MuseNews

Dear Museum Colleagues and Friends,  

It was so wonderful to see and catch up with so many of you last month at our conference in Rocky Mount.  It was three years in the making and we are thrilled to have so many attend and participate.  Thank you!  If you didn’t get to the conference last month, you missed new events and forums, new NCMC initiatives, and fun networking opportunities. 

The greatest change was to our Leadership Forum sponsored by Glave and Holmes.  Our Professional Development team decided to look in-depth at the Diversity, Equality, Accessibility, and Inclusion resources and museums programs across the state.  Panelist included representatives from the LGBTQ Center of the Cape Fear, The Museum of the Southeast American Indian, and Arts Access.  Following the discussion, participants explored a showcase of North Carolina museum programs focusing on DEAI initiatives.  We were fortunate to have an amazing slate of presenters and topics and hope to continue discussions started as we continue our DEAI journey.

NCMC did roll out quite a few new initiatives and changes during our conference.  One of our noticeable changes is our new logo representing how we try to raise each other up.  This new logo was done by a UNC-Charlotte design student who worked closely with our Branding Committee.  Our DEAI committee has scheduled regular online discussion with leaders in the DEAI training community.  Additionally, our DEAI committee has developed a wide ranging DEAI resource page on our website.  For our students and museum educational programs, we now have a new Academic Level Membership.  This membership will allow a more economical and easier registration and membership experience for academic programs.  NCMC has just launched a new Advocacy Committee.  This committee is comprised of seasoned museum advocates on the local, state, and national levels to build an advocacy tool kit for use across the state in museums of all sizes.  If you are interested in joining or more information about any of these initiatives, please don’t hesitate to contact me at: president@ncmuseum.org.

One of the most memorable networking events ever held at one of our conferences was certainly our Drag Queen bingo event held at Hopfly Brewery!  We were entertained by the fabulous Ms. Vivica Coxx while playing bingo and even being serenaded by brave audience volunteers.  Wrapping up the event was the grand prize of four tickets to the NC Museum of Art special exhibit.  It was an amazing night of laughter and fun with colleagues.     

Although our conference was packed full of fun and educational opportunities as we push ourselves to reach as many people as possible, we are always looking to improve.  There are certainly some identified opportunity to improve work and outreach by NCMC to and for our members.  Over the next year we will continue to strive to do better and work to help support you and your institution the best way possible.  Thank you all for your continued support and feedback in helping us become even better.  

With Kind Regards,

Christian Edwards (she/her)

NCMC President  

Award PR 2022.docx

NCMC's new DEAI committee recently debuted a new online DEAI resource list. These categories and resources were compiled based on input from members via survey. Please reach out to membershipasst@ncmuseums.org or communicationsasst@ncmuseums.org with any questions, comments, or concerns. We consider this a living document and are devoted to continually updating and improving this list of resources.

The resource list currently includes the following topics: 

• Toolkits & Great Starting Places for All Functional Areas
• Diversity & Inclusion
• LGBTQ+ & Gender
• Accessibility
• Racial Equity
• Latino/Latina/Latinx Programming, Collections, & Resources
• Native American Programming, Collections & Resources
• Descendant/Gullah-Geechee Programming, Collections, & Resources
• NC Specific Curriculum, Lesson Plans, & Historical Research
• Webinars & Trainings
• Case Studies: Museum Programming & Operations

The Children’s Section learned all about wellness and how to achieve balance, purpose and impact in our respective museums at our Networking Session at the NCMC Conference.  It was great to hear how other museums are supporting the health and well-being of families across the state – and even battle it out with one of the most intense giant Jenga games we’ve ever seen! For more resources and guidance on how to support families during these times, we urge you to participate in the Association of Children’s Museums and US Department of Health and Human Services’ newest campaign, “We Can Do This” aimed at increasing broader vaccine confidence in communities. More information on the campaign can be found here.

Vanessa Rivero, MPH

Children’s Section Assistant Chair, North Carolina Museum Council 

Grants Manager, Kidzu Children’s Museum

NCMC is pleased to announce a new membership level for colleges, universities, and other institutions of higher education: the Academic Membership Level! This level is exclusive to programs and/or departments focused in museum studies and related areas, and features exclusive benefits designated to support students and faculty. We will launch this new level early this summer with detailed information on our website. Questions? Reach out to Jessie Swigger, Student Affairs (studentaffairs@ncmuseums.org), or Lindsey Waldenberg, Membership (membership@ncmuseums.org).

