2026 SCA Annual Meeting

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Welcome everyone. I’m Brian Gallagher, the president of the Sca, and this is our 2026 annual meeting. We’re going to have a very quick meeting. Thank you to all those who have taken the time to to come tonight

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We will post this on the website as well, in case people are unable to join us tonight and they want to have a look at what’s going on with the SCA. Over the last year, this is basically a recap of what went on in 2025.

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Now, since we’re so pressed for time tonight, I’m going to ask you to pose any questions or comments that you might have in the chat, and then we will be able to respond to those questions and comments, perhaps after the meeting, or if there’s time during the meeting, we can do it then. But

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If you put your questions and comments in the chat, I’ll be happy to

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to respond to them later.

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Okay, now I’m going to introduce to you the members of the board who are with us tonight, but who do not have a speaking role tonight. So

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Cynthia Rubin, can you say hello, Cynthia?

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Hi, everybody!

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Okay, thank you. And Christine Henry

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Hello!

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All right, and let’s see, myself, Brian, Tim, O’Brien’s not with us. And then all the rest of the people are going to actually have a few words tonight, so they can introduce themselves when that time comes. We also have a number of members of the board that are not able to be with us tonight, and I’ll just run down who they are. Steve Miller from New Jersey

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Steven Spiegel from California

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Frank Bruska from Massachusetts, Josh Silber from New York

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Like Kirsten from New York, and Kimberly Ellis from Louisiana

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from Illinois, and Tim O’Brien from Tennessee, and also our past president, Michael Hirsch, who is from Pennsylvania. So you can see the board is made up of a wide ranging

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people that are from all over the United States, and including Canada, because that’s where I come from. I live in Toronto, Ontario.

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Okay, finance is always something that’s on top of mind for people. So I’ll ask, oh, here’s our agenda for tonight. Oh, and before we go on to finance, just want everybody to be aware of this chart here that lists all the members of the board, and it also shows when

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Their terms are expiring, and unfortunately, it doesn’t have the years on it, but this is the year here when terms are expiring. We’re allowed to have 18 people

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According to our

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According to our bylaws, and we’re sitting, I think, at about 17 right now, so we’re… but we’ll be losing two at the end of this year

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And we will be losing more people as the years go by. So if anybody on the call tonight is interested in serving on the board, we would love to hear from you. There’s very simple process is a questionnaire to be filled out and then the nominations committee, which is headed up by Josh

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Sober is review them, chat with you, and possibly nominate you for to stand for the board in the elections that come up at the beginning of the year. Okay, so we earnestly solicit people to

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Join the board. It’s a very rewarding experience. I think you would all agree, would you not, board members? Also, a lot of work.

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And we’re always looking for good people

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Okay, I’m going to hand it over to Emily Schriker, who is our treasurer, a very difficult job, and ask her to spend some time with you talking about our finances.

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All right. Hello, everyone. I’m going to leave my camera off so I can actually read the screen and not have my face so close to everybody.

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We are doing very well financially. These numbers on the screen are from the end of 2025.

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We have a nice nest egg in the bank

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As you can see, we have our money split into a variety of locations. We try to keep the Wells Fargo amount low. That’s our checking account. And keep as much as we can in that live out

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savings account, so that we earn some good interest. I think it’s a little less than 3%. Right now, but we did go a nice run of 3%. And then we do have a Vanguard money market

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So the next section, this is the report that I send out to the board. So the next section there just kind of tracks how much has been in our accounts over

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Each quarter in the previous year, there is not any

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Event funds in here, so, like, right now we have, more in our account, because we have the… all the ticket sales for the Los Angeles road trip

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Some payments have gone out, but, you know, we kind of spend about half our years in that limbo where everyone is paid for their tickets, but we haven’t sent all the money out for buses and rooms and things like that.

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We… by adding on the live oak account, we have increased our amount of interest that we’re making, which is exciting.

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And we do still have that Vanguard information if there’s a question why the Vanguard stuff is estimated or using an average, at this point

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when I did this report, I did not have all the paperwork yet. It’s been a process to get my name on the Vanguard documents instead of the previous treasurer.

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Royalties is another source of our income. So that’s pretty nice. Every quarter we get a check from

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EBSCO, EBSCO, I don’t know how you say it

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That’s another revenue stream that we have

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You can go to the next screen

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And this is something I send out with the reports. I think it gives everybody a good sense of what our ongoing costs are. I usually just share things at over $500. But there is a cost to doing our publications. That’s

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A good chunk of our expenses are that aren’t related to any road trip or conference, but I think everyone agrees. They are a valuable asset to being a member with the SCA. So there’s the

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design, the editing, and the printing of the journals, as well as the quarterly newsletter.

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So that’s what most of those costs are.

