Headquarters
The Headquarters of The Augustan Society, Inc., needs a bit of definition, as it has not always been clear what is meant by it.
Contents
Present
The official Headquarters of The Augustan Society, Inc., is presently located in the home of Bruce & Marta Metcalf in Orlando, Florida. Activities at this location include office work, printing, binding, shipping, storage of office supplies, maintenance of equipment, and a small stock of material for sale. Unfortunately, the space available and zoning restrictions prevent any but they to work at this location.
The mailing address of the Society is PO Box 771267, Orlando FL 32877-1267, United States. This post office is located at 1701 W Wetherbee Rd, Orlando, FL 32837, United States.
The Society rents four storage units at ExtraSpace Storage, 13125 S John Young Pkwy, Orlando, FL 32837, United States. The entrance is actually on Substation Road. The units are:
- 947, 7×25' — File Room, containing Society records, insignia, back issues, Order records, family history files, maps (including a large map cabinet), and equipment storage. This room is well lit, and contains a small desk.
- 961, 10×25' — Library Storage, containing uncataloged books and magazines, empty box storage. Some files and artifacts may be located here; they are being relocated as they are discovered.
- 986, 10×25' — Library Stacks, containing cataloged books and magazines on library shelving. Note that the aisles in this room are narrow (22" or 56cm), and the lighting is minimal, thus this is not a suitable place for study, though a table can be set up in the hallway adjacent.
- 1119, 15×15' — Equipment Room, containing the former museum collection, furniture, steel storage cabinets, and some back issues and books (these are being relocated as they are found). This room is filled to the door with no aisles, thus access to anything not by the door requires substantial effort. Due to the termination of the Museum, the contents of this room are being reviewed. Much is expected to be discarded or repurposed, at which point a move to a smaller room or rooms is contemplated. Some boxes stored here contain material more appropriate for the File Room or Library, and these are being relocated as they are discovered.
Keys to the above are held only by the Metcalfs at this time. ExtraSpace Storage has been informed that former President Charles Drake, OAE, is permitted to access our units. It has been proposed that copies of the keys be made and held by the Chairman of the Legal Committee or some other trusted member located nearby, but this has not yet been done.
It has also been proposed that items of Society property located at the Metcalfs' home be clearly marked, and this has begun. The marking program will continue with equipment and furnishings held in storage as time and access permit.
Previous
Villa Augusti
Located in Daggett, California, a few miles east of Barstow, the Villa Augusti was a collection of buildings, formerly used as a home and chicken breeding station, and later as a drug manufacturing and sales location. Headquarters from _____ through April 2007.
Boron
Oroville
Sartori Avenue, Torrance
Cravens Avenue, Torrance
The Cravens Avenue address was the Society's first public headquarters. It contained the Library, a few Museum items, office space, storage, the Chapel of the Rose, and quite a bit of heraldic decoration. One rather suspects that a significant amount of material continuted to be stored at the San Pedro location.
San Pedro
The San Pedro location was the detached garage of Rodney Hartwell's home in that city. Because it provided isolation from his residence, it permitted volunteers to visit and contribute to the programs of the Society.
Hermosa Beach
The Hermosa Beach location was a very crowded spare room in the Hartwell home in that city. It just barely permitted of visitors, and one can imagine that storage also occupied other areas of the home.
Faysmith Avenue, Torrance
The Faysmith Avenue location was the boyhood home of our Founder, which he shared with his mother. It was also the site of a house fire that erased much of the early history of the Society.
Future Facilities
It is presently expected that the Society will work toward obtaining a rented facility to which the public might be invited. It is not presently expected that this will be completely sufficient to the needs, thus one or more storage units might continue to be required.
The following step would be to obtain a rented facility adequate to all our storage and use needs; it may be possible to jump to this condition directly.
Ultimately, it is intended that the Society will again purchase a facility. It is unlikely that we will be able to obtain one that suits all of the expectations, but it may be possible over time to modify the facility or to replace it with a purpose-built structure. One would expect this last to be in the very distant future indeed, absent some truly amazing donations.
Minimum Requirements
- Work space for two more or less permanent officers (presently the Metcalfs). These would not have to be enclosed offices, but that would be a bonus.
- Work space for two volunteers, each with a computer terminal.
- A dedicated work area for printing, binding, and packaging, including storage space for supplies.
- Space to store back issues and reprints.
- Space for 26 4-drawer filing cabinets (some could probably be left in storage).
- Computer space for the firewall, servers, and battery backups (with additional backup units in each work space).
- Space for four 6-foot storage cabinets.
- Room for a conference table to seat eight; this needed only occasionally, so space could be shared, probably with the Chapel of the Rose as was done in previous headquarters.
Enhanced Requirements
- Space for library stacks.
- Space for unprocessed library material.
- Space for the map cabinets.
- Space for equipment storage (spare computers & printers).
- Space for the Chapel of the Rose (this could be used for the conference table).
- Space to store such Museum items as may be retained.
