“What Friends are for“ is a Point of View column in today’s The News & Observer written by David Dubuisson, a 17-year member of the Friends of the Maritime Museum and a member of its board of directors. (Previous posts here, here and here) (North Carolina Maritime Museum)
The column provides the Friends of the Maritime Museum perspective and highlights the challenges engendered in public private partnerships.
Most importantly, it also demonstrates what a dedicated and passionate group of individuals can do to advance a cause in a community. Building a strong cultural institution is a collaborative affair. It requires vision, commitment and hard work from diverse interests, all of which the Friends thankfully seem to have in spades.
Technorati tags: maritime heritage, maritime museum, North Carolina Maritime Museum
Sea-Fever blog 
Thanks for visiting and commenting.
Over the past 6 years I have been working with organizations like yours in over 40 North American cities so I understand the challenges of organizing and hosting large maritime events. They can have incredible postive economic and cultural impacts on a community and help to build a maritime heritage tourism brand in the process (Newport, Halifax and Bay City, MI). In the end, they represent a community investment much like a museum or park and their expenses should be amortized over an appropriate period of time. The education of organizers, local and state legislators and the media is an often overlooked important part of the process.
I hope that the Friends continues its good work in celebrating North Carolina’s maritime heritage. I can appreciate the interest for hosting an event in the future might currently be pretty low; however, hopefully that will change and when it does contact my former organization, the American Sail Training Association for help.
Peter, I’ve just stumbled across your blog. Thanks for your interest in our maritime museum and its adventures. You’ve been quite fair, as far as I can see. That puts you in a distinct minority.