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There

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And that’s all

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I really have to say we’re doing good. We’re keeping an eye on everything, trying to get everything as digitally based as possible and easy for a transition

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to the next treasurer. And if you’re interested in being the treasurer

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Reach out because the role could be yours.

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Talk to Brian.

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Are you registered

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Okay, thanks, Emily. And I might mention to the members as well that we’ve we switched over over the last 2 years from basically a manual based system to a system

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Yes

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I think… is it QuickBooks, Emily, or one of the… yeah, QuickBooks. And it’s taken quite a bit of work to

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transfer everything over, but I think, Emily, you were telling the board that that should be done basically sometime this year, up and running with the new systems. And

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’re in, I’d say we’re in place

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It’s up and going

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Alright, great, okay.

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Well, that’s wonderful. Again, any questions you might have, put them in the chat and we’ll be able to answer them and that’ll make things a little bit go a little bit faster here. Thank you very much

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Emily, I’m going to now go to this slide, which is the SCA’s mission statement. Now, this year the board, after some consideration, decided that the mission statement that we

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prior to this year was somewhat outdated and didn’t really reflect the didn’t reflect the

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The actual mission of the society as it is evolving. Ron, I know you’re online. Did you want to say anything? Because you were one of the primers behind this. Did you want to say anything about

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where this came from and why we undertook it

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Yeah, we had… we had a… well, I mean, we undertook it because everybody agreed that it wasn’t…

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clear from our previous mission statement, what our mission was.

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Uh, as it has evolved. I mean, the organization has definitely matured.

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Um, and changed to some degree over its…

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near 50-year history at this point, so, um…

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So, uh, despite the fact that you, Brian, I think, worried that this was going to be a multi-year

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um, extravaganza.

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Um, we had a small committee get together, and um…

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We’re able to come up with a very strong draft of this.

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pretty much within a few weeks.

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Um, we presented it to the board, we did a minor amount of rewriting just to kind of straighten out some of the language.

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And so what you’re seeing here is the work of, uh…

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of a small committee of…

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of mission statement enthusiasts.

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who… and I think we are, at this point, all in agreement that, especially that last

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Uh, the last sentence of this mission statement really captures the full scope of the

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of the various things that the SCA now does.

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research, education, publications, events, and advocacy. We connect and nurture a large community of enthusiasts.

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promote public awareness and encourage preservation efforts.

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Uh, so we’re very happy with this, and we think it’s a nice foundation for

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Um, the things that we’re planning to do going forward, but also it really sums up the things that this organization

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has evolved into over the last 50 years.

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49, and counting.

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Great. Thank you, Ron. I think the whole board would hardly endorse what you just said

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at the century mark.

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And let’s hope that this one lasts for quite a long time, too, before the next group says it’s outdated and needs to be evolved. Okay, this mission statement, of course, is reproduced in all the publications, and it’s all over our website and so on. And also for your information, Ron

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is a board member, and he is primarily responsible for our electronic activities on the web, but he’ll tell you a little bit more about that later in the meeting.

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All right, I’m going to talk about membership. I’m on the membership committee. Cynthia is actually soon to take over chairmanship of that committee, but for now I’ll give the report. And just like the financial

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report from Emily, we’re doing well with our members, but it’s not… it’s not all good news. Our membership, it continues to increase. We had 770 members at the end of 2025, and at the end of 2024, we had 739. So that’s an increase of, what, 31 members

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As of today, we are up to 781. So the numbers are headed in the right direction. But where we’re the board is very concerned is that we increase our membership by 13% per year

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Or at least we did last year, and that’s a pretty average amount. But we lose members at the rate of about 8% per year, so our net increase is 4.5%. Now, I’m very happy, and the board is very happy, with the increase in the membership

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At 13% annually because we have all sorts of methods out there by which people become aware of the society and become interested in the society and become engaged and they join.

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But if we could cut those losses down to half of what they were, then our membership, of course, would be increasing much more dramatically. And we find that we have, I’ll just go to the next slide for a minute, the members who let their members

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laps, or even cancel them, but most people just… they don’t renew. They tend to be younger people, and they tend to have been members for a shorter period of time, so up to 3 years. We find if we can keep a member for 3 years, then we’ve got them

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For a long period of time. So the board has been constantly working on this as to how to appeal to a younger group and and how to reduce this attrition in the membership in this younger group and in this

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And the people that we that have not been members, long-term members. But if our trends continue, we will have 822 members by the time of our 50th anniversary in 2027, which is next year. And

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I don’t have, and I don’t think anybody has historical membership records that go back to the beginning in 1977, but I do think that this has to be fairly close to a record membership for the SCA. So we have seen

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membership lists from the 1990s, which are around the same number, maybe a little bit less. So, we’re doing well in this time of

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Zoom and electronic and everything else when people don’t seem to be able to pay attention to anything for more than 5 minutes, where I think we’re really succeeding. But it’s not without its problems.

