Some of the after school regulars knocked on the office door last week. They had brought me their grade cards to see. Each one of them had raised a letter grade this term. One of them was in the first position for her class.

They also asked to use the offices to study for an exam. I explained to them how proud I was of all their hard work, but they knew that the program had ended. I asked them where they went to do their homework before they came to the museum.

“We didn’t do it,” they said in unison.

Well, we can’t have that. I let them up to the office one last time.

Today I left Grand Turk — again. And once again I reviewed all that we had accomplished.

The past few months has seen a lot of hard work and a lot of successes. I think we’ve averaged completing one big project per month while I’ve been on-island. I’m always astounded at what can be accomplished with a little resourcefulness and a lot of outside support. From the GT-4 excavation to the March 20^th event to the Children’s Club program to the conservation projects now underway, everything relies on the support of the museum’s extended community.

It has been a true privilege to work with the museum staff and volunteers and interact with its members. The passion here is contagious and inspiring and I will carry its example throughout my career. Having played a small part in this community, I certainly can’t leave it – tomorrow I will become a member.

Best to all,

Jessica

by Jessica Brody

These past months in the archives has been a real treat. I’ve gotten to discover the rich history of the Turks and Caicos through the records in our collections. As a visitor it’s been fascinating to uncover what I think is a new fact only to encounter people at the museum seminars or around town who already know the story and tell me more about the story and how it relates to broader TCI history.

This is why I was excited when the Museum’s application to the British Library’s Endangered Archives Project was accepted. The project’s focus will be to collect pre-1900 records from around the Islands. It’s exciting to think that soon, not only new comers like me, but generations into the future will be able to re-create the stories of early Turks and Caicos Islanders.

There was a massive downpour on Grand Turk today. It may have put a damper on some of the of the cruise passengers’ visit, but not for the museum visitors.

Even when the rain caused a power outage across the island, disrupting a Historic Homes Tour that had just arrived, the Museum staff saved the day by giving a behind the scenes tour instead.

At the end of the tour, the visitors commented that they loved the behind the scenes tour and couldn’t imagine a better rainy day activity.

This week we are taking advantage of some slow days and late ship calls to get some spring cleaning done.

Jonathon has been volunteering at the museum for the last several weeks. His parents are here as missionaries who have been rebuilding one of the Grand Turk churches following the hurricane.

At first he was just helping out in the museum shop. But we soon discovered that he has pretty good mechanical skills and is very detail oriented.

Matching volunteers to their passion is important in museums. After some training, Jonathon has become very good at the highly detailed work of dusting exhibits. Today, he showed up very early to help Joseph clean our reef exhibit.

This exhibit interprets the reef wall that surrounds Grand Turk. When coming into Grand Turk visitors can clearly see the teal blue line that surrounds our island. What you can’t see is the 1000 foot drop off the edge of the reef. Well, unless you come to the museum…

Linda and Paul took time out to visit the Museum and left very pleased they had gone to the trouble. They had booked a weekend of dives through Blue Water Divers and thought that they would not be able to get to the museum between diving and cruise ships that were in port this week.

Blue Water called to arrange a “Behind the Scenes” diver’s tour. Through the dive shops, this can be booked anytime, even outside of regular hours. This is why they were so pleased.

They were treated to an in-depth look at collections in the labs and then got a crash course on “how to read a shipwreck.” After the museum, the Director continued the tour on the dive boat, joining the couple for a 2:00 pm dive on the “Anchor” site. After a brief discussion about the history of the Grand Turk anchorage, the couple got to see even more maritime arifacts, though these were obviously not in the collections of the museum

Last week the Museum was a busy busy place (as if this ever changes).
Among the usual whirl of Historic Homes Tours and After School Program visits we also had a visit from some Museum members. They would be leaving Grand Turk for a while and wanted to check up on a loan they’d given to the museum. 3 maps respectively from the 1690’s, 1790’s, and 1830’s.

The map from the 1690’s depicts the Caribbean Islands including the “Isles Turques” and a very distorted Florida state. This map is the oldest that the Museum holds. The others show the Caribbean, the Turks and Caicos and their relation to North and South America. No other map in our collection shows this comprehensive view of the Atlantic World and this member’s collection gives it to us across the decades. After viewing our map collection and how important their pieces were to our collection, the members decided to gift the maps to the Museum and put them in our permanent collection.

We had an visit from the Provo architects. They were looking at how the Museum’s spaces are used for our daily functions. They spent all day touring the museum, the offices, and the climate controlled storage area. There were plenty of discussions on how optimal space usage should be designed around flexible spaces. It’s exciting to watch a small change of a line on the paper can re-create a room.

We also had a Children’s Club activity: Snorkeling and a Cook Out at the Cruise Center with Oasis Divers. See the Children’s Club Blog for more pictures.

The students of Clement Howell High School visited Grand Turk last Friday and the Museum was on their list of places to see. The Children’s Club Coordinator gave them a special tour of the Molasses Reef Wreck artifacts and the Lucayan room. There were quite a few shutter bugs in the group who were madly taking pictures of everything they saw!

The library is completely in order, labeled and functioning!

We have some new helpers at the museum – a mother and son team! I’m really excited, we have the last few slides of the Jimmy McCullom collection getting scanned in today. It’s taken over 200 man-hours to process and scan in the collection and it feels like a real accomplishment to have completion right around the corner. Once he’s finished with the scanning, our new friend will start learning the tours.

Having lived on the island for almost a year, he’s nearly an expert!

His mom dabbled in library work in her college days and seems to have gotten right back into the swing of things. At this rate the library will be labeled with it’s proper Dewey numbers in no time!

The youngest in the group is working on making a pathfinder for the reference files in the office. He keeps claiming that his typing isn’t very good, but by the end of this he’ll be a project. Here are the brothers working side by side with the after school kids working on their projects. Another busy day at the museum!working on their projects

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