Fast Facts and Upcoming Acts

More musings about museums and money ….

I brainstormed last time about some of the ways individuals can help the museum, from making cash donations to purchasing memberships, from using one’s Food Lion cards to shopping in our Destinations gift store (though not with your Food Lion card). With VMT membership, by the way, you get discounts on gift shop purchases. And if you’re a dad, it isn’t too late to chuff some hints about items you would love to see rolling into your station for Father’s Day. Whoo-whoo!

Here are a few financial fast facts to chew on:
* The Museum spends $ 111.76 per day for heating, air conditioning and water (over $40,000 a year). That doesn’t include telephone and internet service.
* Insurance necessary to keep our doors open (not employee health or benefit coverage) is $ 79.19 per day.
* Our real estate taxes paid to Roanoke City come to $ 36.56 per day.

I didn’t include this in the previous blog, but another way you can help financially is to donate materials. Here are some of the urgent items currently on our wish list:
* 2008 Quickbooks Premier software (single user version)
* Cases of copy paper (maybe drop off a case every month for six months—like a pledge; the I dream of a ream campaign, maybe?)
* Staples gift cards that we could use for printer ink cartridges
* Repainting of the gallery floors in the main areas—that hasn’t been done in quite a while
* Carpet cleaning for our conference room and office hallways
* A projector that can do power point presentations—we have the software; we just need a horse to pull it (so to speak)
* A roll or two of stamps

Used items would be a great help in some instances. When businesses upgrade equip­ment (note the projector mentioned above), they may end up with quality stuff that needs a new home and will end up in the dumpster if a place isn’t found. Be on the lookout for opportunities like that and call us to see if we can use the “strays.”

Amid all the needs is one piece of good financial news—since our cars and trucks and trains seldom move, rising gas prices haven’t hit us that hard.

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Meanwhile, in other news (I’m a television anchor wannabe) ….

The museum’s African American Heritage Group and the Norfolk Southern Corpora­tion are sponsoring our annual Heritage Celebration on the 21st of June to coincide with Roanoke’s Juneteenth Freedom Celebration. The NS Exhibit Car and a locomotive simulator will be at VMT all day long. That night Dr. Benjamin Dixon, retired Vice President for Multicultural Affairs at Virginia Tech, will speak. The program runs from 6:30-8:30pm and is open to the public. Seating is limited. NS employees with ID's will be admitted for half-price all day.

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VMT’s newest photographic exhibit, Images of Rail: a Photo History of the Norfolk & Western, opened recently. It includes 38 of the more than two hundred photographs that are in the similarly-named book by Nelson Harris. The framed prints hang on a background painted to look like the side of an N&W passenger car. “Harvested” from VMT files, the photos depict crews, equipment, buildings, engines and the rugged landscape that N&W trains traveled from the late 1800s on.

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In case you missed the news, on May 1 the museum held the grand opening of the Auto­­motive Gallery and its first feature: From Mud to Mobility: 100 years of the Virginia Department of Transportation. VDOT and Advance Auto partnered with VMT to create the new gallery. The sponsors of Star City Motor Madness have also played a significant role (more on that in my next blog).

Visitors can view automobiles from every decade in the 1900s including a 1904 curved-dash Olds, a 1948 Packard Limo, and a 1963 Studebaker Lark Taxi. Also displayed are photographic billboards, informational displays, and a unique collection of Virginia li­cense plates dating back to 1917, long before anyone had ever heard of a “personalized” car tag. Com2VMT and CRPL8s.

So Many Ways to Help

The Virginia Museum of Transportation is critical to the Roanoke valley and southwest Virginia. Along with other railroad-themed attractions, the museum brings substantial tourism dollars to the valley. VMT also preserves and tells a gigantic part of this area’s history. It offers a unique setting and collection of exhibits that need to be preserved.

Financially, times are very challenging, due to the costs of maintaining our vintage facility and caring for the treasures in our collection, many of which are not only extremely large but also complicated and costly to maintain. The loss of a significant stream of state funding has turned a challenge into a crisis.

You can help. Many already are—larger corporations and small businesses, nonprofits and individuals—for which we are extremely grateful. Here are some other ways people can contribute.

1) Make a tax-deductible donation, either a one-time amount or a monthly gift. Anything from $10 to $10,000 will help. And if you insist on giving even more than $10,000, we will try not to fuss.

2) If you aren’t already a member of the Museum, use the form in this newsletter to purchase a membership today. You can just go to http://www.vmt.org/membership%20form.pdf or call VMT at 342-5670.

3) Become a part of upcoming fundraising events. VMT is the featured charity at Cocktails for a Cause at Trio Restaurant on Wednesday, July 30th and First Fridays at Five on August 15th. Join us at either or both events for drinks and dinner or entertainment.