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Some really good bright spots. We have 597 members, that’s 78% of our… of our membership is on automatic renewal, so that means they… their membership dues are deducted automatically from their credit card, which is a great boon to an organization

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Like ours, which is all volunteer based. It cuts the amount of work that has to be done to keep the members online tremendously.

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And we also have 24 members, or we had 24 members. These are all these figures are all as of the end of 2025. We had 24 members on our monthly patron plan, which was a new option started in 2025 that allowed people to pay $5 a month

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Which helps some people that are… or who are struggling a bit financially. So, this has been a well-used plan, and I think it’s kept some people that otherwise would have had to go away.

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We have seven members, remarkably enough, who are still active in the SCA that founded the SCA in 1977. So they’re 49 years later, they’re still going strong. Unfortunately, we had eight, we lost one of them this year, Peter Richards

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But we’re hoping that next year at the 50th anniversary, we may be able to get the members together, and that would be an amazing celebration of people that started this organization all those many years ago, still interested and still active.

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80% of our members… oh, I think I had that over here, right? Yeah, oh, 78% are on automatic renewal, and 80% renew electronically, so the other 2%

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They, they pay their dues, electronically, but they’re not on automatic renewals. So that leaves very few of our members that are paying by check.

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Actually, this number is not right. I don’t know why it says 80%, because the number of our members that are paying by check now is much less than that. I’ll correct this number in the final version of these slides

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We also have confirmed email addresses for 98% of our members, so that means we have a very good reach with all the various things that go out through email.

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And we are putting together a more colorful and graphically oriented

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presentation on statistics for the SCA, which will be published in an upcoming issue of the road notes. So those are some highlights, but it’s always interesting to see who

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Where do the members live? What states are they concentrated in age distribution and so on and so forth, which we will have in an upcoming issue of the road notes.

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All right, so that’s our membership report.

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Publications. Brian, you’re on the line, I think. Brian Batko.

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I am

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Yep

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Brian, could you tell us a little bit about our publications and especially about our award

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Yeah, well, thank you. Yeah, we’re pretty excited. The new issue, the spring issue, has been at the printer for a while and one day soon it’ll be showing up in mailboxes. But yes, our

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spring issue from a year ago

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So we entered into the Communicator Awards and it won for the overall design. So we’re pretty excited about that. Not just for that issue, but because now the organization itself can say that it has award-winning publications

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And this one especially is legitimate. Let’s see, they, the jury has professionals from JP Morgan, FedEx, Netflix, National Geographic, and some of the winners were beside are the Walt Disney Company

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Special Olympics, PepsiCo, let’s see, Marriott International. So, it’s really something we can all be proud of because, of course, it’s not just me, I’m doing the design, but so many of you are helping in many different ways. And

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The other thing with the magazine is, you know.

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Change comes slow to it, not because we can’t change it, but at its heart, it’s an academic journal. At the same time, we want to make it appealing to a modern audience, but we also don’t want to jump the shark into being

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Marilyn Monroe, Betty Boop Diner kind of publication, and so that’s why we keep a lot of things and tweak them slowly, one issue at a time, and appreciate all the suggestions. Doug and Ron, and so many of the rest

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have for me

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Okay, thanks very much, Brian. And as Brian said, he’s the designer for the journal comes out twice a year. And Doug Town, who couldn’t be with us tonight, is the editor of both of these publications, which you’re all very familiar with because you get them in your mailbox six times a year. But we also have

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Well, the next item is the monthly Zooms, and we also have our roadside roundup, which is a digital newsletter which goes out four times a year. You just received one of those. So lots of communication, but I have to admit, I mean, I’m biased obviously, but Brian, I think we well deserved that award because these publications, I think, are

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Absolutely top-notch quality, and I guess the people who hand out those awards recognize that. So that’s great.

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Yeah, thank you

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And thank you for your review. Now, Stephanie Stuckey, I was going to ask her to talk about the Zoom presentations, but I don’t think she’s on the line. Are you on line, Stephanie? I don’t believe she is. So I’ll just tell a little bit about it. And before I start that, I’ll remind you that there’s one tonight right after this annual meeting

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And the link is at the end of his presentation, so you can just stay online and watch that

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that presentation about Highway 41. But this is… we’re now in our 73rd

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Monthly Zoom presentations, so that’s six years and counting. They were started by Michael Hirsch during the pandemic. He was the president then as a way to stay in touch with

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The membership when any kind of conferences or in-person gatherings were not permitted. So it got started and it started slowly and like a lot of things do, but it’s now turned into a very interesting program monthly of people that talk about things SCA

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And it’s everything from soup to nuts

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All from the burger family to squashed pennies. That was Christine Henry who’s on the call tonight, to the New York Sign Museum, to a lot of her stuff recently about Route 66 and

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I think that we are building, just like the journals, we have an amazing library of written publications. We are now building an amazing library of video publications as well that people can access

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online and use for research, and so on and so forth. But it just… I encourage you strongly to

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Check out one of these things. If you can’t make the live presentation, they’re all on website as recordings and anybody can see them there, and they are fantastic. Some of the speakers are experts in their fields, and other people are amateurs that just

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An avocation in this, but they’re all very, very interesting, and some of them are very funny as well.

