i am working on our annual report as we speak.  i find that as our dept. managers discuss and define the report's purpose we have concisely sized the piece down to roughly 16pages.  an annual report can be considered a source to reference the years activities and thus might work well as bulleted information of year highlights and listed information of donors, members, volunteers, staff, board, acquisitions, items on loan or loaned to other institutions, exhibitions, educational programs and outreach, PR highlights, development highlights, museum mission statement and purpose, director's message, and of course visually appealing financials.  the lists and information could go on and on but hopefully your board and colleagues have defined the purpose of this report and how they wish to utilize it, and what message they would like to send to the readers and/or researchers; it may be a source other professionals reference to see, for example, which Picasso Suite the museum has just purchased.

an annual report is daunting, but as soon as your colleagues bring to light it's purpose, the task becomes efficient and can move forward.  i wish you the best of luck!    

>From: Amy <[log in to unmask]>museum> >Reply-To: Museum discussion list <[log in to unmask]> >To: [log in to unmask] >Subject: Help w/ annual report >Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2002 08:23:39 -0700 > >Hello all! >I have been set to task to manage the production of >the musuem's annual report. The budget is very small, >so I am going to do the layout myself. In the past it >was an extremely long document, and poorly produced. >I would like to reduce the size and up the production >value. Can you help me out with samples? > >I am looking for publications that were produced on a >low budget. One or two colors only. Nothing too >slick. Regarding length, anyone have a good example >of a short annual report, or any thoughts on reducing >the size of the document. What information is most >important to have, least important? > >If you could please mail examples to me it would be >greatly appreciated. >Thanks! > >Amy Kleinert >Marketing Manager >South Bend Regional Museum of Art >120 S. St. Joseph Street >South Bend, IN 46601 > > >__________________________________________________ >Do You Yahoo!? >Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax >http://taxes.yahoo.com/ > >========================================================= >Important Subscriber Information: > >The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). > >If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).