Town of Chichester Cemetery Trustees meeting May 8, 2023 May 8, 2023 @ 9:00 a.m. the Cemetery Trustees met at the Historical Society building. Ruth Hammen, Fred Shaw & Brenda Boswak were in attendance. Old business Lane Hodgkins has completed Spring cleanup at all town cemeteries. He brush hogged the southern boundary fence line of Pineground Cemetery after receiving permission from the abutting landowner. Fellows-Webster Cemetery is added to the regular maintenance schedule for 2023. Lane Hodgkins submitted a bid for 2023 cemetery grounds keeping that included Fellows-Webster Cemetery and tentatively, Hook Cemetery. Hook Cemetery will continue to be a privately owned and maintained cemetery and not maintained by the town. A check for $650 was issued on May 3, 2023 by the Town Treasurer to Brenda instead of Don Cotnoir, NH Monuments. Brenda returned the check on May 8, 2023 to Kristy Jobin along with a copy of Don Cotnoir’s invoice and requested a new check be issued to Don Cotnoir as soon as possible. We submitted his invoice on April 19. The Cemetery Trustees have requested to be on the Selectmen’s agenda for the May 16 meeting to follow up the letter we sent to them. Ruthie & Brenda will attend. Ruthie will follow-up with the Town Clerk to see about her being sworn in as Cemetery Trustee and about the names for Cemetery Trustee Alternates that we submitted. Neither Gloria Beachy or Justine Hayward has been contacted by the Selectmen to be sworn in as Alternates. New business After a brief discussion we agreed to have Fred renew the cemetery website. www.chicemcom.org Brenda is continuing to update the website with the minutes of our meetings, photos of gravestone restoration projects, and featuring the gravestone of a prominent Chichester resident each month. We have had some inquiries via our website and have been able to provide information for people seeking information on loved one’s gravesites. We have adopted a new ‘Certificate of Interment’contract which will replace the previous “deed” version. We believe this contract more accurately describes what the purchaser is paying for. In the past there has been confusion as to whether the deed holder owned the land of their burial lot and what maintenance is provided in the agreement between the town of Chichester and the purchaser. We have also adopted a new payment receipt. Pursuant to NH RSA 289:1 II, " Burial space " means a lot in any cemetery, mausoleum, or columbarium as designed and intended for the interment of a human body, bodies, or remains, but presently not used for such purpose. RSA 289:1 VIII, " Owner " means any person or persons owning or possessing the privilege, license, or right of interment in any burial space, as determined under RSA 290:24. Fred will email the updated version to the Selectmen for their information. Ruthie & Brenda have started placing American flags on veterans’ gravesites with the help of volunteers. We updated the veteran’s list and Beth Collins is creating an album with each of the veteran’s information, photos, obituary, newspaper articles, etc. Ruthie was recently contacted by the teacher from Chichester Central School’s sixth grade seeking information on our town veterans for a project of her students. Ruthie has begun contacting people on our waiting list to purchase burial lots. Ruthie was contacted by a woman who lived in town for many years who expressed an interest in donating some money for a historical project for the cemeteries. We updated the Cemetery Trustee By-laws to reflect our change of wording from ‘deed’ to ‘Certificate of Interment’.
The meeting adjourned at 12:00 p.m.
Respectfully submitted, Brenda Boswak, Cemetery Trustee, Secretary