Greetings from Marcy Street! – or should I say “virtual greetings” from Marcy Street as we are all working remotely these days. We hope that everyone in our Gundalow Company family is staying healthy and we are thinking of each of you as we all navigate these turbulent times. We remain hopeful that we will be able to be together again soon with the sun on our faces and the Gundalow Piscataqua’s sail full.
The Gundalow Company is a family and a community and now more than ever it’s important to keep this community engaged, informed, and hopeful. So, we’ll be sending out this weekly email to update you on our plans for sailing the season and sharing some things to keep you entertained and connected. Like so many of you, our staff is working remotely but we have been conducting web conference check-ins each day to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to schedule, reschedule and prepare for what happens after we have weathered this storm.
EVENTS SCHEDULE:
To see the changes to our Events Schedule click here
RESOURCES WE ARE SHARING TO HELP:
- Tools for teachers and those teaching at home! We are beefing up our Educational Resources section of our website and we’ve got great ideas cooking on how we can share virtual tours of our Sheafe Exhibit and even a live stream of a sail aboard the Gundalow! If you’d like to be connected to our Educational Resources Email List, please email Gretchen at education@gundalow.org.
- Virtual Tours & Speakers! We are working to bring you out of your homes into our beautiful watershed via technology. Check out our social media channels for snippets and stay tuned for our Gundalow Gatherings Virtual Edition.
HOW YOU CAN HELP US:
As a non-profit organization, The Gundalow relies heavily on the revenue from our fundraisers like Gundalow Gatherings, our school programs, public sails, charters, and summer camps. With the Gatherings event postponed, the school programs cancelled and the public sail and charter season on delay we are bracing for a significant financial impact to our organization. We are so grateful to the past support of our members and the entire Seacoast community and we wouldn’t be the organization we are without it. We know that everyone if facing challenging financial times right now, but if you’re able, we’d really appreciate your help now more than ever so that we can weather this storm and set sail again when the skies clear. We are asking everyone in our Gundalow community to do one (or more) of the following things:
- Purchase gift cards now for the upcoming sailing season. By purchasing gift cards ahead of time, you will help us bring in badly needed revenue during a period when we would normally be collecting fees for public sails and charters. Gift cards will be on sale until the start of the sailing season for 25% off. Buy one for your family, a friend, a neighbor, someone who did a good deed during this time of staying at home or buy one for yourself and come out to enjoy a relaxing evening later this summer.
- Book a Charter. If you’ve been considering hosting a charter for your business, family, or organization this summer we’d love if you could book the charter now. What a better way to brighten your colleague’s spirits during this time of virtual meetings than with a promise of a communal sail together this summer!
- Attend a Virtual Gundalow Gathering. Stay tuned for the details on the virtual Gundalow Gathering event, we promise it will be a great escape from our current reality.
- Make your Annual Fund contribution early. By making your Annual Fund contribution at this time of year you will once again be providing us with revenue that will help us maintain current staffing levels and help us to better prepare for the upcoming sailing season. You could even do half of your regular contribution now and the remainder later in the year. Contact D at development@gundalow.org for details
- Continue with your Program Sponsorship donations. Even with our school programs canceled for the spring season we will still need program sponsorships to help bridge the funding gap we normally have between what schools can pay us and what it costs us to operate Piscataqua. We typically collect less than 50% of our operating cost for each class we take out on the river. The program sponsorships help to fill a significant portion of that gap and even though we’re looking at not bringing any schools out in the spring, it will be even more important to have sponsorships for the fall classes. Contact D at development@gundalow.org for details
- Consider becoming a new member or renewing your membership early – click here to join as a new member or send an email to development@gundalow.org to renew.
Stay vigilant, maintain social distancing, keep washing your hands to the Gundalow Song and we will see you soon!