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So anyways, this is an initiative that’s been going for 6 years now, but it’s becoming stronger by the month that goes by, and I think it’s a great outreach on the society, so I strongly support it. I’m the emcee of it as well.

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Ron, can I ask you just to say a few words about our social media, our website, that sort of thing?

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Sure. Um, hopefully, uh, members have visited the website. Website is…

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sort of our central hub. It’s a repository of, as Brian just said,

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Uh, our libraries of Zoom presentations. We also have

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Uh, two roadside images, image collections that we’ve published, one just

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Recently, so…

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Um, of enthusiasts that have donated their materials to the SEA.

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We also republish the book reviews that are in the journals.

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Um, we have a number of archives, probably the most valuable to members.

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is that when you log in to the website,

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And if you’re a member, um, you are able to log in to the website by just hitting login and typing in your

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username and password, and once you’ve done that,

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every issue of the SEA Journal and every issue of road notes or SEA News, as it used to be called.

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is available to you as a free digital download.

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Um, and I encourage you to take advantage of that. You can also buy

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printed copies of those that we still have in stock.

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at a discounted price, and all you need to do is log in. And there are a few other…

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bits and bobs here and there on the website, uh, that, uh, that you have access to when you log in. But for the most part, our website is a big…

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Open repository, it’s a big advertisement and a big, um…

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shared resource, not just among our members, but the public at large.

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Um, we also, in addition to the website, starting this year, we, uh,

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we started publishing on Substack.

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And on Blue Sky, we’ve, for a very long time, had a Facebook page, an Instagram page. There’s also a Flickr repository.

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Um, and as Brian mentioned, you can sign up for our e-news. So, if you haven’t been there recently, or if you haven’t been there at all, I encourage you to stop by the website.

00:24:00.000 –> 00:24:04.000
And I’ll echo, Emily, I’m retiring from the…

00:24:04.000 –> 00:24:06.000
I’m leaving the board.

00:24:06.000 –> 00:24:18.000
At least for now, at the end of this year, and I am sort of the person that runs sort of the hardcore nuts and bolts of the website. I plan to volunteer that service.

00:24:18.000 –> 00:24:26.000
Um, into the future, not even though I won’t be a board member, but if there’s anybody out there that would like to…

00:24:26.000 –> 00:24:28.000
volunteer. Like Emily pleaded.

00:24:28.000 –> 00:24:36.000
who has WordPress experience, kind of deep WordPress experience. I’d love to hear from you.

00:24:36.000 –> 00:24:43.000
Um, also, if you ever have any questions about the website, or concerns about the website, or spot any errors on the website,

00:24:43.000 –> 00:24:48.000
Please just email me. My email address is available under the About section, under Contact.

00:24:48.000 –> 00:24:54.000
It’s got the old title of Webmaster, so Webmaster at sea-roadside.org.

00:24:54.000 –> 00:24:57.000
And I will endeavor to answer all your questions and correct

00:24:57.000 –> 00:25:02.000
all your corrections. Thank you.

00:25:02.000 –> 00:25:22.000
Thank you very much, Ron. I find this website absolutely unbelievable. And plus, all of the extra social media that we’re on, it’s just a fantastic thing. And without this, we’d be dead in the water as far as trying to attract younger demographic and people that are used to doing everything online. So again.

00:25:22.000 –> 00:25:37.000
Huge kudos to Ron and the other ones that work on this primarily are Mike Carsten, who runs the social media, and Bill Swisslow and other members of the board who put out the weekly news review, which is another

00:25:37.000 –> 00:25:46.000
Fantastic way of staying in touch with the membership and letting everybody know things that are going on in the big wide world SCA.

00:25:46.000 –> 00:25:48.000
Oh, there’s Stephanie right there.

00:25:48.000 –> 00:25:49.000
Hello, Stephanie.

00:25:49.000 –> 00:25:54.000
I am so sorry, I got tied up at the candy plant, but I’m on and I want to make sure my attendance was noted so

00:25:54.000 –> 00:25:56.000
I’m here

00:25:56.000 –> 00:26:14.000
Okay, thank you. I don’t know if you want to say we just spent, we’re running a little bit ahead of schedule, actually, which is amazing. I just gave a very quick review of the Zoom program, but did you want to say anything, Stephanie, about that? What’s coming up in the future or anything like that?

