0.7 Chapter five: new initiatives and economic shocks, 1982-1987  (Page 14/18)

A third programmatic initiative of this time illustrates the Society's efforts to improve relations with its surrounding community. It was noted earlier that there was pressure on the Society to become more inclusive and that changes were made in the composition of the board in response. In terms of programs, the attempt to broaden the Society's appeal was best exemplified by a multimedia exhibit mounted by the Society in April 1987 celebrating the fortieth anniversary of Jackie Robinson's career with the Brooklyn Dodgers. One might argue that an exhibit about the life of a baseball player of the mid twentieth century fell outside even the broadest definition of the Society's mission, but it was a clear effort on the part of the Society to reach out to a community it had been criticized for ignoring for many years.

Society management worked hard to ensure that the exhibit would be a suc­cess. A festive opening was attended by Mayor Ed Koch, Major League Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth, members of the Robinson Foundation's board of trustees Franklin Williams and Howard Cosell, and many others. An advertising campaign promoted the exhibition on radio and in the sports pages of New York newspapers, and a promotional deal was struck with WLIB, a New York radio sta­tion with a predominantly minority listenership, to maximize the exposure of the event in that community. The Society's efforts were quite successful; on Saturdays and Sundays, lines spilled out onto the sidewalk outside the Society's doors. Over the exhibit's three-month run, it averaged more than a thousand visitors per week.

Despite the programmatic successes of the Jackie Robinson exhibit and the conservation lab, the Society continued to face financial difficulties. Platten reit­erated her warnings to the trustees about the operating deficits. With no new rev­enue opportunities in sight, the board called on the newly established collections committee, of which Debs was also chair, to look into raising money by disposing of works of art or library materials that were outside the scope of the Society's purposes.

While the collections committee did its work, the board rejoined its ongoing battle over by-laws, this time moving to undo structures that had been put in place previously. Prior to formal action being taken on the by-law changes, extensive correspondence traveled back and forth between Goelet and the officers on the board. At the May 1987 meeting, a vote was taken both on by-laws amendments and on a series of resolutions brought to the board by Goelet. After extensive dis­cussion, a carefully worded board resolution to eliminate the position of chairman of the board, replacing it with president, effective with the September 1987 meet­ing, was adopted. The resolution also reduced the number of standing commit­tees to just four (nominating committee, finance committee, examining and audit committee, and executive committee) and outlined the duties of the secretary and the director. Two additional resolutions were adopted that day. The first charged the collections committee with formulating a collections policy and deaccessions statement. The second formed a special search committee for the purpose of rec­ommending one or more candidates to serve as the new president of the Society following the September 1987 meeting. The committee was encouraged to con­sider both present trustees and nontrustees.