4) Visit the Food Lion web site to register your MVP card (https://www.foodlion.com/IntheCommunity/ShopAndShare/default.asp). Every time you shop, a portion of your grocery purchase will be donated to us!

5) Sign up at http://www.maatiam.com/ and choose the Virginia Museum of Transportation as your charity. Shop your favorite stores online by visiting Maatiam first to sign in and select your store’s site. Hundreds of listed stores will donate a percentage of your purchase to VMT, and it will not cost you an extra penny (not even one that has been flattened on the railroad tracks).

6) If you are a member of the Rotary Club or other community organization that has a giving program, please ask your leadership to consider making a donation or a grant to the Museum.

7) Write individuals and corporations who have the capacity to make substantial capital donations to the museum. Tell them in your own words how valuable VMT is to this area and explain why it needs their help so much. Perhaps your letter will be the one that opens eyes and purse strings.

8) Consider donating to VMT through special financial arrangements such as trusts, wills, stock donations, capital projects, etc. Contact the museum, your financial advisor or your attorney to discuss options.

9) Volunteer. Your “sweat donations” can either accomplish tasks that the museum cannot currently afford or free up another set of hands to do something else. It’s more than just a dollar issue. Numerous volunteers cheerfully working around VMT is great chemistry, building morale and infecting visitors with enthusiasm. From greeting people to grease and grunt work, from computer savvy to carpentry skills, we have a job to fit just about everyone.

10) Shop in Destinations, the museum gift store. We have a collection of gift ideas for adults and children, from clothing and decorative pieces to books, videos and artwork. You can come by whenever VMT is open—you don’t have to purchase museum admission to shop there. We have great gift ideas for birthdays, graduation, retirement, Christmas and other special occasions.

11) Talk to friends you think might be willing to share their time, ability or finances. Explain to them what our mission and need are. Take them on a tour to acquaint them with VMT if they aren’t very familiar with us. Pay for their admission if need be.

12) Visit with us whenever you can. Your admission and your presence boost our efforts.

13) Talk us up wherever you go. Many area residents don’t realize what we have to offer. You can be an ambassador at-large for us.

Perhaps you have a great idea we haven’t thought of. If so, please tell us. As Red Green says, “We’re all in this together.”

From Caboose to Dr. Seuss

The Museum of Transportation has many needs. Foremost is our need for people.

We need effective employees. We are so fortunate to have a small group of staff members who are as dedicated and adaptable as they are skilled. We are seeking another one, by the way: a new weekend gift shop manager who is responsible and enthusiastic with retail experience, customer service and computer skills, and the willingness to work Saturday and Sunday. (Anyone interested may send resumé to sloveman@vmt.org).

We need people with large vision and resources who will give to VMT. This is a critical time for us financially.

And we need people who give of themselves in other ways. Over the 45 years of the museum’s existence, volunteers have been as vital to us as coal and water are to a steam locomotive. Without them we would get nowhere.

We can utilize volunteers in so many areas, including some that surely match your interest and ability. To help you understand the ways you can serve the cause, we offer in the spirit of Dr. Seuss this poetic volunteer job description. You remember Dr. Seuss? He wrote The Cat in the Engineer’s Hat. Or was it Dr. Seuss Hops a Caboose? Whatever.


This Cat Can Do That

Our fine museum could use loads of cash.
If, though, like lots of us, you lack a stash,
That is quite cool—you don’t need to despair.
There are so many ways you can still share.

Since we’re short-handed, short-handed by half,
Lacking a fully-stocked roster of staff,
You can donate a resource we hold dear:
Give us your time, lend a hand, volunteer.

How many ways could we put you to work?
How about being a gift shop sales clerk?
Sell nifty merchandise, take up the dough
While shoppers chat with you, tell what they know.

You could help maintain the building and grounds
Inside and outside while making your rounds,
Patching, attaching, and catching up stuff,
Fixing the broken and smoothing the rough.

Maybe your thing is conducting a tour,
Leading the tourists around, making sure
They see the biggest, the brightest and best—
Railyard and car gallery, all the rest.

You could help learners—you know—educate,
Touch them and teach them, inspire, innovate;
Guiding the grownups and little ones too,
Transporting them to a world we once knew.

You could be artsy and make spiffy signs,
Do fancy lettering, create designs,
Or you could write about trails, rails and flight;
Read and research, dig up facts left and right.

You could share elbow grease: scrape, clean and scrub;
Keep the exhibits in shape—polish, rub;
Clean ‘em up, preen ‘em up, shake off the dust;
Fend off the fingerprints, cobwebs and rust.

You could help tidy the many displays,
Giving attention in various ways
So all the guests who explore the museum
Will be impressed by the sights when they see ‘em.

