Tonight was the first Utah Jewish Genealogical Society work meeting at the Family History Library. It was mostly planned by ex-co-President Lane Fischer and society member Louise Silver. Since Lane’s resignation, I knew he wouldn’t be attending. And a recent email from Rochelle Kaplan said that she couldn’t make it.

Though I wasn’t planning on being in charge, I did plan to attend, if just to see what might happen. Nothing did. Louise picked out a table for us and I sat there with my computer for about three hours. She kept coming over periodically but spent most of the time working on a computer or helping library patrons; she brought one over to see if I could help. Nobody else showed up. At least, nobody showed up and found us.

So apparently the work meetings were a bust. However, I haven’t completely given up on the mentoring idea. We’ve been trying to put that into motion for years but no one ever wanted to volunteer. All we really need are a couple of our members to volunteer to be mentors. I’m thinking that we could do specialized mentoring, with one beginner matched to one society member with more advanced skills, find a time to suit both of their schedules, and just let them work together for a little while without any hoopla. There’s no need to bring together a group of people; just one-on-one help at a time that suits those two people. I think we can do it. We just need a few volunteers.