By Jackie Garbarino
Museum Volunteer and Gift Shop Manager

Recently I was reading the Salt Cay Blog and found the article on our Sister Island’s restoration of Historic Buildings informative and encouraging. It is so important that we all work to preserve the culture and history of TCI. Each of our islands has a different thread to weave into the tapestry that represents the Turks & Caicos Islands. I encourage you to visit the blog at www.saltcayblog.com. There is also a wonderful interview with Ona Glinton now deceased, who was one of Grand Turk’s important educators. The North Primary School was named in her honor. She was also the mother of our museum’s tour guide, Frederick Glinton. He is carrying on the family tradition in education by educating our guests about the wonders of our museum and islands.

Happy Holidays from the Turks & Caicos National Museum

The staff of the Museum want to thank our board members, museum members, museum supporters and wonderful volunteers for a successful 2012. We would not be here without your encouragement and support.

You would be proud to hear all the positive comments we receive from our visitors. They all think the museum is the “must see” attraction on Grand Turk. And they are right! We will continue to work hard in 2013 to improve the museum and continue our mission of preserving the history and culture of the Turks & Caicos Island.

All the very best,
Pat Saxton
Jackie Garbarino
Candianne Williams
Nikki Jennings
Kalivka Devina Mohamed
Fred Glinton

By Jackie Garbarino
Museum Gift Shop and Volunteer Manager

The elves of the museum working against the clock.

The transformation of the second floor is a thing of beauty.  The exhibits are standing taller more eager than ever for you to read their stories.  The museum is quieter.

The heavy sound of walking has been replaced with the whisper of floating humans above our heads.

The carpet was laid with greatest of care on every one of the floors so bare.

The work speaks for itself and was done with minimal disruption of the museum’s schedule.

By Jackie Garbarino
Gift Shop and Volunteer Manager

The Problem: 3 Queens Named,1 Queen unnamed.

In November 2012 the sponsors for Queen Elizabeth II’s original portrait restoration requested the portrait be returned to Provo for naming.

When the four portraits were initially restored, three had original name plates and these were incorporated in the restoration.

Elizabeth never had a name plate and so she slipped through the proverbial cracks.

She who has been named.

As luck would have it Mitchell Loeb, half of the 2 sponsors, is also the museum’s volunteer pilot. So the queen had first class transport again to Provo and return.

Ian Worth, the artist of Greensleeves, added the name in style and provided the service as a donation to our museum.

So thanks to Catherine Foley & Mitchell Loeb the flying sponsors and Ian Worth the craftsman, Queen Elizabeth II is back, named and greeting our guests as they climb the stairs.

By Jackie Garbarino
Museum Gift Shop and Volunteer Manager

Popcorn machine primed and ready to POP!

The museum movie night drew a capacity crowd on December 4th to witness the inauguration of the new popcorn machine. It is a professional machine and our multi-talented volunteer, Catherine Foley, impressed the corn aficionados as she popped like a pro. Sales were brisk for the fresh butter popcorn. The salty treat also helped the bar sales keeping our loyal and equally professional bartender, Mitchell Loeb, very busy.

Dedicated movie go-ers

Our chairman, Donald Keith, attended his first movie night and luckily had his camera to record the event and his appetite to enjoy the popcorn, homemade pretzels and muffins. Catherine and her niece Dorothy provided the extra treats. Don’t miss the next movie night in January 2013. Date and movie to be announced

By Jackie Garbarino
Museum Gift Shop and Volunteer Manager

Dr. Regoczi closely examines Nikki’s work.

On November 23rd, Nikki Jennings, museum tour guide and jewelry artisan, turned gems of the sea into exquisite earrings, pendants and rings for an appreciative audience of local residents and cruise ship guests.

Commerce was swift and I am betting many lucky folks from around the world will find a Nikki creation under their Christmas Tree.  The venture was so successful, the museum is considering encouraging other local artists to do the same.

Nikki obviously loves creating beautiful jewelry.

Thank you Nikki for sharing.

By Jackie Garbarino
Museum Gift Shop and Volunteer Manager

The first week of October was a busy one at the museum.  On October 1^st the director and assistant director of the Cultural Arts Center of Saint Louis in Missouri came to Grand Turk for the day.

Linsey Daman and David Goldfarb sitting on the memorial bench they purchased for the Cultural Arts Center of Saint Louis, LLC in Missouri.

