FAQ:  Questions....

Who belongs to The Society of New Concord?

The Society of New Concord was founded by local citizens, and is still mostly made up of inhabitants of the Hamlet. There are currently active members who have lived in New Concord in the past but have moved a little—or occasionally a long—distance away, and still want to participate in Society pursuits.

Ideally, we would love to have every resident of New Concord be a participating member.

There are a few relatives of New Concord families who also belong; and there are friends of SNC who live outside New Concord but enjoy hearing about our events or who make their way to New Concord to participate.

By our bylaws, the Town Historians of the towns of Chatham and Canaan are honorary members of the Society.

I'm Interested and want to participate; How Can I Join the Society?

The easiest way to become a New Concord Society member is to show up at one of our functions/meetings, and sign up with the treasurer.

The next easiest method is to join on line here.

Another approach is to use one of our contact methods, then mail a dues check and brief demographic information [name, local address, telephone(s), e-mail].

What does it cost to belong?

Annual dues are $30 per year for adults.

Other suggested levels of membership:
   - Supporting member: $45
   - Sustaining member: $75
   - Benefactor: $150 or more
constitute implied supplemental donations. Collected dues don't meet our fixed expenses (insurance, electricity, heating oil, repairs, etc.), so we depend on these voluntary contributions, to help make ends meet.

Some of our events are "pot lucks", and so will come with an ask to contribute food or drink items. Some of them have a suggested admission fee to defray expenses for running the event, but we don't exclude members who don't or can't offer the ticket amount.

The Society from time to time embarks on a fundraising campaign to finance a restoration project or to pay for an emergency repair. Our members and friends have an amazing track record of rising to these occasions; they let us keep making progress for the whole community.

Do you accept 'weekenders' for membership?

One primary reason for founding The Society of New Concord was to promote interaction and cooperation between full-time and part-time denizens of New Concord in meaningful/productive functions. We welcome members from both groups: the more the better.

Who 'really' runs The Society of New Concord?

The Society bylaws spell it out clearly: the organization is run by a 9-person Board of Directors elected from the membership at large during the Society's Annual Meeting. The Board of Directors then elects four officers (President, Vice-president, Secretary, Treasurer) from their own ranks, and a Historian. The officers and other directors together (often called the Board of Directors) set out the overall course of the Society within the framework of the bylaws and mission statement, and appoint various committees from the Board of Directors and from the membership at large to actually carry out the various functions of the Society.

In general, election to the position of Director is a manifestation of interest and willingness to participate and contribute; the seats are seldom hotly contested. Similarly, the choice of Officers—though elected in an open voting process—is often closer to an agreeable consensus than to a food fight.

Over the years, with a very few exceptions, the members of the Board of Directors—and of the other functioning Committees—have been open to suggestions, comments, criticisms and especially contributed ideas from the whole New Concord community.

Who Benefits from the Money Collected as Dues and from Events?

The Society gets income from dues, from holding events that have an admission fee, from fund-raising functions (e.g. raffles, plant sales, tag sales, garden tour), and occasionally from donations, gifts or grants for specific purposes.

SNC spends money to hold its events (e.g. printing, supplies, tent rental, musician fees), to send member mailings, to heat and electrify the community hall, and to offer scholarships to students of New Concord history. The Society has no paid positions, and no funds are sent by commissions or fees to any officers or members of the Society.

It is common for volunteer members involved in running events—in addition to contributing their time, efforts and talents—to provide materials at their own expense, or to recruit materials from outside sources without "billing" for reimbursement.

In general, the Society strives—as befits a truly non-profit society—to keep cash inflow and outlays comparable. Our bylaws conform with the IRS definition of a non-profit organization, and we live up to the letter and the spirit of those regulations. We usually have enough funds on hand to keep functioning, but don't own an endowment or large stash of cash.

How do you Manage expensive Building Renovations?

For the purchase of our buildings (from the Dutch Reformed Church Classis), and for bigger pieces of renovations, we have waged campaigns and sought donors to raise funds in advance. There is no Society of New Concord credit card or line-of-credit: we do not borrow to accomplish our projects. Instead, as funds are metered out to cover expenses, we have expanded or contracted our goals to match our fiscal abilities. This has sometimes caused projects to creep along (when a similar commercial undertaking would be done expeditiously).

We also extensively use volunteer labor from willing/able SNC members and friends. And we have been fortunate to have employed some paid skilled craftspeople and suppliers, amenable (nonetheless) to discounting their services or products. This approach entails some compromises, but stretches our fundraising dollars beyond what many other non-profits can accomplish with similar capital. 

Paid expenditures are monitored and controlled by our treasurer, with the details available in quarterly and annual financial reports.

What's with the Name: it sounds like a Cult?

New Concord was settled by land speculators from Connecticut after they purchased the territory from the Mahican Indian Nation in 1754. Until New Concord became one of the six subdistricts of Albany County in 1772, the settlers had no formal government: their only "government" was the Congregational Church, to which the settlers and their leadership belonged.

In church documents, the community members referred to themselves as "The Society of New Concord"—much in the way the Philadelphia Quakers referred to themselves as "The Religious Society of Friends" in the 1600s.

The founders of the modern Society of New Concord deliberately picked "The Society of New Concord" for the name of their new neighborhood organization as an homage to those eighteenth century settlers and their community.

What are the Geographical Borders of New Concord?

New Concord is not an official geographical or political designation. The once-expansive New Concord (one of the six subdistricts of Albany County in 1772) gradually contracted as surrounding towns grew. New Concord was ultimately divided between Chatham and Canaan.

The New Concord Historic District designation indicates a list of dwellings which were considered in granting the classification, but does not specify boundaries.

In 2014 an informal working group came up with these (extremely unofficial) boundaries: [and here is a map]

• New Concord Road - State Route 295 to Cemetery Road

• County Route 9 - County Route 24 to I-90

• Daley Road - County Route 9 to State Route 295

• Sayer Hill Road - I-90 to the summit

• Elliot Road - From County Route 9 to State Route 295

• Rock City Road - From State Route 295 to railroad

• DeWitt Brown Road - From County Route 9 to DeWitt Brown Cemetery

If there are other questions or comments, reach us through our contact form.