General Boards > Museum Submarine Discussion

Raising some help for museum boats

(1/3) > >>

Viejo:
Over at the LIB BBS under Misc Base Affairs, then the topic Questions, we have been discussing ways of getting help to museum boats. This includes fund raising, both large and small, and of course volunteers.  One of the members suggeste that finding the answers to a list I'll post below, might help get more help and support for our boats. Wondered what you guys thought.
Viejo.

Let me suggest a first pass list of tasks we should consider:
1.) Determine the owner and opperating athority of each museum boat.
2.) Establish a point of contact for each boat.
3.) Have (request) each POC list a support plan for their boat with the cost for each action required.
4.) Tally up the cost of each boat to determine how large this elephant is we are trying to eat.
5.) Decide whether or not our participation Is possible.
6.) If we decide to support, we have a new list to prepare:
a.) Establish a fund raising body with members and their assistants who have real fund raising experience.
b.) Let these folks generate a plan which includes things we at the member level can do to support their master plan.
c.) Once these funds begin to flow, we assign a member to each boat to laison with their POC to decide and execute each task on their priortized plan.
d.) We will certainly find ourselves fund limited, but the shortfalls can be prioritized and become candidates for ad hoc fund raising efforts.

JTheotonio:
Being one of those guys over at LIB - what Bill wants or is looking for is a long-range plan that will help LIB support various projects.  While there is no way we can guarantee big bucks – we think it is important to have a plan that allows us to give what support we can, and to find ways to increase that support.  Lance has been over there chatting about this subject too.  It has become one of the longest single topic threads I’ve seen there – so LIB members are very serious in finding ways we can help.
The two local museum boats around me get very little discussion here.  Ling gets the most and for the last couple of years that chatter was not promising.  Now it seems like there may be life left for the old girl and she will be staying (close).
So we’d like to hear thoughts from all of you.

Tom Bowser:
Before we go out to all the museum boats, I feel we need to get national involved with fund raising and on board for helping museum boats. We need to at least know if large scale fund raising is possible with our group. Right now there are three boats that are actively doing restoration that are requesting money from USSVI members and they do not require extreme amounts. There are a few boats that need a tremondous amount of funds but have not yet come up with a plan or requested subvet help. If we go to those boats asking what kind of money they need and say we will start raising money they will most likely ignore us because they are going to need  millions because the boats are in the water and a bunch of volunteers would not be able to work on them so the cost will be high and once they decide what and how they are going to do they will want to start right away.

We already have a committee in place, the Charitable Fund committee. We just need to establish guidelines for priorities for fund dispersement. I see these as #1 visitor safety work, #2 Hull restoration, #3 Visitor comfort, #4 information and displays, #6 other.

Most important the museum boat must have a USSVI member actively involved to insure the money goes to what it is meant for. From experience you can't just give money to the park. We have the opertunity here to show everyone what we can do but we need to have it organized before we go to the parks and try to help them unless they come to us first.
Tom

Rick:
I am going to get on a soap box a little lso bear with me as I rant on this one.

I am starting be become skeptical about support for the museum boats.  I have had many promises both recent and existing from the time before I was here about help for the boat.  These offers have come from sivilian and veterain organizations, and subvet and non alike.   The end result is, more often then not,  a great amount of enthousiasm at the begining and then an utter dissaperance after 1 or 2 days into the project.  To compound this further being a non Submariner in a Submariner world is a little like a Civilain trying to exist in a military world.   

Another concern that I have, Like Tom, the big ships seem to get all of the attention.  I understand that enamor of a big battle ship or an Aircraft carrrier, but iit does leave us smaller vessels a little out in the cold. 

A governing body must be established before any fundraising can begin in ernest.   I also feel that decisons about the how's, when's and where's of the money distrobution must be made before the funds are distrobuted.  You must also be sure that all of the boats get equil opertunity and representation for any such money.  This body must also be willing to work with the restoration staff to complete the projects being funded.

With that said.  I am happy to make any iof our needs available  The biggest right now being a paint job,  I am also excited about the prospect that the subvets are willing to try and help out.  I have seen a lot of improvement in the amount of information being distributed and the amount of colaboration being made between the museums and the subvets over the last few years.  I hope this helps out

Rick

Tom Bowser:
Ric
Thanks for stepping in. You basicly high lighted the point I was trying to make and that is to get the whole USSVI involved and interested. It is hard to keep enthusiasm going for a long running project and that is what the poorly funded boats are dealing with. The subvets do not have a shinning past history of helping except isolated cases. Lesley on the Drum was promised help for years and got very little. I want the sub vets to realize that if we start this for all boats we have to keep it going.

As far as your paint job. If you can get volunteers to sand blast and do it yourselves you may be able to get use of the equipment donated, we are getting ours from Sunbelt Rentals. Sherwin Williams is selling us paint at their cost. Origanily they donated about $2500 worth but with the economy down the tubes they can't donate any more. You are lucky to be sitting lower, you shouldn't need a man lift.

You guys are doing a fantastic job on the deck. I wish the park had put wood back on ours, we are going to have a hell of job replacing the steel channal in about five years.
Tom

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page