Saxonburg museum has new president
As of Sunday, June 30, the Saxonburg Museum is officially under new management.
Arianna Afshari was welcomed as president of the museum with an announcement on the museum’s Facebook page on Sunday, with Brooke Wamsley named as vice president. Afshari will add her new position at the museum to her duties as general manager of the Hotel Saxonburg, which also came under new management earlier this year.
This change comes as the museum comes under the control of the Friends of Saxonburg Museum 501(c)(3) group, whose function is to provide financial assistance to the museum. The museum itself will still be owned by the borough of Saxonburg.
Afshari and Walmsley will work to fill the shoes of former volunteer curator Fred Caesar, who resigned from his position in May.
“None of us can be Fred Caesar. He was a wonderful, wonderful gift to our community,” Afshari said. “Collectively we’re hoping to fill that role.”
The role of curator now will be filled by a “curation committee” which will review anything submitted to the museum for exhibit. As before, all staff will be volunteer.
In addition, Afshari said the new regime intends to host more events at the museum to raise interest — as well as funds.
While the Saxonburg Museum is taking care of itself, it is also leading a fundraising campaign to restore the original wire rope workshop of John Roebling, located right next door. The museum has set a goal of $250,000, which is the amount estimated to perform the repairs to save the workshop’s foundation from sinking into the ground.
Afshari said the new management does not have full details of the new programs they will introduce, but she did offer some possibilities for the future.
“We're going to be doing more events and hosting a lot of stuff in Roebling Park, like yoga on Saturday mornings, or maybe blacksmith classes,” Afshari said.
Afshari also reassured that the financial model of the museum would not change, and it would not have to resort to fundraising to maintain its own operations — at least for now. It was these concerns over which Caesar resigned in May.
“The borough council has told us that they're going to give it some time for the new leadership to take over and see how some of the new activities are able to generate more funds to raise for the museum,” Afshari said. “At this time, we have the full support of the council and the community to move forward.”
She added that one proposed clause of the agreement — for the borough to lease the museum to the Friends of Saxonburg group — was abandoned.
“I think the borough was trying to impose a lease agreement upon the Friends for the building, and they are no longer doing that at this time,” Afshari said.
