESU as a home for ARNIC because of our
reputation and our mission: "The ESU celebrates English as a shared language to foster global understanding and goodwill by providing educational and cultural opportunities for students, educators, and members." ESU has several proposals in for continued institutional giving by various foundations, and partnerships with immigrant-serving nonprofit and agencies are also being developed.

We also received the list of 2014-15 Evelyn Wrench speakers. Region VIII's scheduled speaker is Nicholas Bennet JP, former British Government Minister and MP, available to speak on "Up Close and Personal with a Member of the British Parliament" in April 2015.

2016, the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, will feature a tour of several copies of Shakespeare's First Folio, sponsored in part by the American Library Association and by the Folger Library. The Seattle branch is among several partners with the Seattle Public Library (SPL) proposing to bring the First Folio to SPL for a public exhibit and associated programs, of which our local Shakespeare Competition would be one. During the regional meetings, the Seattle group picked up several good ideas for our proposal from other branches, Hawaii's in particular (Hawaii's president is the parent of a recent National Shakespeare Competition winner). Seattle's Harvey Sadis (retired from Cascade Elementary), who for forty years had his second graders perform annual Shakespeare productions, is offering to put on workshops for teachers and for families as part of the SPL First Folio proposal. We will find out in January whether the SPL proposal is successful.

While we covered a lot of ESU business at the conference, there was also time for other educational and social activities. We heard from Jane Easton, new Director-General of the ESU of the Commonwealth, who is excited about how "the two ESUs" (U.S. and the Commonwealth) may be collaborative partners in future. We also heard from Trudy Coxe, Executive Director of the Preservation society of Newport County, and from Ross Cann, an architect working in historic preservation in the Newport community.

Social activities included tours of Newport's palatial houses from the Gilded Age (this time we rode in trolley cars rather than school busses), and for National Patrons, a reception at a historic private residence. Guest speaker at the Patron reception was Lucinda Chetwode, who is leading an ESU tour in early fall featuring Ardgowan and Dumfries House. There will also be a cruise to Great Britain and Ireland, "Voyage to Green and Gentle Lands", in May 2015, and a Magna Carta Celebration Tour in June.

Finally, two Seattle delegates were singled out for honors at Newport. Patricia Haggerty received a National Merit Award--hooray! Bill Maschmeier, in addition to being a member of the National Board, also served on the Nominating Committee. Bill is chair of Region VIII, and Bill and Patricia were featured as founding members of the ESU's Legacy Society (planned giving). Our sincere congratulations and thanks to Bill and Patricia for their many contributions to ESU at the branch, regional, and national level.

--Loveday Conquest

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