This will be the start of what I hope will be either
semi-monthly or weekly blog posts to keep our loyal supporters, crew, and
followers updated on the progress of the Battleship IOWA and our contributions
to the greater Southern California community.
Reflecting back on the past week and a half, we have a
tremendously busy schedule. As always,
the crew steps up to the plate to deliver on time and with excellent
results. We were invited to present to
the Orange County Concierge Association on Monday, November 3rd to discuss our
different programs and services.
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| LAPD Harbor Division |
On
Wednesday, November 5th, we became the part of a set for a popular
TV show on the fantail of the IOWA. The
operations and security team worked late hours to assist with the setup of the
TV crew. During this time, we welcomed
the LAPD Harbor Division for inspection and photos at the pierside of the
IOWA. What a great group of officers!
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| The operations team hard at work on the fire line. Notice the ship lighting in the back for a filming. |
At the same time, the work of Camp Battleship continues with
the installation of the fire main line in the parking lot going late into the
evening last week. As you can imagine,
this is incredibly difficult to accomplish with active filming and the setup
for Veterans Appreciation occurring. The
operations team went above and beyond to stay on schedule! We also welcomed our new Camp Battleship
Manger Josh Stutz onto the team on November 7th from his previous
position at the USS Missouri. Josh has
already provided some great leadership in setting up the Camp Battleship
program and interviewing potential tour and education guides.
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| Jim Pobog busy at work on painting the weld marks |
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| Our great tour guides giving Victory the Dog game to our young visitor. |
Our tour team has been working on tour improvements and one
of the newest was the painting of the weld marks by Jim Pobog of where the 20mm
and 40mm guns were placed near the foc’sle.
The tour guides continue to deliver a great product and are the primary
reason for our #10 rating on TripAdvisor and the increase in family
traffic. We have seen an increase in
Group Sales and Special Events inquiries the past month, we believe primarily
due to word of mouth marketing spreading. With our loyal supporters help, we will make
one step at a time to become wildly successful in Southern California.
We also executed our new lease amendment with the Port of
Los Angeles that will help us move off of the diesel generator. This lease amendment will go to the Harbor
Commission for approval in mid-December and we will need the help of our loyal
supporters to show how important the Battleship IOWA is to the LAWaterfront. We will be paying the Port
of Los Angeles back over 20 years for the infrastructure improvement necessary
to provide permanent power infrastructure to the IOWA at Berth 87. We appreciate the Port of Los Angeles staff
for working with us to establish this power connection.
On the weekend of November 8th & 9th,
we hosted our third annual Veterans Appreciation Festival and first Battleship
5k. It began on Saturday, November 8th
with a special ceremony with guest speakers Congresswoman Janice Hahn,
Assemblymember Isadore Hall, Councilman Joe Buscaino, and USMC Veteran & LA
Mayors representative Robert Borders.
The ceremony was very touching and as always Doug “Gunny” Williams did
an excellent job as chaplain. Thank you
to the operations and special events team for quickly transitioning out of the
filming to the weekend event setup. It
should also be noted that Crafted hosted an excellent Brewfest over the same
weekend and I heard it was a fun event.
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| Battleship 5k
We attended the Ontario Reign military appreciation event on
November 8th to honor the service of our military members. As part of the event, they agreed to hand out
our BOGO cards to guests as they exited and contributed $300 towards veterans
charities.
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Going into the week of November 10th, we had a
focus on the Veterans Day ceremony on the 11th. We had a great turnout of both media and
veterans to participate in the morning ceremony and daytime activities. It was interesting to see that the attendance
was better on November 11th, than the weekend.
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| Presentation of the Wreath |
We continued to deal with our technology infrastructure
challenges that include a permanent connection to pierside wiring and fiber
optics. Our technology team was able to
secure a couple of ISDN lines and a possible install of a fiber optic line to
give us a stable connection. This will
help our organization tremendously in long-term progress and growth. In addition to stabilizing our internet and
telephone connection, our IT team activated our mobile website at http://mobile.pacificbattleship.com
and tested potential camera systems. Our
IT department is a hidden department on the ship, but is necessary in the
overall operation of the museum.
Personally, I was able to begin a transition out of some of
the planning tasks I have been working on such as the Business Plan, Marketing
Plan, and projections to focus more on the strategic future and fundraising of
the organization. On Wednesday, November
12, I attended the LA City Council Committee on Tourism & Trade to
represent our desire for a redeveloped LA Waterfront. During public session, I commented on how
important the Battleship IOWA is to the community as we are consistently rated
in the top 20 of attractions throughout LA.
We started working on our future education program with a
collaborative partnership being established with LAUSD Beyond the Bell
program. Our initial focus will include
elements of STEM learning on board the vessel and a possible ROV element. We hope to see this program operational by the
spring of 2015. Board Member Craig
Johnson provided an introduction to the leaders of Synergy school in South Los Angeles. This is a charter school that is doing a
great job changing lives of kids that didn’t necessary have a positive
future. We spoke to some of the students
and it was very touching to see the difference this great program has made on
their lives. We also were the recipient of the HCBF grant
to help provide the IOWA experience to harbor area youth over the next 6 to 8
months.
A couple of our California Board Members joined me in
meeting with a fundraising consultant on developing our trustees board to
become a fundraising board. This will be
critical to our long term growth and success.
Part of this strategy includes special events to welcome potential
supporters including one this coming week.
The finance & accounting team were hard at work finishing
the 2013 tax returns due on November 15th. Our 990’s should be available to view on our
website by the beginning of December 2014.
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| TourismCares Volunteers |
The week closed with both a filming and the TourismCares volunteer event. The filming was a
Chinese / American film that was staging its closing scene with us as a
backdrop. Every night provided an
exciting event with the flipping of cars and car chases.
TourismCares started on Thursday, November 13th with a learning session and kick-off event on the fantail. Numerous tourism professionals came to the LA Waterfront to experience the destination and help restore our historic sites such as the Battleship IOWA, Lane Victory, White Point, and Catalina Island. The Port of Los Angeles and LA Tourism Convention Board also participated in the event to help promote the waterfront as a destination. This was exciting to see the level of involvement and interest by tourism professionals.
On Friday, November 14th, they broke into teams and helped restore part of the IOWA. Much of their work was focused on 2nd deck clean up and painting. All I can say is WOW! This team did great refurbishment work on board the ship and we look forward to a long relationship with them. Thank you to Sue Schmidt and the rest of the IOWA team for focusing on creating a positive event to help promote us one step at a time.
Please visit us at http://www.pacificbattleship.com or http://www.facebook.com/pacificbattleship
TourismCares started on Thursday, November 13th with a learning session and kick-off event on the fantail. Numerous tourism professionals came to the LA Waterfront to experience the destination and help restore our historic sites such as the Battleship IOWA, Lane Victory, White Point, and Catalina Island. The Port of Los Angeles and LA Tourism Convention Board also participated in the event to help promote the waterfront as a destination. This was exciting to see the level of involvement and interest by tourism professionals.
On Friday, November 14th, they broke into teams and helped restore part of the IOWA. Much of their work was focused on 2nd deck clean up and painting. All I can say is WOW! This team did great refurbishment work on board the ship and we look forward to a long relationship with them. Thank you to Sue Schmidt and the rest of the IOWA team for focusing on creating a positive event to help promote us one step at a time.
Please visit us at http://www.pacificbattleship.com or http://www.facebook.com/pacificbattleship
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