Fundraising initiatives
From South Georgia Museum
“Tackling” a new project…
I’ve recently been taken on as PR & Marketing Manager for SGHT. In my old life I ran a PR company and so offered to get involved here in South Georgia. One of my first jobs in this new role has been to produce a display at the museum – I’ve never done this before and so I asked Tony to help me. We’ve been working together on a new display to highlight our fundraising efforts for the Habitat Restoration programme and came up with the idea of producing a “Blue Peter style” display that shows how much money we have raised and how much we have yet to raise for the next four phases of the restoration programme. It’s been a lot of fun working together and also working on something completely new.
Tony managed to find a block and tackle and an old oar from one of the workshops at the back of the museum, I then checked with Elsa our curator that they were ok to use. She came back to say that it was fine, but that could I check with Tim & Pauline Carr (previous curators at the museum) who were due in on a cruise ship soon to make sure the oar didn’t belong to their old boat “Curlew”. So I was lucky enough to visit them on their ship and spend a very pleasant half hour with them chatting away and drinking cups of tea! The conclusion was that the items were perfect for the display and are now proudly part of our exhibit.
I spent some time hand painting all the financial targets onto the backing for the oar and tony assembled the block & tackle and oar along with the display boards to make sure that everything fitted together properly (my husband Keiron warned him that I’m not allowed near power tools and sharp objects!) he also created a lovely wooden collection box to hold all the donations we hope to get! We’re quite proud of the final result – its amazing what you can produce with teamwork!
I now have a long list of other projects that I’m working on to increase awareness of our fundraising activities, so there will be lots more to come. It’s hard to believe I’m now half way through my first season on South Georgia, even harder to believe that I managed to complete the half marathon a few weeks ago and help raise over £1000 for the Restoration programme. As I look outside the office Ainslie and I share at the top of the museum, I’m always stunned by the beautiful bay in front of us. Bridget said the other day we have the best view on the island! It’s great to be working for such a worthy cause and the surroundings really promote the opportunity to be creative and to think of great fundraising ideas and ways of heightening the profile of SGHT.