In this week’s update: Våffeldagen, Swedish Genealogy Workshop, tablets to help the museum, and more!
In our weekly update, keep up to date on what staff and volunteers at the Lindsborg Old Mill & Swedish Heritage Museum are working on to lift up the history of Lindsborg and the surrounding region. This weekly update both looks back at what happened last week and looks ahead at what’s coming.
For March 10-16, 2025:
- The Våffeldagen waffle festival is this Saturday, March 22 in Lindsborg! In celebration of the festival, visit the museum on Saturday and get a free Swedish Kex chocolate waffle bar with admission!
- SAVE THE DATE! The next online Swedish Genealogy Workshop will be on Saturday, June 7! Details and registration will be coming soon!
- We have an opportunity to help the museum while picking up a great computer tablet for yourself! THREE of these have already been sold; get one of the TWO remaining before they sell out!
We recently used grant funds to purchase five Lenovo P11 (2nd gen) tablets to implement our first augmented reality tour of the 1898 Smoky Valley Roller Mills, only to discover that Lenovo sells slightly different builds of the tablet under the exact same model name. Unfortunately, that slight difference – most likely in the GPS location services – means it won’t work with the Wintor augmented reality app we’re using for the tour, and Amazon is not accepting a return of the tablets.
This means a great opportunity for you! You can purchase one of these never-used tablets (specifications here) with charging cord and AC adapter, plus a heavy duty protective case (with hand strap, shoulder strap, and kickstand) for $265, which just represents the cost we paid for each tablet and case. This will help us to recover the grant funds and purchase different tablets that will work with the tour app.
Contact us at oldmillmuseum@gmail.com to make arrangements for your purchase!
- We have available now sponsorship opportunities for Millfest 2025 on May 3! Details for doing YOUR part and details on how to sponsor are on the flyer below! Just get in touch at oldmillmuseum@gmail.com for more information. ADDITIONAL MILLFEST NEWS: We will be partnering with the International Harvester Collection Club for the first-ever Millfest Tractor Show!
- The museum Board of Directors meeting and annual meeting was Thursday last week.
- Tyler and Lenora continued working on Svensk Hyllningsfest project, continuing to upload scanned images to Flickr. Most of the photos and slides from 1941-1957 are now uploaded. Tyler spent time at the Bethany College Alumni office looking through yearbooks for relevant photos and information for the project.
- Adam and Aubrey met with a representative of the United Way about cooperating on fundraising for museum educational programs.
- Adam completed the 2024 annual report. It will be mailed out to designated recipients and posted to the website later this week.
- Aubrey met with a possible contractor about landscaping updates to the front entrance of the museum.
- Aubrey worked on preparations for Millfest for Kids on May 2.
- Aubrey worked on a grant to support the museum archives through the Mellon Foundation.
- Adam sent out membership renewal letters for April. Do you need to renew? Visit www.oldmillmuseum.org/members.
- Adam started on editing the proof designs for new display panels for the back gallery.
- Lenora worked on a research request for an individual in upstate New York who has ties to McPherson County.
- Lenora worked on the final report for small Nutt grant through the McPherson County Community Foundation for the multimedia digitization project. The work included digitizing about 100 VHS tapes, 70 miniDV cassettes, 75 audio cassettes, and several DVDs.
- Lenora has continued working on an indexing project under contract with ArkivDigital (10 hours)
- If you haven’t yet “Liked” us on Facebook, can you take a moment to do so? We’d like to break 3,000 followers before springtime! (Currently our followers are at 2,702.) This kind of small action really does make a difference for our public visibility!
- Need a great gift for the genealogist or history enthusiast in your life? NEW in the museum gift shop, you can now purchase a gift certificate good for a free registration to one of the museum’s Online Swedish Genealogy Workshops anytime in 2025 ($50) or a 2025 Pursuing YOUR Past presentation ($10). Your gift recipient will receive a one-time-use code by email or mail good to pay for the registration fee for one of these popular sessions!
Thank you to our museum volunteers!
Last week, this included Ava Toll, Betty Amos, Jerry Hammerton, Les Sperling, Karmon Almquist, Mike Koch, Julie Ann Neywick.