2024 National Barn Alliance Annual Meeting

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Dear friends of old barns, farms, & agricultural history!

The NBA thanks you for continuing to support our organization and its mission to preserve and protect America’s rural heritage through education, documentation, conservation, and networking, as we strive to raise awareness for the need to save America’s historic barns.

We hope that you have been able to take a barn tour or two already this year, but know there are many still ahead in the fall. In September, we’re heading to North Carolina for one such tour and hope you can join us!

The NBA’s 2024 Annual Meeting will be held in conjunction with the Appalachian Barn Alliance’s 9th Annual Barn Day (https://appalachianbarns.org/barn-day/) in Mars Hill, North Carolina, on September 14th at 9:00 am EST at the Mars Hill Library Community Room, 25 Library Street, Mars Hill NC 28754. For those who cannot attend in person, a virtual option is available – Zoom Meeting Link: https://umw-sso.zoom.us/j/81693355123 .

Meeting Agenda Link: NBA 2024 Annual Meeting Agenda

At the 2023 Annual Meeting in Pennsylvania, we discussed changes to our membership structure and rate of annual dues. The NBA’s Board of Directors greatly appreciated hearing from everyone in attendance and have made improvements to our by-laws in accordance with that feedback These alterations necessitated changes to our by-laws; thus, the 2024 Annual Meeting agenda includes a vote on these revisions.

A full copy of the by-law revisions is available through this link, Membership By-Law Changes, but in sum, the changes create three streamlined categories for membership: 1) voting, 2) non-voting, and 3) lifetime members.

  • Voting membership is provided to an individual or organization that has paid dues for the calendar year [currently set at $30] and entitles the holder to a single vote;
  • A free, non-voting membership is open to any student or non-profit organization upon request on an annual basis;
  • Lifetime membership is provided to an individual or couple residing at the same address, and entitles the holder(s) to a single vote.

Once again, the NBA Board of Directors greatly values your support and hopes to hear more from you as we discuss the business of the organization and plan for the year ahead on September 14th.

Best wishes,

Michael Spencer, President

NBA Virtual Lecture #8: “Dendrochronology Demystified”

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Presented by Michael Cuba

The National Barn Alliance is happy to welcome Michael Cuba to its virtual lecture series on June 29, 2024 at 7 pm. Michael’s lecture will explore the science of dendrochronology (tree ring dating) and its applied use for dating and interpreting historic structures. Several case studies will be presented including some prominent projects from overseas. While this science can offer conclusive felling dates for timbers used in building, interpretation and context for this information relies on both documentary and physical evidence. Michael will use examples of recent reconstruction projects of the Dominy House, in East Hampton, NY, and the reconstruction of one of the trusses from the Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral that was lost in a fire in 2019, to underscore the importance of documentation in preservation work.

The lecture is free and open to the public and can be accessed via the following link,

https://umw-sso.zoom.us/j/89953652669

Originally from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Michael Cuba moved to Vermont in the mid 90’s where, as a student in college, he first began to hone his woodworking skills. Michael founded Knobb Hill Joinery, with Seth Kelley, to focus on preservation and restoration timber framing while occasionally designing and cutting new structures. He has spent a great deal of time documenting historic buildings, teaching classes, and demonstrating traditional timber framing methods. After moving back to the Mid-Atlantic, in 2013, he founded Transom HPC and shifted his focus toward dendrochronology work and assessments of historic buildings.

Michael is active in the Timber Framers Guild, both as an active member of the Traditional Timber framing Research & Advisory Group and as the editor of TIMBER FRAMING, the Guild’s quarterly journal.  Michael serves on the boards of the Timber Framers Guild, the National Barn Alliance, the Historic Barn and Farm Foundation of Pennsylvania, the advisory board of Handshouse Studio, and historical societies in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Membership

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We are currently updating membership categories as well as payment options. We hope to have everything up and running in the next few weeks along with some additional resources.

NBA Virtual Lecture #7: “Digital Documentation and Dissemination”

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You Tube Link: NBA Virtual Lecture: “Digital Documentation and Dissemination”

“Digital Documentation and Dissemination: You Got a Point Cloud, So What”

Presented by Michael G. Spencer

The creation of measured drawings, especially of historic barns, can be a tough sell; yet traditional methods are time-consuming, cumbersome, and costly. While newer, mass-capture methods such as laser scanning offer efficiency in some areas over more traditional methods the technology still presents problems, particularly in usability of data. This lecture will examine some other documentation alternatives such as photo rectification and photogrammetry as well as the variety of ways in which the data can be used and disseminated to assist in the preservation of agricultural structures such as barns, including recent documentation of a log tobacco barn on Booker T. Washington’s farm in southwest Virginia.

The image above was taken from a short video created by Professor Spencer with help from undergraduate students in the University of Mary Washington’s Department of Historic Preservation (link to video above).

Michael G. Spencer is Chair of the Department of Historic Preservation at the University of Mary Washington where he teaches courses that focus on architectural documentation and conservation. His research has involved the exploration of non-destructive technologies such as infrared thermography, as well as new methods of documenting historic structures and evaluation of new platforms for dissemination of that data. Recently this research has centered on photo rectification, photogrammetry, 3D modeling, and virtual reality.

Learn more about Professor Spencer and his work at the University of Mary Washington here!