Linsey Daman contacted us before their planned vacation in the Turks & Caicos about purchasing a memorial bench to support the museum.  Of course that would require a visit to the museum and the bench. They also brought small plush toys that they gave out to some happy 2 year olds at two of our nursery schools.  If you go to grandturkevents.com you will see some photos of that event.

On October 4^th, Robert M. Hutchings visited the museum while in port from the Carnival Liberty Cruise Ship.  The Hutchings name should be familiar to you if you read the Astrolabe article in the Spring Issue of the Times of the Islands.  Robert is the cousin of Hugh Hutchings who donated their grandfather’s clock to the museum.  The family also donated the TCI flag depicting the island salt “igloos”.

Robert M. Hutchings posing in front of the TCI flag belonging to his grandfather and donated to the museum by the family.

Grandfather H.H. Hutchings held many different posts in the Caribbean.  He started in Grand Turk by virtue of his birth here and retired in the 1930’s after serving as Commissioner of Grand Turk.  His grandson Robert continued the family tradition of a “rolling stone” starting life in Columbia and now residing in Switzerland.  We all enjoyed Robert’s visit with his wife and a friend from Columbia.  We sent him off with a several copies of the Times of the Islands.  We also showed him a picture of the White House on Salt Cay as another cousin, Georgia Dunn, helps maintain that family property.

The gift shop staff is ordering up for the holidays.  We will have new mugs, wine glasses, tote bags, note cards featuring the flower watercolors of Hugh Hutchings’ mother and some new postcards.  Hugh’s mother created beautiful and incredibly detailed watercolors of plants found here on Grand Turk.  The museum can never thank the Hutchings family enough for their generous and varied donations to our collections.

Congratulations to Editor Kathy Borsuk, her staff and Times Publications on the 100^th issue Fall 2012.  If my math serves me the quarterly are 25 years old.  We are reminded every 3 months how important this magazine is to maintaining our sense of community and our knowledge of the history and culture of our small island nation.  Thank you!

By Jackie Garbarino
Museum Gift Shop and Volunteer Manager

We promised to keep you updated on the Botanical and Culture Garden renovations so here is the next installment.

Rock base for gravel paths looking west toward cistern.

Wonderful worker hauling gravel the old fashioned way.

Gravel for the walkways.

Gravel partially laid on the rock bed.

New gravel pathway and wall of flowers and cacti.

Conrad Barron the garden architect and steward. His work brings beauty to the garden.

Our smiling visitors enjoying the museum’s botanical and cultural garden.

Come by and see for yourself the many changes in our garden.

Better organized and easier to see all the great gifts. Now all we need are customers.

By Jackie Garbarino
Museum Gift Shop and Volunteer Manager

New shop arrangement.

Now the cashier has a proper spot to conduct business, the Kid’s Corner is getting more attention on the north for some reason and the map and book room is also more popular.

Salt, postcards, pins and baskets all within easy reach.

Moving the baskets and making the postcards easier to browse is a huge improvement.

Jewelry nicely displayed and more accessible.

Come in and admire, browse and shop!

By Jackie Garbarino
Museum Gift Shop and Volunteer Manager

For quite sometime now I thought it would be educational for the museum staff to go on the bus tour that brings visitors to us from the Cruise Center.  August and September are slow months so there are usually empty seats on the buses.  Etienne LeBlanc, director of  Caribbean Tours TCI, arranged for Fred and I to do the first tour.

Fred Glinton, museum tour guide, checking out the space exhibit.

Fred Glinton is our newest museum tour guide and is always willing to do whatever it takes to improve the museum’s image.

We arrived at the center a bit early so we had time to look at the space exhibit.

We learned some interesting facts from our bus tour guide/driver.  I never bothered counting churches and bars but it seems we have 25 of the former and 50 of the latter.

Palm Grove area is our “Hollywood Hills” (more like Hollywood Flats as there is not a hill to be found in that neighborhood), and we have the most beautiful water in the Caribbean.  Now that we know!!!

Fred at the first stop…the Anglican Church on Front Street.

The guide was very entertaining and our fellow tourists enjoyed his repertoire.  I decide not to take pictures at the museum stop.  As they say “been there, done that”.

Fred and I were so believable as tourists that a staff person at the Salt House commented on how I looked exactly like Jackie from the museum.

Fred on the Caribbean Tours TCI tour bus checking out the tourist information pamphlet

Fred at the Salt House on Church Folly. Windmill exhibit is not exactly precise so we will try to keep Dr. Keith from visiting here.

Next week if seats are available Candianne, Devina and Nikki will play turista.  We found the adventure very informative to see your island with the eyes of a visitor.