Contents
The Vermont Covered Bridge Society
The VCBS Agenda
VCBS Organization
The Board of Directors
The Standing Committees
The VCBS Preservation Policy

The Vermont Covered Bridge Society

The Vermont Covered Bridge Society, Inc. was founded in February, 2000 to address the loss of Vermont's covered bridges.
      The number of covered bridges in Vermont has fallen from more than 500 to fewer than 100 today. While many were lost to the flood of 1927, significant numbers have been lost since to poor maintenance, modernization, and some to vandalism.
      The old bridges were built of timbers from long-gone forests and constructed by long-gone craftsmen. Popular with visitors, perhaps because they have an extraordinary ability to evoke the spirit of the past, taking viewers back to a simpler way of life. We who know and appreciate these old spans want to preserve them for ourselves and our posterity.

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The VCBS Agenda

To help keep Vermont's covered bridges in good repair and in service, VCBS volunteers work with the owners of record of the bridge, usually the town where the bridge is located, to see that the bridge gets the attention it needs.
      VCBS members also work with the Vermont Agency of Transportation and its Covered Bridge Committee and with Vermont's Historic Preservation Division to promote covered bridge maintenance and preservation and to help with the education of the public in the value of historic sites
.       The society has developed a covered bridge preservation policy as a guide in its mission to keep the historic integrity of the covered bridges.
      To serve education, the VCBS Publishes a Quarterly Newsletter for its members, historical societies, town administrators, and for the public. A covered bridge web site, www.vermontbridges.com is also maintained for the same purpose. The Society liaisons with other preservation organizations to lend voice in support of preserving covered bridges and to share resources.
      The VCBS helps find funds to repair, preserve, and maintain covered bridges.
      VCBS volunteers help promote a town's covered bridges as a center of public pride and community activity and as an attraction to tourism, provide historical data for bridge viewers, and maintain bridge watches against vandalism.
      To help preserve the covered bridge heritage, the Society collects, displays and preserves covered bridge artifacts, photographs, histories, and lore.
      In accordance with the preservation agenda, the VCBS provides fellowship for covered bridge enthusiasts with dinners, fairs, picnics, and other outings held in communities all over Vermont.

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VCBS Organization

     The VCBS is overseen by of a Board of Directors.
      The Board membership includes the President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, and members of the Society who wish to serve on the Board.
     Standing Committees conduct the business of the Society under the direction of a member of the Board.
      Because nearly all of Vermont's covered bridges are owned by the towns in which they are located, the Vermont Covered Bridge Society in its mission to preserve covered bridges has an outreach policy for towns and communities where the covered bridges are.
     In pursuit of this policy, the Society organizes Bridge-watch Areas, also referred to as Regional Chapters. The purpose is to promote covered bridge preservation by helping to organize the taxpaying, voting residents who can go to their municipal governments to advocate the maintenance and preservation of the covered bridges in their towns.
      A Regional Chapter of the VCBS, or Bridge-watch area, is presided over by a Chapter Chairperson who is a resident of the area. The Chapter Chairperson acts as group leader for his or her Bridge-watch Area. The chairperson is responsible for establishing relationships with the bridge owners of record in that area. The Chapter Chairperson is a member of the Board of Directors.
      Society members, as part of an organized Bridge-watch Chapter, or independently if the Area is not organized, may volunteer to adopt-a-bridge to work directly with a town or other covered bridge owner with clearing brush, sweeping, painting, fire proofing, removing graffiti, and keeping watch.

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The Board of Directors

Director - Nominated and appointed by the Board of Directors, a director serves the VCBS as the chairperson of a standing committee or chair of a Bridge-watch Area (see below).

Director-at-large - A director without a project, but is available for a task.

Advisory Director - A director invited to participate in the VCBS program because of his or her expertise in or dedication to a field, such as covered bridges.
      The position of Advisory Director was created to implement the VCBS commitment to liaison with other preservation organizations. These positions are filled by members of other preservation organizations by invitation. VCBS Advisory Directors are full, voting members of this Society.

President - The President presides at the meetings of the Society and of the Board, and has the duties and powers normally appurtenant to the office of President in addition to those specified by the Constitution and By-laws of the VCBS. The President is elected by the VCBS membership for a term of one year at the Annual Meeting.

Vice President - The Vice-President has the power to exercise the duties of the President in the event of the absence or incapacity of the President. The Vice President serves as the chairperson of a standing committee (see below). The Vice President is elected by the VCBS membership for a term of one year at the Annual Meeting. The Vice President-Elect becomes a member of the Board of Directors.

Secretary - The Secretary shall take and keep the minutes of the Annual Meetings of the society and report on them when required. The secretary will assist at the annual meetings with parliamentary procedure. The Secretary can appoint a Recording Secretary as needed. The Secretary-elect becomes a member of the Board of Directors.

Treasurer - The Treasurer collects and receives all monies due or belonging to the Society, and deposits them in a bank satisfactory to the Board, in the name of the Society. The Treasurers's books are at all times open to inspection by the Board., and the Treasurer reports to the Board at every Board meeting the condition of the Society's finances. At the Annual meeting the Treasurer renders an account of all monies received and expended during the previous fiscal year. The Treasurer-elect becomes a member of the Board of Directors.

