The ideas I have heard concerning this subject have been wonderful! That is exactly what keeps me so energized in the museum business....bringing fresh ideas, or new spins on more traditional ideas to get the community excited about the artistic, historical, and cultural purpose of our museums, parks, ballets, etc. I may be participating in a downtown arts festival this year and the examples that I have heard from various Museum-L members are the kinds of ideas that would really bring more attention to downtown Greensboro's (Greensboro, NC) arts district. Sincerely, Christi Pemberton ----- Original Message ----- From: Liz Jones Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2003 10:53 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Cooperative Marketing Partnerships Hi. I work at the Mahoning Valley Historical Society in Youngstown, Ohio. For the last three years, I have been active in a new collaborative organization known as the Mahoning Cultural Collaborative (MCC.) This organization came together for the same reasons as you mentioned, but also to reach a greater number of teachers and students in the area. We started an annual summer program two years ago, and while it was not very successful the first year, it saw some growth last year. We call it the Summer Passport Program. People who participate in this contest must visit six sites during the summer (museums, park district, library, and a planetarium.) When they visit one of the sites, they pick up a passport brochure and take it to the other sites with them. After they have visited each site, they receive a "stamp" on their passport brochure. When they complete their brochure, they receive a small gift and are then entered into a grand prize drawing for a large basket of gift items donated from each site and area businesses. The first year about 20 people finished. LAst year it was around 50, and this year we received funding to print 25,300 brochures for children in grades k-8 in the city and county school systems. We are expecting great success. While we will run it also for the general public, the brochures are color coded so we will know how many children completed the program. If it is popular, we hope to do it again next year but work with city busing to bring even more kids in. I also wanted to tell you that this program, while challenging, has interested tourists. During our first year we had a family from California and another from the East Coast finish. MCC is also working on a collaborative teacher in-service day to make teachers aware of our programs at each site, a website, and a general brochure about the cultural district (with a map) for tourists and the local community. For right now, this is about all we can handle. We meet once a month and it is sometimes hard to keep everyone interested, but if you pick a project to work on people seem to want to stay involved. I hope this helped. If you are interested in seeing a Passport Program, let me know and I will mail one to you. Elizabeth Nohra Assistant Director Mahoning Valley Historical Society _________________________________________________________________ STOP MORE SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ========================================================= 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). ========================================================= 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).