From Our Director - Nov/Dec 2009
The Tallahassee Museum is having a very busy and productive fall. Thanks to the generous support of our sponsors, restaurants, volunteers, and participants, Zoobilee and Halloween both exceeded our expectations and have provided our education, preservation, and conservation activities with valuable revenues for the coming year. Please make a personal effort to patronize our sponsors and restaurants that support the Museum and make our events possible.
Our next and biggest fundraising event is Market Days on December 5 and 6 at the North Florida Fairgrounds. Market Days is critically important to the Museum’s budget, accounting for about 10% of our annual income, and pays for a wide range of operating expenses including animal food, educational programs, insurance and utility bills, building repairs and maintenance and free admission for Leon County schoolchildren.
Market Days is not only our region’s holiday shopping tradition but also an important economic contributor to our area with approximately 30% of Market Days attendees (15,000+) coming from outside of our region. Again, we are very fortunate to have a significant number of sponsors and volunteers helping to make Market Days possible.
I encourage you to support the Museum and our community by attending Market Days, buying an Early Bird ticket (which can now be securely purchased on-line through the Museum’s website), and by telling all of your friends about the wonderful and original gifts that can be very economically purchased.
During these tight financial times, Market Days truly offers a great opportunity to save money, buy high quality gifts for all ages, and support the Tallahassee Museum and our community.
In October, work formally began on the Museum’s new interpretive planning process. With funding support from the Institute of Museums and Library Services (IMLS) and other private funding sources, this 5-10 year project will help the Museum develop more effective ways of utilizing its exhibits, programs, and collections to tell cohesive stories about our region’s history, environment, and people. The project will reshape and strengthen the Museum’s brand and enhance its effectiveness in contributing to a more positive future for our visitors and region. Interpretive planning work currently underway includes the development of a new master site plan by Nobles Consulting Group and the initiation of broad based audience research by Kerr and Downs. In the coming weeks, we will let you know how you can help contribute to this research through an on-line survey. Later in January, the first meeting of the Museum’s interpretive planning advisory committee will convene. This committee will help shape and review the Museum’s interpretive plan and meet four times over the next two years. The committee is composed of 34 people and represents exhibit developers and designers, interpretive planners, historians, zoologists, humanities scholars, educators, directors of museums and zoos, visitor studies researchers and community representatives from Florida and other states, Great Britain, and Canada. During the Museum’s recent annual corporate meeting, new board officers and members were elected. Outgoing president Susan Baldino was thanked for her Museum leadership and accomplishments related to enhanced board governance and board fundraising and efforts to implement an interpretive planning process. Newly elected board president, Michael Stehlik of Capital City Bank, pledged to maintain the initiatives begun under Susan’s tenure, especially strengthening the Museum through strong board leadership, recruitment, and fundraising. A full listing of the Museum’s board can be found at Museum Board.
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