The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum held an Open House meeting last Thursday to help refine the museum’s focus on enhancing its relationship with the St. Michaels community.
Langley Shook, President of CBMM, introduced the evening open house by remarking that almost 50 years have passed since the museum’s inception and that its 50th Anniversary would be perfect timing to inaugurate a series of five year plans to amplify its mission. The first plan, active through 2018, would be to explore and strengthen its relationship with St. Michaels, and the maritime museum looked toward the community to help define “what the museum’s role in the community should be.”
Maureen Michaels, of Michaels Opinion Research, facilitated the meeting, and panelists Tracey Munson (VP of Communications), Pete Lesher (Chief Curator), and Kate Livie (Director of Education), gave an overview of the museum’s current projects and activities.
Tracey Munson offered impressive statistical “snapshots,” of CBMM’s 2012 successes, including: 63,000 visitors during 2012, 5,400 member households, and 200 hundred volunteers, rounding out a successful year for the museum’s programs while reminding the audience that the museum concept had originated as a grassroots effort in 1965 and that its 48 years of growth have been rewarded with an invigorated community and host of the Museum’s mission to enhance an appreciation and for the Chesapeake’s maritime legacy.
“We were excited about last year’s outreach into the community but now we’re entering a new phase, “Munson says. We’ve already established a number of programs directly linking CBMM and St. Michaels but I think we walked away from this meeting encouraged that we are creating a fresh and evolving link to the St. Michaels’ business community.”
Munson sees the effort to strengthen CBMM’s ties with the community as mutually beneficial.
During 2012, CBMM gave away 14,000 admission tickets, 22% of overall admissions, offered free programs and scholarships for children, a MembersPerks program for businesses to promote themselves to CBMM members, admission discounts for local shoppers, an outreach to low income families for the annual Chesapeake Folk Festival, partnership events to help raise funds for other organizations, providing volunteer staff to other non-profits, and utilizing local vendors for CBMM events.
Kate Livie, Director of Education at CBMM, described CBMM’s expansive educational mission. “We want to makes sure every age level is served so we’ve designed and have been implementing programs for the whole spectrum, from kindergarten to college,” Livie says.
CBMM has been widely known for its multifaceted maritime and environmental education programs. From ChesAdentures (age 4-9), a two hour hands-on arts and crafts, storytelling to overnight trips to Hooper lighthouse (age 8-12) to community sailing programs, hunter’s safety courses, ecology cruises, outreach programs for in-class museum experiences, custom programs for the disabled, and intensive college programs with Washington College and Goucher College.
Livie feels that the meeting was very positive and constructive. “It was clear that family programming and on-the-water experiences are at the core of what the local community looks to CBMM to provide. It is currently, and will remain, one of our highest educational priorities. I left the meeting feeling very much like our organization is on the same page with our community.”
“At this point, while continuing these types of programs, the consensus from the meeting will influence a fresh alliance with local businesses. We’ll do that through ongoing meetings with community business members,” Munson says. “Just this morning we heard from a local business that they want their staff and employees to visit and understand what we do at CBMM. In return, we will visit them. It’s this kind of dialogue that will make a difference.”
For more information about the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum go here
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