Len's Summary: Lt. Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen (1878-1967) got his start as a politically- and socially-connected British Army intelligence officer chasing Paul von Lettow Vorbeck around the East Africa bush. Later, invalided out of Africa, he was assigned to MI7 in Cairo, and claimed authorship of the legendary “haversack ruse” of 1917. A committed Zionist, Meinertzhagen was a flamboyant player in the Middle East in the inter-war years, a noted ornithologist, founder of the post-war Anglo German Fellowship, and intimate of Winston Churchill, T. H. Lawrence and Chaim Weizmann. He also perpetrated scientific fraud, was a tireless self-promoter and may have even murdered his wife. Fittingly, this lively tale is authored by a past president of the Mystery Writers of America.
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.