00:26:14.000 –> 00:26:29.000
No, just that I’ve just… it’s… I’ve really enjoyed doing that as my main contribution to the board, because we just have so many people who want to give presentations, and they’ve all been fabulous. I’m looking forward to tonight’s, and

00:26:29.000 –> 00:26:44.000
You know, most people say yes, some people we have to hound, and I’m just really grateful to the board because if it wasn’t for y’all giving me referrals, you know, it would be a much harder job. But I mean, we’re now booking for January. So onward

00:26:44.000 –> 00:26:50.000
Yeah, onward and upward. Okay, thanks, Stephanie. Thank you. I’m glad you joined

00:26:50.000 –> 00:27:06.000
Okay, I’d like to call on Jeremy Ebersole to tell us a bit about two new initiatives that the SCA has brought on this year in terms of awards and awards and grants

00:27:06.000 –> 00:27:18.000
I’m very, very pleased about this, because I think it’s something where the SCA can make a real contribution, but anyways, Jeremy, would you like to tell us about these two new initiatives?

00:27:18.000 –> 00:27:35.000
Yeah, thank you, Brian. As Brian said, I’m Jeremy Ebersole on the board for a number of years. And yes, 2 really exciting new initiatives this year connected with our La road trip which Janice will talk about

00:27:35.000 –> 00:27:50.000
In a little bit. The first is what we have decided to name the SCA Side Heritage Award. So we had thought… we’ve been thinking and continuing to think through ways to be more active in advocacy as an organization

00:27:50.000 –> 00:28:06.000
And in a word kind of came to us this year as we were putting together our… well, the idea for an award as we were putting together a road trip, and we’re working with Alan Hess, who folks

00:28:06.000 –> 00:28:21.000
May know Architect in Southern California, who is an expert on Googie architecture, who had been very involved in this particular project that we are giving the award to, which we will be visiting this year, and so decided

00:28:21.000 –> 00:28:40.000
So now is as good a time as any to start an annual award as a way to honor projects that have really done really good work and bring them more attention, and again, show the world the value of the places that we love in the SCA

00:28:40.000 –> 00:28:57.000
So this is the first ever that will be happening this next month for this award. We hope that it will be an annual event and the process essentially the event committee, the idea is that going forward, the event committee will select a project from the host region

00:28:57.000 –> 00:29:19.000
to honor each year as part of the conference or road trip. Officially, I can just read you here kind of what we’re looking for in making these selections. The award seeks to recognize, celebrate, and call attention to one recent local success story within the broad world of commercial roadside heritage with what is an honorific recognition. There’s no money

00:29:19.000 –> 00:29:27.000
That comes along with it. There is a very cool plaque, which you can see there, which was designed by, Mike Karsten, another board member

00:29:27.000 –> 00:29:46.000
So the various types of things that we might honor would be preservation efforts, duration, successful prevention of a demolition, a work of documentation, education, or public awareness, or anything else that the committee concludes exemplifies the spirit of the Sca’s mission. And then, in addition to receiving the award, we’ll ask the recipient

00:29:46.000 –> 00:30:01.000
We give them the opportunity to do a Zoom talk, one of our monthly Zoom talks, and write something in one of our publications. So it’s continuing to spread the word in that way. Again, this year is excited to announce, and this will be in publications again going forward, and folks who are on the SC

00:30:01.000 –> 00:30:19.000
La road trip, well, we’ll see it in person. But this is the restoration of the Stanley Burks restaurant and sign in Los Angeles. So this is a 1958 building on Van Nuys Boulevard, designed by Armee and Davis, with an interior by Helen Liu Fong

00:30:19.000 –> 00:30:34.000
Who are very well-known Googie architects from that era. I went through multiple owners and names, and eventually closed in 2019, with designated as Historical Cultural Monument by the City of Los Angeles in 202

00:30:34.000 –> 00:30:49.000
And then had a… was contracted under a new tenant, Chick-fil-A, who is in here now. And all of these various parties got together and decided to actually restore the building. If you follow these types of things, you recognize how

00:30:49.000 –> 00:31:04.000
Rare it is for a building like this to be restored by a new tenant, especially a large national corporation, especially in fast food where, as we know, design

00:31:04.000 –> 00:31:21.000
I would say has not necessarily evolved over the years as much as devolved. But Chick-fil-A and the owners and others made the decision to restore this building, completely restored to close to its original as well as the neon sign and just a really remarkable example of cooperation among the property owner, the tenant

00:31:21.000 –> 00:31:29.000
the city, the neighborhood, and historic preservationists. So stay tuned. For more on that and more awards in the future.

