Our mission is to acquire, document, preserve and display materials of historical significance related to the boatbuilding industry in Middlesex County, Virginia, and the lower Chesapeake Bay. Special emphasis is placed on activities related to preserving this rich history and those affected by it, as well as ensuring the future of boatbuilding skills.

Our park provides and maintains continuing habitat for indigenous flora and fauna. It is available for visitors to enjoy while being a guest at the museum or participating in activities.

During this pandemic, our mailings are even more important to our community. Conquest Graphic’s managed print work services allow us to streamline our mailings and workflow which increases our efficiency as a team, optimizes our smaller equipment usage for basic tasks, and ultimately improves our timelines in terms of print work for outreach, membership, and fundraising.

The majority of our mailings require not only a letter/envelope format but also return envelopes to accompany the original mailing. Additionally, we follow up with thank you letters for donations and ticket purchases, all of that require accompanying envelopes, paper, and cardstock use. We need large signage printed at least monthly throughout the year for these and other events, as well. Our community regularly receives mailings concerning memberships and renewals, as well as events such as Groovin’ in the Park, Shrimp, and BBQ Dinner and Dance, Annual Meetings, and the Oyster Roast. We also mail vendors and other community contacts the necessary information for our markets, children’s activities, raffles and other fundraising. Our newsletter is sent out monthly to our community to let people know the latest updates about our museum and park. This includes but is not limited to upcoming events, volunteer efforts and opportunities, children’s activities, growth and development milestones, and more.

The cost of envelopes, postage, tickets, and manpower is immense. Couple this with short deadlines on the seasonal timeline and any necessary last-minute changes, the efficiency of print management services is a no-brainer in terms of making sure that we can reach our community in a timely fashion.

Recipients are current and past members, visitors expressing interest in participating in fundraising or volunteerism, and anyone who has donated money or time. Overall, managed print services help us reach MORE people FASTER than we could do on our own in-house. While we do need to produce our own in-house printing from time to time, the services provided by Conquest Graphics greatly enhance our productivity. It saves us time, money, and oftentimes, huge amounts of energy. The better our outreach performance, the less likely we are to lose potential donations, active members, and volunteers.

A Conquest Graphics Grant would be incredibly beneficial in helping us continue our mission as well as potentially increase our communication and services to the community.

It would allow us to focus our energies on other aspects of growth and development, such as increased children’s activities or lectures. It would help defray these major costs and improve our donation and fundraising strategies.