Comments Off on Until the Last Trumpet Sounds: The Life of General of the Armies John J. Pershing
Until the Last Trumpet Sounds: The Life of General of the Armies John J. Pershing by Gene Smith ISBN: 1630262471 Published byJohn Wiley & Sons on October 1st 1999 Pages: 384
Len's Summary: The new one-volume biography of General John J. Pershing Until the Last Trumpet Sounds by Gene Smith (John Wiley & Sons) was panned by The New York Times, but got a better review from historian Rod Paschall writing for MHQ. Black Jack’s best biographies are multi-volume — Frank Vandiver’s and Donald Smythe’s come to mind — so this one is a handy, quick reference that captures the fundamentals of Pershing’s life.
We are changing the WW1HA’s newsletter’s publication schedule to monthly. Publishing “Here and There with the WW1HA” twice a year provides too few opportunities to interact effectively with the membership! So, we’re going to go with shorter, monthly publications via our Constant Contact mailing list. My goal is that each issue will contain a brief comment from the President / Officers, a quick summary of WW1-related news, and a focus on a member and his/her research in each issue. What else should it include? You tell me: lavarennes@meuse-argonne.com.
Membership was very low at the beginning of the year, so we have formed a Membership Committee. The first action taken was to contact 2020-22 members who had not renewed in 2023. That was the low-hanging fruit. The second action will be to increase year-end renewal reminders and touch points with the membership—also low-hanging fruit. The third action will be to explore ways to reach beyond our current customers.
On 11 March we held our first quarterly Fireside Chat—with 27 participants—using Zoom. Again, this provided interaction with our members. We will be doing these quarterly and will be announcing the next one shortly. The top two responses of how/why members got excited about WW1 were 1) family involvement in the war and 2) aviation. How do we use this information to grow membership?
A small group of us are actively posting in the World War One Historical Association’s Facebook Group. Join us there.
Ed Klekowski is itching to do a Summer (third) issue of World War One Illustrated. He is working on the first Summer issue as we speak.
I have not made major changes to the website yet, because of the above-mentioned initiatives. That said, I did modernize the Chapters/Events Page to reflect our current activities.
I hope these efforts breathe new life into the Association, and I want to encourage you to do your bit. If you have a good idea, tell me about it. Better yet, step up and be willing to take a more active role.