00:31:29.000 –> 00:31:59.000
And so, yes, thank you, Brian, for the next one. Another initiative that we’ve been talking about for a number of years, again, along with working to try to bring younger people into the SCA to make the organization more accessible. Obviously, our conferences are and road trips are amazing experiences, but recognize that they can be inaccessible due to cost for folks for unlimited incomes or students. So one way of addressing that was that we’ve been talking about for a number of years, able to make happen

00:31:59.000 –> 00:32:14.000
is a student travel grant. So again, first time ever this year, and it’s something that we do hope to continue going forward. The grant was open to any current college student who is a member of the SCA, and folks can become members

00:32:14.000 –> 00:32:32.000
Right before applying as well. So we did get a number of great applications this year. We also got a grant that made this possible this year through the Los Angeles Breakfast Club, which is a fantastic organization in Los Angeles that supports

00:32:32.000 –> 00:32:54.000
All kinds of different initiatives. And so we… they funded this grant, and there’s additional support that the SCA kicked in to make this happen, and the hope is that we’ll be able to find grant sponsors going forward each year as well. It was an open call that we put out into the world with an essay application

00:32:54.000 –> 00:33:09.000
And the recipients will receive free registration for the road trip this summer, plus a $200 additional stipend for travel and to help with travel and lodging. And then they will also be asked

00:33:09.000 –> 00:33:24.000
I hope to encourage them to write something up for the publications going forward. So we’re very happy that we have our two recipients this year, Sarah Schleicher, who is a grad student and historic preservation and community planning at the University of Maryland

00:33:24.000 –> 00:33:45.000
And Jacob Munninger is a graduate student Mastrich. This is in the Netherlands. So I may not pronounce that right, but a student in the Netherlands who is studying digital studies, media cultures. So they will be joining us at the road trip this summer and can hope to see more of these going forward. So if you

00:33:45.000 –> 00:33:56.000
The college students in your life, please send out the announcement again next year, assuming we’re able to continue and pass it along to them.

00:33:56.000 –> 00:33:57.000
Great, thank you.

00:33:57.000 –> 00:33:58.000
And that’s all for me

00:33:58.000 –> 00:34:06.000
Thank you so much, Jeremy, both wonderful initiatives, which I hope will continue basically forever.

00:34:06.000 –> 00:34:26.000
And, let’s move on now. We don’t have Frank Brusca with us. I don’t think Frank is on the line. Frank is our digital collection specialist, member of the board. So I’ll just say a few brief words about it. This, as you may know, last year we posted in this was definitely a group effort, although

00:34:26.000 –> 00:34:41.000
Frank is the one primarily responsible, but it puts a lot of help from Ron Leducer and other people that are savvy in the ways of electronic media, but his Jim Seeland

00:34:41.000 –> 00:34:50.000
collection of 20,000 motel postcards was posted online on the Sca’s website. It’s all fully searchable

00:34:50.000 –> 00:35:06.000
And then this year, we had the donation of the Peter Richards Roadside Collection, which is more varied, not just motels, it’s diners, but all things that the SCA related that he donated to the SCA before his passing

00:35:06.000 –> 00:35:22.000
in which Frank and Ron worked very hard and very diligently to organize or reorganize and properly attribute and so on and so forth. And now that is posted on the Sca’s website as well

00:35:22.000 –> 00:35:38.000
These are the first two in what promises to be a long line of electronic collections that the SCA will be hosting because we have now we’re in the very final stages. The board is

00:35:38.000 –> 00:35:56.000
Putting together a protocol for what we will, what the SCA will collect and essentially it just says we can’t take anything physical, but we can take things that are electronic. So in other words, no slides, but we will take electronic copies of slides

00:35:56.000 –> 00:36:15.000
But there’s… and there’s a whole bunch of other things that have to go with it. They have to be organized to a certain level. It’s a tremendous amount of work to do this, and so the donors really need to take responsibility for that and get that done. But if they do follow the protocol once it’s issued, then we will take these collections

00:36:15.000 –> 00:36:34.000
and host them on the SE’s website, and then they will be available to anyone and everyone doing research, or just is interested in what the motels were like in their town, or their state, or wherever. So this is a another great initiative which Frank has put a tremendous amount of work in, and so has Ron

00:36:34.000 –> 00:36:49.000
Which I hope will continue to grow and really the objective is to is to make the SCA the go-to organization for general SCA information across North America.

00:36:49.000 –> 00:36:56.000
Now, Janice, could you tell us a little bit about something that’s coming up very soon, which promises to be a real blockbuster?

00:36:56.000 –> 00:36:59.000
Yes, thanks, Brian.

00:36:59.000 –> 00:37:02.000
So we’re incredibly excited.

00:37:02.000 –> 00:37:08.000
to be coming up to… it’s just within a few weeks, July 10th through 13th.

00:37:08.000 –> 00:37:11.000
Our 2026 road trip in Los Angeles.

