Group Contract and the Beginning of a Great Project

    The process of completing our group contract was much easier than I expected. With a starting off point as broad as WBT, I wasn't sure we could narrow down a topic that we would all be interested in. I wanted everyone in the group to enjoy or at least be intrigued by whatever topic we decided on. Amanda was the one who was initially excited about the idea of following the WBT's Woman of the Year awards as our focus for this project. After the rest of us looked into it, we knew that this was the best way to go about the loads of information we found in the collection and to showcase the women who helped Charlotte grow.
     It seemed too easy for a group project to get started so smoothly but it only got easier when it came to handing out the task because each of our strengths started to show and we realized how well balanced of a group we are. Luckily, Blake has experience with Omeka and the actual digital compilation portion of the project. I started digging through the archives looking for all the documents and support and so did Amanda. Amanda and I were able to meet and organize what each of us had found and as it turned out we work well at organizing and processing all the information into a theme for the project. Andrew jumped right on the research and found an awesome resource of the digital interviews of the winners of WBT's Women of the Year. We all plan to do our equal share of research but its nice to know we can rely on each other along the way if we need the help. The only thing that may come up as an issue would be our schedules. It seems as though we can never physically meet at the same time but the group is really great about communicating through email and meeting up with whatever partial members are available.
      Once we talked to Dr. Cox we were able to narrow down what we specifically wanted to get out of researching these women and which women in particular we were going to spot light. The decision was made that we would break down the winners by decade and discuss what made the women stand out in our local community and also what was happening in Charlotte at the time. I think the end result of the project will be a great resource to see the role that women played in the development of Charlotte.