Last Astrolabe

I have just completed the copy edits on my last issue of the Astrolabe, the National Museum's popular history newsletter. I am including the text from the Director's Log here. I have served as editor of the newsletter, which is issued four times a year as part of the Times of the Island magazine, for the three years I have been in the Turks and Caicos Islands. I have tried to theme every issue so that the articles have reinforced our collections and fundraising initiatives. I have had a strategy that everything we have done has had three legs; a program component, that moves into a pubic relations component, that moves into a fundraising component. The popular history articles have been well researched and received by the public, but it is the additional support they have provided to this strategic initiative that I am proud of.



Director's Log


This will be my last issue of the Astrolabe and my last Director's Log. I have been on Grand Turks for three years already. That is hard to believe. It has been my pleasure to serve the people of the Turks and Caicos Islands. Though more than half of my tenure here has been dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, the time spent has not been without its accomplishments.

I have had a strategic goal of raising the profile of the museum and that has been very successful. We have completed major projects such as the Search for the Trouvadore, the Fort George Archaeological Survey, and the GT4 Taino Site Archaeological Survey. We have made an effort to mount short term exhibits on Provo, such as the 1999 “Our Islands, Our Heritage” Children's Art contest entries, the display of the Fort George artifacts at Island Wise, and the Community Art Mural project. These can all be read about in past issues of the Astrolabe. We have reached out to the people of Providenciales to move forward with Museum's plans to build a museum there. I believe this has been embraced, and we now have our first fundraising/development committee established on Provo.

The museum operation on Grand Turk has grown from 2,671 visitors in 2007 to a projected 14,000 visitors in 2010. We have trained an engaging staff and have developed engaging cruise ship excursion tours. Part of this dramatic increase is owed to new positive reviews in Frommer's travel guide, the Lonely Planet travel guide, and Tripadvisor.com. The development of a new $20 behind the scenes tour has expanded the visitor options at the museum and has created a great experience for people who really like museums.

The Children's Club program, established by Nigel Sadler, has been expanded and is now funded from the sales of the award winning children's book Where Is Simon, Sandy? One of our signature programs has been the Afterschool Homework Program, a program funded for the last two years by a Pine Cay Project grant. Through this program we have had 28% of the upper level high school and community college students on Grand Turk come to the museum to complete research and work on school projects.

Through a variety of grants, we have also been able to augment our professional staff and have been able to spend a year focused on cleaning, housing, and cataloging our archival holdings, as well as implement a new museum software database, create an organized, searchable library, and a new electronic membership database.

My time here has not been without its sacrifices. Owing to the damage to Grand Turk, we made the tough decision to move my wife and children back to the United States after the hurricanes of September 2008. This became a two year commitment to live separated in order to get our oldest son through high school and into college. And though I think he never listens to me, he is following in my footsteps and will be attending a school of architecture outside of Chicago.

We have enjoyed our time. I hope that we have made a difference. I hope that the programs we have started are sustained and that the museum continues to move forward. I hope that the people of the Turks and Caicos Islands continue to support the advancement of the museum and fund a new museum for Providenciales. It will be your greatest legacy.