MODEL OUTCOMES

FRIENDS OF ARROW ROCK: "HOW DO YOU TRY SOMETHING NEW?"
BLACK WORLD HISTORY MUSEUM: INVOLVING THE COMMUNITY

 

FRIENDS OF ARROW ROCK:
"HOW DO YOU TRY SOMETHING NEW?"
As a result of carrying out the Millenial Visions grant, the Friends of Arrow Rock have been able to evaluate and rethink both the logistical approaches and conceptual underpinnings to enlivening its touring programs. Whereas Friends staff had established the initial expectation of enlivening its living history tours, it has found that the actual outcomes have been much broader and much more complex. In specific, instead of viewing the project as a single tour or program that can be reproduced, it has come to view the project as a model of both interpretation and overall attitude toward opening new doors and self-evaluation. As Pam Parsons stated, "One of the best outcomes was that [Millenial Visions] caused us to evaluate our entire interpretation program--[we are] not just looking at one different way of doing interpretation, but it made us all more conscious of the needs that are out there and how we can meet those needs to reach different audiences. So maybe our initial goal was to set up a model and do some living history interpretations, but overall I think a bigger outcome came than we initially set." Thus, as the institution moves forward, it finds that its focus, even with respect to the first person reenactment tours, is shifting as a result of the program.

Kathy Borgman expressed this outcome in a slightly different way. Putting the staff's efforts into the context of an institution which had been relatively set in its ways, Ms. Borgman emphasized the process of learning how to approach new project ideas: "[The project] gets you to do something in a little different way; we get too stayed in one model…The [new] model might ... be: how do you try something new, instead of just repeating the same thing over and over because it's easier and you're in a time frame." While the Friends staff do not necessarily intend to take on such a labor intensive project (like the model project) soon, they are committed to using their experience and the structures and frames within which they completed this project to try new ideas and approaches to strengthening their interpretative programs.