Sallie Mazzur

            Sallie Mazzur

            Internship hours: 24 hrs/week

            Internship Placement: Block Island Historical Society Museum

            Internship Supervisor: Pamela Gasner, Executive Director

            Internship Job Title: Assistant to the Executive Director

Background

            For the past five summers, I’ve lived and worked on Block Island while attending URI during the fall and spring. For my last semester at URI, I had been considering taking part in an internship, but had no idea where to look. My grandmother, who lives full time on Block Island, is very involved in the preservation and history of Block Island, and told me about a few places that I could intern for out here. One of these places was the Historical Society, which I discovered has accepted donations from my family for a number of years. After meeting with the Executive Director, I determined that my time spent here during the semester would not only benefit myself and my education, but also the Historical Society and its growing ambition to reach out to the community. I chose this internship because it was close to home, intriguing in its efforts to preserve the history of Block Island, and that it would pull me further into the community that I like to now call home.

Professional Objectives with Activities/Resources, and Evidence

                 Objective 1: To assist the Executive Director, Pam, in updating and changing the membership forms for donation options and information, which are sent to members and given out to prospective members through the mail and in person. 

                 Activities/Resources: Discuss with Pam, what donation options can be changed, added, or deleted, determining how to make the "extra donation" section more clear to members, and determining what information can be kept and what needed to be removed. 

                 Evidence: Include in my portfolio scanned copies of the front/back of the older membership form, and scanned copies of the front/back of the newer membership form, discussing differences and importance of these.

            Objective 2: Learning to operate the program, "PastPerfect," and updating the current membership information for spelling errors, as well as adding new members from the previous year, and the Voter list for Block Island for 2010, and enter in their contact information.

            Activities/Resources: Using program, “Past Perfect” to enter past and present members information to database, writing drafts/final version of letter with Director to be included in the membership packets.

            Evidence: Include in my portfolio screen shots of required data to be entered into program, “Past Perfect” (with permission of Director). 

            Objective 3: Learning to operate the program, "PastPerfect," and updating the current membership information for spelling errors, as well as adding new members from the previous year, and the Voter list for Block Island for 2010, and enter in their contact information.

            Activities/Resources: Using program, “Past Perfect” to enter past and present members information to database, writing drafts/final version of letter with Director to be included in the membership packets.

            Evidence: Include in my portfolio screen shots of required data to be entered into program, “Past Perfect” (with permission of Director). 

            Objective 4: Learning to update records and label accordingly when new donations/artifacts are donated to the museum.

            Activities/Resources: Labeling and typing older information found on displays and exhibits into Microsoft Word because older files were on corrupt disks/defunct computer/word files, assisting the Executive Director, Pam, in determining newer information which cancels out outdated information from any older exhibits/displays. 

            Evidence: Include in portfolio photo of Adrian Block's map, which was donated to the museum by a Block Island resident, and discuss the importance of reentering information for cataloguing artifacts for this specific occurrence. 

Internship Details

            Duties include:  Opening the museum each afternoon, setting up banners, flags, signs, and displays on the front porch, turning on lighting throughout the first and second floor, setting up the slideshow presentation in the annex, presenting multiple slideshows for visitors during duration of business hours, customer service with the general public, fielding questions and concerns while the Director is otherwise occupied, managing gift shop, counting and detailing the transactions/sales for the day, collecting the banners, flags, signs and displays from the front porch at the end of the business day, securing all entrances/exits, turning off all lighting for the building, alarming and locking the building after close.

Evaluation Methods:

            Consistent communication via texting, phone calls, and in-person discussion with supervisor/Executive Director

            Completion of University provided evaluation forms

Expected workdays:

            Monday through Sunday (except Tuesday) normal business hours 12pm-4pm

            A possibility that I will research information/compute data at home, where my hours for that week will be altered accordingly

            Any and all events occurring outside the normal business hours that become available, where my hours for that week will be altered accordingly, as well.

All the above information has been reviewed and approved by my supervisor.