00:37:11.000 –> 00:37:15.000
And this has a lot of firsts. It’s the first time that we’re doing

00:37:15.000 –> 00:37:25.000
3 full days of touring, because there’s so much to see. It was even hard to get it down to 3 days, but we have 3 full days of touring, plus the opening reception.

00:37:25.000 –> 00:37:35.000
Which is really exciting. Uh, the other firsts are what Jeremy already spoke about, which is the roadside Heritage Award, which will be awarded during the trip.

00:37:35.000 –> 00:37:44.000
The fact that we have these student grants, we’ll have students on board, which is fantastic. We’re going to have some really cool surprises in the road trip bags.

00:37:44.000 –> 00:37:55.000
And we’re just gonna have a lot of, a lot of wonderful, wonderful, uh, tour… tour guides. So, we’re gonna have, of course, our fabulous Kevin Patrick.

00:37:55.000 –> 00:38:08.000
Um, and actually, let me back up and just say that, um, I’m sharing this, but Jeremy Ebersole, Emily Schricher, Mike Karsten, Steve Siegel, and Kevin Patrick, and Michael Hirsch,

00:38:08.000 –> 00:38:11.000
are all on the conference committee,

00:38:11.000 –> 00:38:21.000
All of us have been working incredibly hard for the last year to pull this together, and we’re just so excited in what we’re getting, uh…

00:38:21.000 –> 00:38:23.000
getting the results of.

00:38:23.000 –> 00:38:34.000
So, it’s starting with Valley Relics on Friday night with Charles Phoenix, uh, and giving a talk, and the museum. We’re gonna have a classic

00:38:34.000 –> 00:38:37.000
Southern California In-N-Out food truck.

00:38:37.000 –> 00:38:47.000
And Saturday, we’re spending the day in downtown LA, doing a lot of really fantastic touring, in addition to Kevin, we have Alan Hess, S. Scott Norton,

00:38:47.000 –> 00:38:56.000
Uh, Chris Nichols, a whole number of local tour guides who really know the area and are getting… also helping us get special access to buildings.

00:38:56.000 –> 00:39:02.000
Which we normally… the normal human being would not be able to get into, which is really exciting.

00:39:02.000 –> 00:39:12.000
Um, we just got a late-breaking thing that looks like we will be able to get into Clifton’s, as an example, so these are things that we’re super, super excited about.

00:39:12.000 –> 00:39:13.000
Okay.

00:39:13.000 –> 00:39:15.000
And so, go ahead.

00:39:15.000 –> 00:39:17.000
I was just going to say thanks very much. We have to move on fairly quickly, Janice, to the next

00:39:17.000 –> 00:39:26.000
Okay, yeah, so anyhow, it’s gonna be… it’s gonna wrap… we’re gonna have one day in downtown LA, another in Hollywood, and then going to Santa Monica.

00:39:26.000 –> 00:39:31.000
And then the final day will be in the Valley, so a lot of different exciting

00:39:31.000 –> 00:39:36.000
Um, exciting destinations there.

00:39:36.000 –> 00:39:37.000
Sure.

00:39:37.000 –> 00:39:53.000
Wow, that’s just wonderful. Thank you so much, Janice, for heading up the committee, and to all the committee members who… I mean, I did Niagara Falls last year with the help of a lot of people, and I know how much work it is. So, thanks to everybody. Our apologies, there may be some people on the call tonight who

00:39:53.000 –> 00:40:11.000
wanted to come, but couldn’t make it, and that’s… that’s a shame. But, for next year, which Nancy’s going to tell us about in 5 seconds, we’re going to try to make sure we can accommodate everybody. But you’ll hear all about it from those who went, and we’re gonna love it, because it’s going to be great.

00:40:11.000 –> 00:40:21.000
Thanks, Janice. Okay, where’s Nancy? Nancy, could you tell us a little bit, just maybe three minutes about next year’s conference

00:40:21.000 –> 00:40:36.000
So I’m Nancy Sturm, former board member, former president of SCA, and I’m one of three of your conference co-chairs, including former SCA board members and Austin residents and preservation professionals Greg Smith and Beth Dodd, who are on this call

00:40:36.000 –> 00:40:48.000
The conference we’re calling a Texas Two-Step San Antonio and Austin, the Society for Commercial Archaeology’s 50th anniversary conference

00:40:48.000 –> 00:41:05.000
And it will be held May 19th through the 22nd, 2027. The Drury Plaza Hotel Riverwalk, which is the former 1929 Alamo National Bank in San Antonio, will be our conference headquarters and base

00:41:05.000 –> 00:41:20.000
And the hotel was located right on the San Antonio River with its own boat stop on the Riverwalk, which we’ll hope to take advantage of during our stay. The conference is going to provide a Texas twist to themes that we explore in SCA conferences and road trips of the past