You could restore items in our collection
If you possess the right skills and affection,
For these are treasures both old and quite rare
Needing devoted and delicate care.

You could greet people at special events
At booths or tables or even in tents;
Be the museum’s warm face for a while,
Share information, an ear and a smile.

You could help organize, plan and promote
Shindigs and happenings, moments of note:
Easter egg hunts, birthday parties and such
That need ideas and the creative touch.

And though your work brings no wages your way,
We offer perks that are sort of like pay:
Admission that won’t cost your family a cent;
Gift shop discounts at a healthy percent.

If you can talk or walk, listen or learn;
If you’re still breathing with free time to burn;
There is, we guarantee, something to do—
Something that just fits the person who’s you.

(To find out more about volunteering at VMT, call Susan Loveman at 342-5670 or e-mail sloveman@vmt.org)

Keeping the Faith

Keeping Secrets and Keeping the Faith
March 10, 2008

The secret is finally out.

The Virginia Museum of Transportation is in trouble. Deep trouble. Museum Management Consultants says so. The newspaper says they say so. The newspaper’s editorial writers say that is so, so troubling.

So?

The press and public comments last week were unfairly harsh. Yes, mistakes have been made and accountability is critical whenever you ask to spend other people’s dough. Given the extenuating circumstances and the dedicated efforts of current staff, however, a little less invective and a little more perspective would have been nice.

Ultimately the press coverage may serve as a blessing by raising public awareness, but it also highlighted a number of myths floating around.

Myth #1: There was a secret. Nobody has tried to keep this information hush-hush. The city commissioned the study. Norfolk Southern Foundation paid for it. VMT welcomed it. Visitors who know the place could see and sense it. It was a secret only to those who have remained out of touch with the place.

Myth #2: VMT’s problems are primarily due to bad management. What happens to any organization when it loses 48% of its budget support? Has to reduce staff to the bone (and remove a few ribs as well)? Changes leadership repeatedly? Has its ability to do marketing and outreach crippled?

Myth #3: The Museum appeals to a very limited audience. Is it just for tiny tots and old railroaders? Is it only a blue-collar museum (as though blue-collar folks aren’t important or can’t appreciate aesthetics)?

Actually, attractions like VMT appeal to a broad cross-section of the population. We Americans like “earthy” history exhibits. We especially like seeing and feeling and smelling the metal, wood and leather of things on wheels. And we love trains, even decades after American railroads passed their zenith.

Myth #4: The Museum decided to sell the Nickel Plate steam locomotive to pay bills. They reluctantly agreed to sell only after they were approached by another tourist organization and after they concluded that this loco, which never ran in Virginia, had little relevance to the mission of VMT.

And due to extraordinary circumstances, on this rare occasion the funds from such a sale were used for operations rather than acquisitions. Frankly, I would rather have an open facility with one less exhibit than a bankrupt and closed attraction with its exhibits intact.

Myth #5: VMT is just another museum—nice but not critical to Roanoke. I wish the reactions of media and public officials had been a little more “we” and less “they.” After all, there is no cultural attraction in Roanoke with the same intrinsic connections to the city as VMT. I appreciate Mill Mountain Theatre, the Roanoke Symphony, the Art and Science Museums. However, none of them relates to Roanoke and southwest Virginia the way those historic exhibits in that historic freight station do.

VMT carries the soul of Roanoke. The railroad transformed a bucolic village into a regional urban center. It put Roanoke on the map. Even now the rush and roar of trains bisect the heart of downtown. I have a stack of books on American railroading piled on my den table right now. In every one of them Roanoke’s growth and accomplishments via the railroad get significant attention.

No one did steam railroading as impressively for as long as the Norfolk and Western. No other railroad built its own locomotives and built them so well that they are still considered among the best ever manufactured more than a half-century later.

Vintage cars and buggies aside, that’s why VMT exists. That’s why the Winston Link Museum came here. Those two, the multi-million dollar Railwalk that connects them, and the continued imposing presence of N&W’s successor are integrated threads of a rich and unique tapestry.

Myth #6: VMT shouldn’t look to donors to rescue it from distress. Why not? It is a wonderful treasure worth saving. However financially successful it may become in the future, current circumstances require big hearts from both government and private parties.

The Museum of Transportation isn’t asking for a marvelous new building, just an adequately-maintained vintage facility. It doesn’t need a $3 million-plus operating budget, just sufficient funding to once again employ an adequate number of professional staff and effectively manage and market its product. It isn’t asking for millions to purchase new exhibits, just enough to restore and protect the irreplaceable pearls of transportation history it already has at its fingertips.

All that VMT’s leadership wants is the means to run a “mainline” operation once again rather than maneuver along a wobbly, rusty and overgrown side track.

That would be so, so …right.