MEMBERS MOVIE: 2020 in Review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg3R3OQQlL8
Like like everyone else everywhere we started
January 2020 with a great big smile on our face
thinking it was gonna be a wonderful year. We had
our annual meeting, showed off our numbers from
2019 which we were very excited about and sat down
to do a lot of planning for the rest of the year
thinking about all the programs
and events and exhibits to come.
The next couple months we were busy. We
put on a family day called Railroads.
We started a drawing group that
uses objects from our collection.
We completed the first two of six history units
and reached over a thousand primary age students.
We worked with high school
classes studying Mark Twain.
We partnered with Elmira College theater students
to present World W II letters from our collection.
We participated in the area’s annual Book Fest.
We presented our popular Out to
Lunch talks on Elmira’s Elixirs;
A Tale of Murder; and the Luck
of the Irish in Chemung County.
Then March hit, and we closed our
doors to comply with the state mandate.
Numbers went out the window. Staff were able to
start working from home but we were inventing how
to run the museum on the fly as we learned
to do things remotely and from far away.
We were able to keep working
by setting up remote offices. I
cats were thrilled to have me at home.
In January we’d received a grant from the
South Central Regional Library Council to
digitize our Black Oral History collection. With
the help of our volunteers working from home
we were able to digitize, transcribe, and
post that material online in record time.
In May, we launched the COVID Memory
Project designed to capture Chemung
County’s diverse experience of the
pandemic. We’ve interviewed over
30 people so far. If you would like to
participate, call me. (ask for Rachel)
We prepared upcoming exhibits
and added new online features.
We offered members a special online
tour of our exhibit Whole Cloth:
Textile Industry in Chemung County.
We increased our online offerings
and shared behind the scenes looks
at what we would continue to do.
We put our annual Civil War talks online.
We created short history videos teachers could
share with their students learning remotely.
We received a Community Foundation Grant to host
a public health poster contest for students.
We continued to write and publish
original local history blogs each week.
We continued to answer research questions.
Our community also stepped up to support us with
donations in lieu of attending fundraising events.
We received grants from the New York state
Council of the Arts, New York Humanities,
local businesses, members, and a large
donation from an anonymous donor.
We worked with state and county
health guidelines for reopening,
which we did in early July
with brand new protocols.
We created pop-up and online exhibits
and increased our social media followers.
We had an outdoor walking tour
as an option for visitors.
Unable to host our annual Mark Twain talks,
we invited scholars to contribute
short videos reflecting on Twain’s
work. We put together a 30-minute video
with speakers from around the nation.
We said farewell to Christine Gunderson
and welcomed our newest member,
Suzanne Runyan to help manage the office.
With help from the County Health Department, we
planned our annual Woodlawn Cemetery Ghost Walk.
We carried it off by making
some well-received changes.
We’ve streamlined our online presence.
We increased our volunteer base adding new
faces and fresh energy to help with both our
online and in-person work. We added a new gift
shop online, which means you can access our shop
anytime of the day as well as sign up and
renew your membership, and make donations.
We rallied, and with the help of J.D. Iles and
Gerard Burke we switched our fall fundraising
event to an entertaining virtual event, and we
actually sold more tickets than we did last year!
Our online numbers have grown
as people continue to respond to
our stories and images.
You like us, you really like us!
Without a crystal ball we don’t pretend that we
can see into the future. As a staff we’ve taken
this opportunity to increase access where we
can both online and here at the museum. We are
open regular hours and look forward to more people
coming to visit or to study at the Booth Library.
Our galleries are quiet, clean and waiting
for you when you’re ready to come back.
This year it’s not been about the
numbers – they’re going to recover.
It has been about the people: the
people on staff, people who volunteer,
the people who visit, people who are members,
the people in our community. Thank you.