00:41:20.000 –> 00:41:35.000
That is, we’re going to focus on the group’s core interests in the history of travel and tourism and the architecture of the American roadside, such as recreation sites, amusements, gas, food, and lodging. We’re going to also be focusing on geography, human settlement

00:41:35.000 –> 00:41:53.000
of the areas that we’re touring, cultural and ethnic diversity, the foodways, our transportation history, city planning, historic preservation, vernacular art and architecture, regional identity and myth making, civil works and infrastructure, excuse me, world’s fair

00:41:53.000 –> 00:42:08.000
Programs and products of the New Deal, music, modern architecture, and the very text and emphasis on being the biggest in all categories. Also, we’re planning creative ways to honor SCA’s 50th anniversary, which of course will involve a special cake at one of our meals

00:42:08.000 –> 00:42:31.000
And as Brian mentioned, special invitations to our still living founders and more. Conference activities will, of course, include an opening reception on our first evening. We’re working out that location. It might be a mini golf of one of the oldest mini golf courses in the nation, or it might be at one of Texas cultural German halls, for example

00:42:31.000 –> 00:42:48.000
We’re going to have an all one-day tour of San Antonio. We’re going to have our usual all-day symposium of member and guest presentations and our last day will be a day-long field trip to Austin and a sprinkle with other activities, walking tours, and things like that at night

00:42:48.000 –> 00:43:04.000
In developing our schedule, we’re thrilled to be consulting with local preservation groups and city historic preservation offices in both cities. We have great contacts and friends at the San Antonio Conservation Society, which is one of the nation’s 1st community historic preservation groups that was founded in 1924

00:43:04.000 –> 00:43:22.000
Preservation Austin, a dynamic group working in Austin at the City of Austin Department of Historic Preservation, and the City of San Antonio’s Department of Historic Preservation, which is actually going to be an official co-sponsor of the conference. We look forward to having you all attend, and we’re aiming to get registration materials out to you

00:43:22.000 –> 00:43:37.000
For all of this via email in early December. So that’ll be in time for holiday gift giving to your friends and loved ones if you’re so inclined. And we look forward to a great time next year in Texas.

00:43:37.000 –> 00:43:42.000
Thank you so much, Nancy. I see you smiling, Janice, because you know how much work Nancy’s in for with her committee.

00:43:42.000 –> 00:43:46.000
Well, that, and also, it’s on my birthday.

00:43:46.000 –> 00:43:51.000
Oh, wow, even better. Wow, we’ll have to have a special celebration for that

00:43:51.000 –> 00:44:05.000
Anyways, thanks so much, Nancy. It sounds like a fantastic trip. So we’ve come to the end of our agenda. Is there anybody that’s on the call that would like to bring anything else up? We have about two minutes left before we have to

00:44:05.000 –> 00:44:23.000
shut it down because we have a Zoom starting at 8. Oh, I should think, I should give you the link, so I just want to say before we go my thanks as president to all the members of the board who work so hard to make these all these various things a reality and also the board thanks

00:44:23.000 –> 00:44:39.000
the members for their interest and support. If there wasn’t any members, there wouldn’t be any SCA, and you’re the ones that are funding all the initiatives that are going on. But, you know, it’s great that you’re a member, but if you want to become a board member, that’s even better, and we need

00:44:39.000 –> 00:44:57.000
As much help as we can get. There’s so many things that need to be done. Now, right after this presentation is or after this meeting is one of our SCA zooms, and it’s by Chris Klot, who will be speaking to us about Highway 41, which he feels is

00:44:57.000 –> 00:45:16.000
He feels is the most important north-south highway in the United States, but it doesn’t give the attention… doesn’t get the attention that it deserves. So, there’s the link there. I don’t know if you can cut and paste that from these, but if you can, just go to the SCA’s website and go to the Zoom recordings, and you can register right there, and and the meeting will start literally in

00:45:16.000 –> 00:45:21.000
15 minutes. So without further ado, I’m just going to check the chat, see if there’s anything here that we need to

00:45:21.000 –> 00:45:27.000
There’s a question about getting involved, and who to contact.

00:45:27.000 –> 00:45:37.000
Oh, if you want to get involved, call or contact me. So all you got to do is just email to president@sca-roadside.org.

00:45:37.000 –> 00:45:41.000
Okay, and the more we hear from, the better

00:45:41.000 –> 00:45:58.000
Okay, Brian, our president already. Yes, that’s okay. Thanks, Nancy. All right, that’s great. Well, I’m going to close the meeting now. The meeting will be posted. The recording will be posted on the website for anybody that wants to see it that didn’t get a chance to join tonight. I thank you all for joining us. I thank our presenters for being

00:45:58.000 –> 00:46:08.000
So brief, but very interesting in their presentations, and we look forward to seeing you all again next year.

00:46:08.000 –> 00:46:14.000
Let me see