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The Standing Committees

Bridge-watch Committe - is presided over by the Bridge-Watch-Area Coordinator, a member of the board of Directors responsible for establishing Bridge-Watch-Areas and helping Chapter Chairpersons to organize.

Budget Committee - The Budget Committee is chaired by the Treasurer and consists of the Treasurer and two other members of the Board of Directors selected by the Treasurer.

Communications Committee - staffed by Society members, chaired by a member of the Board of Directors to publish "The Bridger," the VCBS Quarterly Newsletter. The staff includes: The Newsletter Editor who collects stories, edits, and composes the quarterly issues of The Bridger; the Staff Writer to write feature articles, assist the editor in the collection of stories and to rewrite articles as needed; Correspondents to collect covered bridge items and stories and send them to the newsletter staff; and the Distribution Person who works with the copy center or printer, handles billing, labels and mails each issue of The Bridger.

Crafts Committe - Staffed by Society members, chaired by a member of the Board of Directors. The purview of the Crafts Committee is to collect, design, craft, or to purchase, items for display or sale to help fund promotion of the preservation of covered bridges.

Events Committee - staffed by Society members to plan All-member meetings, bridge excursions, picnics, dinners and work parties, chaired and coordinated by a member of the Board of Directors.

Legislation Watch Committe - staffed by Society members, chaired by a member of the Board of Directors to establish and maintain liaison with federal and state decision-makers, and with other non-profit organizations. The rules that guide 501c3 organizations are adhered to.

Membership Committee - staffed by Society members, chaired by a member of the Board of Directors. The committee issues membership cards to paid-up members, welcomes new members, maintains a correspondence with the membership, helps design and participates in membership drives, and maintains and shares the membership database.

Publicity Committee - staffed by Society members, chaired by a member of the Board of Directors to establish and maintain a working relationship with the media to provide the public with news, articles, and information about historic covered bridges, and about the Society's aims and activities.

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The VCBS Preservation Policy

The value of an historic covered bridge lies in the workmanship, methods and joinery of the original builders and the timber from Vermont's old forests used in the construction. This historic integrity needs to be preserved.

To preserve historical integrity when a covered bridge is repaired, the joinery used by the original craftsman should be duplicated and the timber used in the repair should be of the same species as the original. Native timber should be used in covered bridge restoration, other timber to be used as last resort.

Covered bridges should remain in service with historic integrity intact. To achieve this the bridge needs to be maintained on a regular basis to keep deterioration from occurring to avoid large-scale repairs that could compromise historic integrity.
      The trusses must be kept dry: Approaches to the bridge must be properly drained to keep run-off away from the bridge structure; road dirt must not be allowed to accumulate on the truss members; the bridge must be kept clear of weeds, brush, and saplings. Roof leaks need to be repaired immediately.
      Oversized and overweight vehicles must be prevented from entering the bridge. A smooth transition between approach roadway and the bridge deck must be maintained to prevent shock to the bridge structure by entering vehicles.
      In addition to regular maintenance, the bridge should be inspected twice annually: once prior to spring, and once prior to winter with remedial action taken in preparation for the season.

When a covered bridge has deteriorated to the point that it must be repaired or restored, the restoration contract needs to be explicit that if the bridge is found to be beyond restoring to full use to convey motor traffic, it must not be destroyed by replacing all or a significant portion of the original truss, but instead left intact, bypassed or removed from its site.
      The bridge, retired on site, can be repaired to safely support foot or cycle traffic while maintaining its historical integrity.
      If the retired covered bridge is removed from its site, it should repaired to prevent further deterioration, preserving its historical integrity, and maintained as a visitor's center or placed in a park or museum.

To keep historic integrity, Native timber should be used in covered bridge restoration, other timber to be used as last resort. To permit the use of native timber in bridge structures, there needs to be an effort by the timber industry to test, characterize, and certify native timber; namely spruce, hemlock, pine, and oak.
      A non-destructive test protocol needs to be developed to be used on a covered bridge prior to writing the contract for repair or restoration to ascertain the true condition of its components, this to avoid discovering the structure to be in such a state as only complete replacement of a significant percentage of the truss is required to restore it to full use, resulting in the loss of historic integrity.

To make maintenance of historic covered bridges effective, A practical way to enforce vehicle weight restrictions needs to be developed; A practical way to enforce vehicle dimension restrictions needs to be developed; Partnerships between towns, the Vermont Historic Bridge Program, and the Vermont Covered Bridge Society must be promoted.

To pursue its policies the VCBS and its members will: Organize area chapters (Bridge Watch Areas) for the purpose of establishing a working relationship with the local municipal governments, historical societies and Chambers of Commerce to promote and achieve bridge maintenance, and to guard against vandalism; Educate the public on the value of Vermont's historic bridges; Promote tourism; Work with the VAOT Historic Bridge Program.

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