A quick update

I suppose it's time for an update since I haven't been posting much on here lately.

The newsletter and new format are coming together nicely.  As you may have read in a pervious post, one of my assigned objectives regarding the newsletter was to rename the publication, along with creating a new format.  The Cub Reporter  has been replaced by The Piper Aircraft Periodical: A Flight of Passage.  

At this point I only need to plug a few more small pieces into the template and choose images to be included with a few articles.  For copyright purposes, and because I really want to snoop around all of the cool stuff in archives, I'm going to start my search for an exemplary image of a J-3 Cub to go along with the Rep. Mike Hanna article this week.  Ira Masemore, secretary of the museum's Board of Directors and former Dean of Education and Human Services at Lock Haven University, finds his home in archives and is quite the character.  Perusing the archives will definitely be an interesting experience, particularly because Ira is such a piece of work himself.   

Pennsylvania State Plane?

The Lock Haven Express posted an article on the possible designation of an official "State Aircraft" for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.  Our state animal is the Whitetail deer, insect is the Firefly, flower is the Mountain laurel and our potential aircraft is the Piper J-3 Cub, but it's in the works.  Here's the article's link:  Hanna reintroduces legislation to designate Piper-built plane as state aircraft - The Express

Week 2

I figured I'd take a minute to get a blog in while I sit here and listen to Museum Board President, John Merinar, go over his agenda for the day with Stacy Young, the office manager.  I finally started drafting articles for the newsletter on Monday and am going to continue tackling my various pieces today.  So far I've reformatted the Membership Application for those who would like to receive the newsletter, as well as other special items.  I've also completed a piece that introduces the theme of this newsletter.  Our general theme is "Where we've been, where we are and where we want to go..." and highlights the volunteers and contributors who have helped the museum accomplish all that they have since moving into the building that formerly housed Piper Engineering in 1996, as well as current events, the variety and number of visitors in the last year, etc.  I'm also continuing to brainstorm ideas for a new title and tagline for our publication, which is currently The Cub Reporter, "Keeping the Legend Alive."  We are looking to change the name because Piper Aircraft, Inc. corporate headquarters and manufacturing facility currently resides in Vero Beach, Florida and we include information about current Piper Aircraft news, not focusing strictly on the Piper Cub as in earlier years.

Stacy also mentioned that she'd like to discuss new items for the gift shop this afternoon.

William Thomas Piper

While looking online for newsletter ideas and brainstorming a new name for the Aviation Museum's official publication, I decided to look for some William T. Piper quotes.  Somewhat surprisingly, I stumbled across a Time Magazine article from 1961.  Here's the link: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,828739,00.html#ixzz1DHlaAvLd

Newsletter Research and RHA Fundraiser

I've put in about 10 hours at the Museum up to this point and a large percentage of them have been spent going over financial statements and audits from the year 1996 up through 2009.  I've been gathering and calculating information regarding Piper's revenue/donations and total expenses for each year so that I can calculate how much money has been put into the hangar and museum itself since the Museum Foundation started making payments on the building in 1996.  We want to include this information, as well as acknowledge major contributors through the years in the newsletter.  I'm happy to say that my hours of flipping through audits are over and that the next time I go into the office, I will be able to start playing with drafts for the article about museum contributions.

What I'm most excited about at this point is the fundraiser that I've come up with.  I have been discussing a campus-wide monetary fundraiser for the Aviation Museum with the president of LHU's Residence Hall Association.  The RHA executive board discussed and approved my request at their meeting tonight.  I had asked for participation and the funding of a pizza party for the residence hall that raises the most money by the end of our to-be-determined fundraising period.  I chose to approach the RHA because I spent 2 semesters working with them as Campus Village's Vice President and know how much the organization does for other non-profits in our community through programs that involve competitive fundraising.  Right now I am in the process of figuring out whether or not I need to make signs, along with the fliers that I was already planning to distribute, for each of the 8 halls as advertisement for the event, or if the Resident Assistants are willing to help me spread the word throughout the halls.