City Council - Special Meeting

All right. 6:42. We'll call the special common council meeting to order. Roll call has been taken. I need a motion to adop adopt the agenda. So move second. Motion made. Motion second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. Opposed. That motion's carried by all. Uh the pledge has already been taken in a previous meeting. With that said, we move on to presentation and update of the museum expansion project. Miss Cross,

thank you so much. Thank you for allowing me to come here this evening and give you an update on the project. Uh, if you'll Sorry, my technical assistance is a little behind. Lovely. Thank you. If you'll recall from our conversation, the library and museum board allowed me to put together a museum expansion committee that represented all of the stakeholders involved with the project. The idea is that this advisory committee oversees the planning and communicates through me with the library museum board. They make recommendations and suggestions relevant to the museum project. The committee members have spent many hours in meetings and on field trips to develop the plan structure so far. The working groups take deep dives into the topics that you see here. They bring information and suggestions to the museum expansion committee to be included in the overall planning. The MEC and staff built the structure. The working groups and staff flesh out the details. This evening, I would like to take a little time to update you on the work. I'd also like to point out the new museum assistant position. This person will be helping us with marketing, volunteer management, and other things that help the museums run smoothly and create a welcoming atmosphere for our community. The working groups are all up and running now. It was a very busy February since we met all of us. um and they are ready to start developing specific goals

and implementing a variety of initiatives. First, we're going to start with the public relations working group. This group evaluated their weight what booth initiative this year and they felt that a lot was learned. They decided to continue this crucial communication tool and the next time it will be out is on March 26 at familiar grounds. So I invite you to stop in and take a look if you haven't seen it. We continue to take the message to the people, but now we will be able to include more details about plans and timelines. We want to meet the people where they are and talk about the project. We want to invite them to visit, come to a program or get involved volunteering. Our programs working group has the objective to create a framework for the educational programs offered at the museum. They are guided by the museum's education mission to enhance the visitors experience through dynamic collectionsbased programs. The museum strives to encourage inquirybased learning and a deeper understanding and appreciation of our collections. Our programs will maintain the reputation of the museum as a high quality and trustworthy content provider to the public. The group is developing their education master plan. This road mapap will be tested over the course of the possibilities phase as we learn more about what our community needs and and wants from the museum that will help to inform us as we move forward. I can't thank the group enough for giving up a entire Saturday

morning to do a brainstorming workshop at the museum. It was an incredibly productive time with lots of creative ideas and discussion. The focus of the rest of this year will be to take these ideas and develop the draft education master plan to present to the MEC and to the library museum board. the building working group. As you can imagine, with the move happening soon, the staff and building working group have been planning a number of projects and working on the most efficient and effective way for the museum to transition into the entire building. We are really excited to update you on a couple of community projects that we've developed. Our first one is going to take place this summer on July 24th. Our messy science program will look at plants and pollinators. As part of the program, kids and adults will be invited to help us plant an entirely new pollinator garden on the south side of the museum building. We've purchased native plants from wild ones and with the assistance of the parks department, we will get everything ready to go for this intergenerational community project. Not only will the garden transform the look of the space, it will also be a tangible way to educate and promote a more pollinator friendly city. As for the storm windows, I know you've been worried about these We did not receive any bids the first time we sent this out last year. We received one bid when we sent it out again, but unfortunately that bid was five times larger than our budget. So we

decided to not accept it. So I had an idea that perhaps we could turn this into a community project. a project that not only helps the museum and gets our community involved but also promotes and teaches historic preservation skills. After some discussion, I reached out to the director of C3, a preservation program housed at Boyd College. She gave me the name of a historic preservationist that specializes in restoring windows and storms. I contacted Bob Yap and spoke to him about the project. He is very excited to come to New London from Missouri to teach a workshop about storm window restoration using the Carnegie Library storm windows. He has done this workshop around the country. He's a very well-known historic preservationist. We need a minimum of 12 and a maximum of 18 people to sign up for this intensive 3-day project. We're letting people in the museum community around the region know. We've contacted the New London High School and we are getting information out to our community and broader region. We want to encourage anyone with any interest in historic preservation or who has an old house, an old building, or just wants to learn a new skill to sign up. The fee for the three days is $100 or $50 if you're a member of the Friends of the New London Public Museum. Bob is so excited about this project and committed to historic preservation that he's donating the three new storm windows that will be needed to replace ones that are missing

from the Carnegie Library. So that's about a $1,000 or so donation to us. We've been working diligently planning the transition and we're figuring out how to sequence the needs uh what needs to be done and where we can have volunteers help us and I'll go into that in just a minute. The governance working group got together for the first time in February. This group has representation from the library museum board, the friends of the new London Public Museum and the city. Its purpose is to review and discuss how the museum is governed, policies, and oversight as sole occupant of the city building. Our first discussion went well. The group decided on the following specific goals. With help from the museum staff, we will review, revise, and add to current policies to better reflect how the museum will operate and utilize the building. Using information from a variety of sources including the broader museum field, we will develop three suggestions for possible mo models of governing the museum. This information would then be brought to the MEC and the museum library board for discussion if needed to city council. The fundraising working group has had its first meeting as well. And I'm going to turn this part of the presentation over to Loma, the director of development for the friends of the New London Public Museum.

Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to be here with you tonight. Talk to you a little bit more about the work that's being done with museum and the friends on the public on the public museum. So, I'm here to share a brief update regarding the fundraising progress and the strategic planning that's been taking place to support the museum's growth and the long-term sustainability. Earlier this month, we did hold our first meeting for the fundraising working group. The groups made up of community members who care deeply about the museum and its future. These are individuals who are stepping into leadership roles and helping to move the important work needed forward. The role of the working group is to help cultivate relationships with high capacity donors and to champion fundraising efforts. They're going to be doing that through strategic outreach, expansion of monthly giving program, and ambassador advocacy. The work's going to be essential in building a strong momentum in these early years 2026 through 2028, while also helping to establish a foundation for sustainable funding in the years that are going to follow. The fundraising working group has four primary objectives. I'm going to share those with you now. First, it's to mobilize leadership level giving and the support of a multi-million dollar museum expansion. Second, we're going to be strengthening and growing a sustainable monthly giving program. So, diversifying the funds that are we are receiving. Third, to build a long-term fundraising framework that positions the museum for success well beyond 2027 2028. And finally, high value networking opportunities while maintaining a strong commitment to transparency and community trust. To date, we've successfully raised over $222,000 towards this effort, which is a really

encouraging early indicator of community support. And so in closing, this work is about building a sustainable future for the museum. It's grounded with community support and long-term strategy. We're encouraged by the progress to date and the momentum that's expected moving forward. I'm now going to turn it back over to Christine. Thank you.

Thanks, Loma. So the possibilities phase as we've spoken about the possibilities phase centers on community input. Sorry, community input through visiting and volunteering. And we hope our community will help co-create the vision for their museum. We want them to test what we have in place and give us their feedback. The collection during the possibilities phase, we intend to inventory the artifact collection, rehouse it in a way that will ensure its preservation and make it more accessible to the staff and researchers. Programs and exhibits. We will use this time to test some of our education programming ideas. We also intend to bring the exhibits up from the downstairs and put them in what will eventually be the new exhibit space. Administration and operations. This is when we will figure out how to operate the museum building to maximize accessibility and stay within our resources. Do our budget expectations match reality? And what new avenues of revenue can we explore? And then of course, fundraising. Working with Loma and the working group, we want to develop fundraising goals and plans for both capital and operations that are realistic and successful. facility live in the space and make changes to the master plan on paper as needed so that when we do start working

on construction documents, we will feel secure that our ideas match the needs of our community and our museum. This is the stage set idea that I've talked about with temporary walls and tape on the floor to figure out if the layout is going to work. That's the idea behind the possibilities phase, exploring the possibilities. Now, the possibilities phase will last, we're estimating about three years, but to make our planning a little easier, we wanted to uh chunk that time out into manageable pieces. So, we've broken it down into smaller periods. Right now, we're focusing on the first seven months. So the first and second month we're going to be looking at the space. The exhibits will remain open in their current location. We will start new public hours. We will be closed on Sundays and Mondays. However, we would be able to offer private tours and programming on Mondays. The upstairs will remain empty with some community collaborations, meetings, programming. We'd like to invite businesses, groups, etc. to meet in the space and get a sense of what we're working with. The third month is actually when we start on the transition. Exhibits will continue to be open in their current location, but the upstairs will be closed to the public. The south building and center section work projects include cleaning, painting, some carpet installation, furniture placement. Many of these projects were hoping to involve volunteers. The north building will be taped off to reflect the master plan with temporary

office spaces and areas. And we're also hoping to be able to redo our staff and volunteer kitchen area at this time. The fourth and fifth fifth month, we're going to be moving on up. The entire building will be closed to the public. This is when we will move the exhibits from the lower level upstairs. The installation of a new curiosity corner. However, since the space for this interactive area is going to grow and it's no longer going to be in the corner, we are going to rename it the we can center. The first one is going to be the We Can Build Center and we are incredibly excited to share it with the public during this time. In order to continue to engage our community while we're closed, we're bringing an outdoor exhibit from the Wisconsin Historical Society entitled We Take Our Sports Seriously. It's part of their statewide history makers tour. This outdoor photo exhibit features images from their archives. To that exhibit, we'll also be adding some from our archives as well. We'll also be uh participating in local events and setting up a game stop for trick-or-treating. The sixth and seventh month is when we start to settle in. The exhibits will be open in their new location upstairs. The We Can Build Center will be open in the north wing and work on the lower level will include setting up our archives and preservation areas, setting up the public research area, taping off the meeting room to reflect the master plan, cleaning, painting, and all those other fun things.

So, what do we need? Volunteers. We need help with all facets of the project from painting to operations. We've already welcomed and trained a number of volunteers to act as museum sitters. We have our first registration for the storm window restoration project and a couple of volunteers who are excited to get their hands in the dirt in the pollinator garden. One of the responsibilities of the new museum assistant is to help with our volunteer program. As more people get involved, we want to make sure to create an enjoyable and fun experience for them. Funding. There will be some expense involved in the possibilities phase and of course heading into the master plan. We are using some of the money that has already been raised to cover the costs for the start of the possibilities phase. The 10-year capital project budget reflects the funding needs of the project in total. It does not take into account any fundraising effort. So when you see those numbers on the the project budgets, that's what they include. It's everything that we know of to date. We also need your help to get the word out into the community. While we will be continuing to engage the public with the wait what booth we know that as representatives you get questions. So we've updated the fast facts sheet for you with more information about the possibilities phase. So if you have any questions please feel free to reach out to me. Not every community has a public museum or a museum that houses earth science, natural science, history,

culture, all under one roof. New London is a unique place. We want to make sure we are protecting what has been entrusted to us in the past and what will be given to us in the future. We're excited to continue to build strong partnerships within our community to welcome everyone from the youngest to the oldest to find their space in their belove and this beloved building. We want to be part of a building a community of pride and a sense of belonging. Whether you've lived here all your life or only just moved in, we want to do all of this with our community. After all, it is your museum. Thank you.

I'll be happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Miss Cross. Any questions? All right. Hearing no questions then we can move on to number three on the agenda journ. Motion to adjourn. Motion's been made. Second. Seconded. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. Motion carried.