Some interesting things are happening here at the visitor center.  We were able to get $25,000 in BP funding (which was funneled through the State and then through the Franklin County Tourist Development Council) that will allow us to conduct a promotional campaign centered on the slogan “St. George island, more than a beautiful beach …”.

 

The first evidence  of the campaign will be at the Scallop Festival in Port St. Joe next weekend (Aug. 7 & 8).  Terry Kemp and I will man the “St. George Island Visitor Center & Museum” booth.  Our brand new booth (in use for the first time!) will consist of a canopy, a covered table, a 4 panel “tradeshow display” highlighting SGI (“more than a beautiful beach …”, thanks Cindy Clark!), and some banners.  We intend to give away lots of brochures while we talk about the island, the visitor center, and the lighthouse.  Our t-shirts and some other items will be on sale.  If you’re at the festival, be sure to drop by!  If you don’t get to see us next weekend, the booth will reappear at other festivals.

 

On the same theme (SGI, “more than a beautiful beach …”), Cindy Clark with Bay Media is helping us to develop a new rack card that will show off biking, butterfly and bird-watching, boating, fishing, photography and other activities of interest here on the island.  We expect to have the rack cards done and distributed by August 31^st.

 

On the same theme (SGI, “more than a beautiful beach …”), Forgotten Coast TV will be creating a video for us.  Once created, the video will broken into segments (i.e. biking, butterflies …, etc.) so that we can attach the entire video to our website, and attach the segments to electronic newsletters, mailings, social media, etc.  Amy Hodson is creating a Facebook page and You-tube presence for us that will host the videos.  Become a Facebook fan of the visitor center and lighthouse by looking us up at SeeStGeorgeIsland.  The new newsletters will be distributed to friends and to the mailing lists that we are purchasing and storing in a database manager.  The next newsletter you receive may look quite different!

 

Besides adding the ability to  show video, our web site (www.SeeStGeorgeIsland.com) will display other new features.  If you have some digital photos of SGI that you’re willing to share, one of the improvements that 2k Web Group will be making is to add new photos to the main page and to fill  the website photo gallery.  We promise to credit all the donated photos on the web site.  There will also be a link to a media package.  Chuck Spicer of The Forgotten Coastline is creating a media package in 3 formats: paper, cd, and digital.  The package will contain pictures and articles for persons in the media to access & use.

 

The last part of the promotional package will be new museum displays by Debbie Beard.  When the lighthouse keeper’s house is complete, the lighthouse museum items will be removed from the visitor center and placed in the new lighthouse museum.  Debbie’s history of St. George Island will then be added to the walls, crooks & crannies of the visitor center.

 

Another item of interest:  new t-shirts.  Our supply has been replenished and a pea green short sleeve shirt has been added as well a red child’s shirt.   We are fully stocked with all our items and trinkets.

 

While visitor numbers for the summer are down some from last year, they’re not nearly as bad as we feared that they would be.  And, we haven’t had any oil on our shores or had to close our fishing areas.  Hurrah!  We’ve been very lucky.  The number of visitor that have come to Franklin County because beach areas to the west of us were closed or oily, may be to our advantage for years to come.  I’ve heard repeatedly through the summer of visitors who were here for the first time and plan to return.