Obviously, I did not blog every day I was on Jekyll Island. But I don't think I can be blamed. I was immersed for a week with 14 other fabulous museum professionals. Every day was filled with intense, but fun, brainstorming and learning.
There were 16 sessions total. Covering everything from working with boards, strategic planning, fundraising, working with volunteers, exhibits, interpretation, disaster planning, collections planning, collections management, ethics, leadership styles, time management, PR and more.
Frankly, after a day of classes I was too tired to blog about it once I got back to the hotel. So I'll just use this post to share the highlights.
My favorite class was Public Relations and Marketing because I've never had much experience with it. The instructor was Lisa Littlefield from Oglethorpe University. If you ever have the chance to see her present, do it. She is so funny and personable. She really impressed me because she shared her success stories and her failures.
I did have some personal time while I was on Jekyll Island. It was lovely taking walks on the beach. The historic houses were beautiful. The bookstore was charming. The geocaching was fun. And the Georgia Sea Turtle Center is awesome, a truly not to be missed venue. I can't wait to go back to Jekyll Island for vacation with my family.
If there is one thing I could tell my younger self, it would be to label things. Sometimes not having a label is a blessing and sometimes it's a curse. There have been mementos from my childhood that I kept for some reason and rediscovered them 20 years later. I look at them and I think, “What is this? Why did I keep this? What did it mean to me?” There’s no label and if I can’t remember what it was I usually get rid of it. These things are usually some kind of ephemeral thing that is easy to let go of. In these cases, not having a label can sometimes make it easier to let them go. And just as often, I also find labeled things of this nature and decide it’s time to let go of them since they don’t hold as much meaning to me as they once did. However, the vast majority of time I regret that I didn’t label something. There are things I find that I end up racking my brain trying to remember what they are and why I kept them; I agonize over it for days, sometimes weeks. Even worse thou...