From: Karen Reiss
Today the Museum Board received a formal reply rejecting its proposal to save the Natural History Museum. After the meeting last Wednesday where the University indicated its openness to working with the Board to save the museum the Friends of the North Coast's Natural History Museum was excited to continue our fundraising efforts to keep the museum open to the public. We are extremely disappointed that the University has reversed itself and chosen not to work with us in refining our proposed model to keep the Natural History Museum open for the current year, and in developing a long-term plan for sustainability of the Museum.
The proposal envisioned an independent non-profit organization running the museum, and we had already begun the process that would move us in that direction. In the short term, Humboldt Area Foundation has agreed to help us through this transitional period by setting up an account that would allow us to fund the ongoing operations of the museum for the current year from the over 300 pledges, totalling more than $75,000, that have been made to date. These pledges already exceed the $60,000 in donations that we had estimated to keep the museum open this year with scaled back staffing (one instead of 2 1/2 full time positions) and hours of operation (5 instead of 7 hrs/day). During this transitonal period fundraising and grant writing would continue, as would the careful development of a more sustainable model for the Museum. We are currently arranging to hire a consultant to help us develop this long term model.
In the proposal, the Board specifically asked the University to work together with the Board and the Friends of the North Coast's Natural History Museum to refine the proposal, in the event specific aspects were deemed unworkable. At present, the University does not appear willing to do so. The Board remains hopeful that these differences can be resolved, however, and that HSU will ultimately see the value of a partnership with the Friends of the North Coast's Natural History Museum that preserves this vital part of the North Coast community.
For now, we would like to thank all of the museum supporters in the community who have pledged funds to keep the museum open, the many volunteers who have donated time and energy to the effort, and the Humboldt Area Foundation, for their support. We will continue to work to protect the numerous learning opportunities for the members of our community that the Natural History Museum provides.
Wait, what?
This is probably going to come as quite a shock to many of you but please be assured of a few things.
1. We are not giving up and we hope you will not give up.
2. We are not giving up.
3. Many of us took a moment to breathe, but realized that we're not done knocking on doors or getting more information or trying (very much trying) to work with HSU so that we can come to an agreement to keep the museum open to the public.
4. We are working every angle that we can -- yes we are hopeful that an agreement can be worked out with HSU -- but we aren't just sitting back and hoping we are continuing to put plans into place that will help make that happen.
5. We are not giving up.
This blog is a public space to get out information about the museum. It's reasonable to assume that some of the folks at HSU who make these decisions are well aware of this blog space. We would like to address them directly and reiterate that we believe that there is still an opportunity to keep the museum open to the public and we hope in the coming days there can be open and honest communication about these possibilities.
If anyone has any questions, comments or concerns please feel free to email savethenorthcoastnhm@gmail.com
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