Episode three of "A Day in the Life" features an interview with the amazing Zoe Van Buren, Folklife Director at the North Carolina Arts Council. We hope you enjoy it!

Check out the latest episode of "A Day in the Life"! Student Affairs Chair Jessie Swigger interviews Jeff Futch, Western Regional Supervisor of the NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources (DNCR) Western Office located in Asheville and NCMC Board member. We hope you enjoy it!

North Carolina Museum Council is excited to welcome new Children’s Section leaders! Melanie Hatz Levinson was recently appointed as the Children Section Chair. She is the Creative Director and Lead Curator at Kidzu Children’s Museum in Chapel Hill, NC, with a background in Art History from Columbia University. Vanessa Rivero is the new Assistant Chair for the Children’s Section. She is the Grants Manager at Kidzu, with a background in Public Health from UNC. They are excited to serve the Children’s Section in their new roles and are looking forward to interacting with section members at the March conference!

Dear Museum Friends and Colleagues:

One thing I’ve really enjoyed about working in museums, is it is a field where we constantly evaluate, adapt, and push for improvement.  We look to improve our outreach, programs, exhibits, interpretation, and our visitors' experience.  This is true as well with the North Carolina Museums Council as we constantly review our offerings and support for the museum professionals and institutions across the state.   Your Council has been busy reexamining how we support you and help apply the best museum practices to your everyday work. 

In addition to the new DEAI programs, student outreach, and our upcoming 2022 NCMC Conference in Rocky Mount, we are looking for other ways meet your and your institutions needs.  Please take time to fill out our member survey found in this newsletter.  It will help guide us in how we can meet your needs. 

Also, don’t forget to submit your session proposal for our conference in March 2022.  We are looking forward to seeing everyone (in person!) and collectively learning from our individual experiences.  The theme for the conference is ‘Reexamining Our Stories’.  This will be an opportunity for you to highlight how you and your museum are rising to meet and define our “new normal” in a world dealing with a nation-wide racial reckoning, a global pandemic, and all the numerous other changes our communities and museums have faced.  This is an opportunity to not only highlight but allow us all to learn from the work being done in your museum and community.

We look forward to continuing to support you as best we can.  If there is ever anything we can do to help, please never hesitate to reach out to any of our Board members.  Or, if you are interested in joining our Board, please let us know!  We have many opportunities for you to assist Board chairs or serve on committees.  Together, we are all building better museums one professional at a time.

Kindly,

Christian

The Canton Area Historical Museum was approved during a meeting of the North Carolina Museums Council and North Carolina Preservation Consortium Joint Disaster Grant Committee on October 6^th to receive a $1000 disaster relief grant.  

The remnants of Tropical Storm Fred brought devastating floods to Western North Carolina earlier this year on August 16^th and 17^th. Haywood County officials and Governor Cooper’s office quickly declared a state of emergency, and in early September the White House and FEMA granted the state’s request for a major disaster declaration for several counties including Haywood.  A section of downtown Canton experienced flash flooding including the museum that is in a former library building next to town hall.  The lower basement level of the museum where some exhibits and artifacts were on display was severely damaged by the flood waters.  The museum also lost power and is still in the process of having electrical service restored.  In the meantime, a mobile generator was brought onsite to run fans and dehumidifiers to help dry the basement and keep mold from becoming an issue on the first floor where most of the museum’s collections and exhibits are housed.  

Within a day of the flooding the museum’s curator, Caroline Ponton, contacted staff at the Western Office of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources (DNCR) in Asheville for assistance.  Since then, several members of the Cultural Resources Emergency Support Team (CREST) have visited the site to assist the curator and volunteers with artifact damage assessment and recovery efforts.  Grant funds will be used to purchase artifact storage containers, supplies and other materials.  A dehumidifier will also be purchased for use at a temporary off-site storage location, and later brought to the museum to help with environmental control there once all items return.  

The Canton Area Historical Museum contains artifacts, photographs and historical documents related to the history various Haywood County communities such as Canton, Bethel, and Cruso.  There’s also a large collection of photographs and memorabilia of the area’s primary industry, the Champion Paper Mill, which is now Evergreen Packaging.