In 2022, I was asked to join the board at the Battle Creek Regional History Museum. I signed a three year commitment to participate in helping to build the museum. When I jump into a project, I tend to commit myself entirely. So in 2022, I took on a lot of responisibilty with the museum.
I have a lot of experience with marketing, promotion and public relations. I also had the influence of my YouTube Channel, and expanded that reach with my Podcast Tales of Southwest Michigan’s Past to connect with more people who are interested and passionate about learning local history. Among the many projects I took on for the museum was to increase and strengthen their online presence, and help to build them an audience that would convert over to support for the museum, both for financial and volunteers.
One of the ways I did was by helping to better organize their established Facebook Group The Battle Creek Regional History Museum. I removed spammers, set up rules to prevent spam, and opened up the doors wide for people to participate at the same time. The group has grown to over 8000 members by the end of 2022, a little over double in size. I also designed and introduced a monthly newsletter and began to expand the museum mailing list.
I then got involved with fundraising to help complete the first phase of the renovations which includes a History Education Center, a lobby and gift store. I was able to get approved for a Native American Heritage mural for the History Education Center, with a $30K grant from the WK Kellogg Foundation.
Following this, I applied for and was approved for a matching grant of $50K through the Michigan Economic Development Corportation (MEDC) for the museum, which required crowdfunding of an additional $50K in order to receive it. Together with other volunteers, we successfully helped them raise over $100K with this campaign. The History Education Center is now funded and renovations are underway to complete this room with a state of the art sound system, video system and portraits of history mural on the other three walls and more.
Throughout the year I also helped them increase the amount of people coming into the museum with an expanded event schedule. Some of the amazing events we held in 2022 included talks on subjects such as Native American history, the history of the fire department, interurbans, the navy in Michigan, circus history, genealogy, the Athens theater history, the history of Abraham Lincoln, Oak Hill cemetery and even local ghost legends. In November we held a talk on the Michigan wine industry, and in December we had a very large production of Tales of Christmas Past, which featured stories and poems of the holiday from local, regional and national newspapers in the 1800’s.
All during these activities, I was still producing YouTube videos and episodes for my podcast Tales of Southwest Michigan’s Past. I was able to align a lot of the activities to benefit both, even though at times it was hectic.
All in all, it was a positive, althrough a very challenging year. I feel my efforts and others who took part in the activities accomplished a great deal to expand the awareness of the museum in the community, and it aligns with my goals to make history interesting for people and inspire them to learn more.
I have always felt that the better we as a society can know the past, the more knowledgeable we are in our decision making for our own and collective futures. I am hopeful and optimistic that 2023 will be another inspiring year of bringing more history to the community.
