Long Island Maritime Museum Visit

Four members of the North Sea Maritime Center (Ann Reisman, Mark Matthews, Lyn Ashe and Sheila Comparetto) traveled to the Long Island Maritime Museum on July 20, 2017 to meet with Director Terry Blitman. The main campus covers 14 acres and includes a main building and four other structures, all put to good use to house collections and provide activity space for maritime programming. The LIMM is obviously larger than the NSMC, but provides inspiration for us as we continue to restore the Historic Tupper Boathouse to house the NSMC programming.

Terry also shared her experience in running the LIMM. She spoke about all aspects of managing this very well-regarded maritime facility, including maintaining the physical infrastructure, balancing an annual budget of approximately $570,000, the importance of a workable stewardship agreement, staffing and volunteers, programming that meets the mission and also brings in net revenue, programming that benefits the community but is not necessarily revenue producing, and more. We left with much to think about as we move forward to finalize a Stewardship Agreement, develop programming and craft a balanced annual budget.