On Friday December 5, Robert F. Macdonald was elected to be the new President of the Baxter Society. He replaces Reid Byers, President for the last three years. Bob has practiced law for thirty-five years and is a shareholder at Bernstein Shur, one of the largest law firms in New England. He attended the London School of Economics and Political Science (1986), Colby College (B.A. 1987), and the University of Maine School of Law (J.D. 1990).
A member of the Grolier Club, Bob grew up in a family of collectors, his parents being passionate collectors of 18th and 19th century Staffordshire pottery. They also collected art and furniture, but their primary focus was always on early English pottery. Bob attributes his own collecting malady chiefly to their influence.
He began collecting Maine history in 1994: books, pamphlets, maps, and other ephemera focusing on the role of what is now Maine in the American Revolution. He collects Kenneth Roberts, John Josselyn, General John Bourgoyne, Moses Greenleaf, Fannie Eckstorm, John Springer, Ralph Waldo Emerson; John Neal; Reverend Thomas Smith, Reverend Jonathan Fisher; and publications by the de Burians of Bangor, Maine; as well as books from the collections of Frank Cutter Deering and Francis O’Brien each of whom were distinguished Maine collectors. He recently acquired an early newspaper which provided the first printed report on the ‘Burning of Falmouth/Portland’ on October 18, 1775. In addition to Maine materials, his collecting interests include English Colour Plate Books with plates by Rowlandson, Cruikshank and others, and NC Wyeth illustrated books.
Bob has served on the Boards of the Osher Map Library Foundation, Opera Maine, Bridgton Highlands Country Club, the Cumberland Club, and the Portland Public Library.
Outgoing President Reid Byers reported :
In 2022, the Board met, and we set some high goals. They included:
1. returning from COVID to live meetings, while still retaining Zoom access in the form of hybrid meetings.
2. meeting nine times a year, including six or seven lectures each year
3. resuming the awarding of a Society prize for the Book Arts
4. resuming the organization of public book exhibitions
5. resuming Society publications
6. performing a formal membership review
7. expanding and diversifying membership, especially younger people
8. redoing the bylaws
9. regularizing our corporate status
10. misc goals, including interviews with our senior members, especially our founders.
Over the last three years, we have made good on some of these:
Zip, BB, Bridget, Scott, and I performed a membership review, and cleaned the books.
The Society passed a revision of our bylaws that removed our membership limit.
In the last three years, we have had 27 meetings, 19 of which were lectures, the balance visits, parties, show-and-tells. The meeting schedule is posted with the minutes.
We awarded the first Baxter Book Arts Prize to Rachel Church in 2023.
We hosted Scott Vile’s great exhibition on the work of Ascensius Press, which was our first book exhibition in thirty years, and we have another coming next month.
We celebrated our 40th anniversary in conjunction with the Book Club of Washington and their 40th anniversary.
And we increased our membership. In 2020, we had 42 members, today we have 94, in large part due, I believe, to our insistence on having hybrid meetings whenever possible.
Things we have not done include resuming publications, and founders’ interviews, and a review of our corporate status, some of which, I am happy to say, are items that are of special interest to Bob Macdonald.
It has been a privilege and a pleasure to serve as President of this fine group, and I thank you for the opportunity.
And that concludes my report.
Mr. Byers will continue as Vice-President for the coming year.