3) Fundraising activities
Due to the decline in the stock market in Fall of 2002, and the
uncertainty of the war with Iraq in the first quarter of
2003, we determined that
it was not a good climate for fundralsing for our donor pool. (We
made several inquiries in the Fall with reliable donors,
who indicated it
was not a good time.) As things seem a little better now, packets
consisting of copies of our new compendium with the Deeds
of Gift to both the
Rockefeller Center and the Benson Latin American Collection, the
University of Texas' Billion-Dollar Capital Campaign Milestone
Celebration brochure
that recognizes The Essence of Mexico Project as a "treasure" and
copies of this report ;are being prepared to be mailed by May I to
our donor list.
4) Staffing
Since our last report in November, Lisa Jones resigned. We turned
to Christian Kelleher, Archivist at the Benson Collection, who
agreed to
oversee the archiving project and help us find another archivist.
We determined that the archivist position should not be a full-time
position
(he or she can only follow what Mr. Jackson has completed), and
on March 3, 2003, hired Rebecca Romanchuk as a part-time
archivist.
Ms. Romanchuk did an outstanding job moving us to 1/3 complete
and improving the database. However, she decided to seek full-time
employment
and resigned
on April 21, 2003. Again with the help of Christian Kelleher,
we are in the process of hiring a current UT Austin student
or recent
graduate
through the Student Chapter of the Society of American Archivists
at UT Austin. We expect to have someone on board by May 15th.
In the interim,
Mr. Jackson continues to work 5-6 hours per day on editing/cataloguing
the images.
We established time reports for the part-time archivist in March.
Attached to this report are time sheets for Rebecca Romanchuk
between March
3 and April 21, 2003.
We encourage you and Mr. Neubert to visit George 0. Jackson
in the near future to examine the work that has been completed
thus
far.
We think
you will be pleased with the progress to date.
Sincerely,
Marina Ballantyne Walne
Project Director
George 0. Jackson, Jr.
