Choosing 100 volunteers.(Historical Society of Alberta )

The Historical Society of Alberta has for a number of years bestowed our Annual Award, our Award of Merit, and Honorary Lifetime Memberships to deserving individuals in Alberta. But we are one hundred years old this year, and your Council decided some months ago that for this year we would not give out the usual awards but, instead, would recognize volunteers in general. Rather than single out a few outstanding people, we would recognize the many, many people who, over the years, have made it possible for the Society to function and to grow, and to achieve the many things it has achieved.

Each year, when the annual report is prepared, an attempt is made to tally up the hours of volunteer time contributed by members over the year. I think it is safe to say that, whatever number we arrive at, it will be an underestimate. For one thing, we generally collect information about volunteer hours only from our Board members, and that fails to recognize the efforts of all the other members who serve on committees or volunteer in countless other ways. Also, I know that when I ask people in my own Chapter to report their volunteer hours, they are without exception unduly modest. They may count the hours attending committee meetings, for example, but they forget to include all of the time they spent in preparation for the meetings.

But even so, even though the number is, I am sure, too low, the total volunteer hours reported each year by Society is always in excess of 25,000 hours. Think of that. If we imagine an average person working 40 hours a week for 50 weeks of the year, that's 2,000 hours. If my math is correct, our volunteers do the work of a dozen or more full time people. It is volunteers who keep our Society vibrant and flourishing. In council's view, they should be recognized.

But how can we recognize all these people, all this volunteer effort? Of course, it would be impossible to name them all. Instead, it was decided to identify 100 volunteers over the first 100 years and in recognizing them we will be honouring all the volunteers who, over the years, have kept the organization going and helped it to grow.

It wasn't an easy job to select 100 names. We asked each Chapter to submit a list of ten names, and a "back-up" list of ten more. We included all of the people who have been made Honorary life members. We asked staff and volunteers to search through the Society's records to identify more names, especially from the early years. We asked Hugh Dempsey and several other past presidents with long memories to contribute more names. Through the columns of History NOW, we invited the general membership to submit their nominations as well. Then we directed the Awards & Nominations Committee--made up of the past president and four Chapter presidents and, for this task, augmented by past president Sheila Johnson, President Ron Williams, President Elect Linda Collier and past First Vice President Jean Johnston--to undertake the task of narrowing the list down to 100 names. After a day-long meeting and many e-mail discussions, we arrived at the list that follows.

You will notice that there are no Provincial Presidents on the list: they appear in a list of their own. There are also no central office personnel: they are recognized elsewhere, too. These are 100 people who have been members of the Society and who have all made a noteworthy volunteer effort to further the interests of the Society. Some of them are well known for their work in the wider heritage community--perhaps they have published books or written magazine articles or worked hard to save some historic site--but many are not. Many have served as directors and executive members in the Society and its chapters, but by no means all of them.

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