01 March 2010

175 hours...

... the number of hours put in between me, Rory and Neal last week at the museum. Not counting the weekend. On Sunday we were only going to work a few hours in the afternoon. We left at 7:30.

Rory left us on Saturday - working till the last minute. He talked to the kids at the Children's Club program minutes before we put him on the plane. We've been missing Rory here the last couple of days. He was a really good sport about all this work, and just fun to have around besides. One of the staff told me he missed him, "he always make you feel good" he said in his broken English. It is so true.

As Neal so astutely pointed out, just because Rory is gone doesn't mean the work load lessens. Last week was pretty extreme though. We complete two grant proposals on top of the normal work, which included assembling a new exhibit display for Provo, preparing for the Children's Club and Spring 2 Collection events, and hosting 7 cruise ships through the museum.

At least Rory was around last week to help with tours, among other things. This week my pace of work has slowed. The tours are fun, but they do take time. The archives conservation supplies are in though, so it's time to sit down and create a plan to manage all these projects.

The most fun project of the week was a new accession - a turn of the century spyglass! Too cool!

The grants are very exciting. The first was actually a submission to the second and final round of the British Library's Endangered Archives Project. The project would allow the museum to hire an archivist to seek out and preserve pre-1900 government records. The fun part of pulling this packet together was tracking down a letter of support from the Governor's office. It's such a novel thing to have access to the highest political power in the country. I don't get tired of it.

I also have to send a public thank you to my professor at Simmons who agreed to be a referee at the last minute. That was a great moment for me because my last minute contact came through before the museum's, which felt like a personal victory: HA, National Museum! My network works better than yours! Seriously though, it was very kind, in the middle of the semester, for my professor to take the time to extend assistance.

The second proposal, submitted just Monday, was a nomination to the American Association of State and Local History's Leader in History Award for Where is Simon, Sandy?, a children's book self published by the museum. The publication of Simon, Sandy and its proceeds have led to the promotion of Turks and Caicos culture and history to international audiences, the acquisition of donkey-related items for the museum collections, and it provides funding for the Children's Program. Certainly a project like this is worthy of recognition!

Moral of the story: there is a lot going on.

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