Annual meeting of the Whale Museum
The annual meeting of the Whale Museum took place on March 8, 2018. The managing director presented a report on the activities of the museum in 2017. It was stated that the activities went well during the year. The museum's activities were varied and the highlight was the opening of a new exhibition on the history of whaling and whale watching in October 2017. The annual Whale Conference took place at the end of June and was a success. The Whale School worked as usual and children from Borgarhól School and from the Grænuvellum Kindergarten visited the Whale Museum and did a project for the occasion. Various other activities took place in the museum's activities, for example various meetings and the visit of the ambassadors of the Bank countries, and finally the museum's staff went on two familiarization trips abroad during the year.
Maintenance and construction
At the beginning of 2017, work began on pouring a new floor and renovating the pipes in the museum's basement due to a water leak. The work turned out to be extensive and a special reinforcement wall had to be poured next to the load-bearing wall due to the water damage. In the month of June, the Whale Museum sold part of the ground floor of the museum to Steinsteypis ehf following a previous advertisement. These are vacant spaces that used to house cold storage. During the demolition of the insulation in this part of the building, it was found that the load in the building was low. That meant that the owners of the building, the Whale Museum and Steinsteypir, joined forces and financed large concrete reinforcements on the building in proportion to each party's share of ownership. This work was done on the advice of Mannvit.
Two annexes to the Whale Museum that faced the north were demolished at the end of 2017, as their condition was bad. These extensions are located on a future construction site owned by the Whale Museum. This lot is to be completed to the north and will be used as a parking lot and a drive to the museum's storage facilities on the north side.
Performance and number of visitors
Attendance at the museum was good this year and was similar to the previous year, with more than 34.000 visitors. The operation of the Whale Museum went well in 2017. Revenues amounted to more than ISK 75 million and the profit for the year amounted to ISK 10,7 million. For comparison, the profit of 2016 amounted to ISK 8 m. The whale museum's equity has increased in recent years and at the end of 2017 amounted to ISK 90 million. Here you can see a copy of the 2017 financial statements.
Board elected
The Board of the Whale Museum was elected at the annual meeting for 2018. According to the Whale Museum's bylaws, the Þingeyjar Cultural Center, Norðurþing, Húsavíkurstofa and Research Institutes in the Þingeyjar counties must appoint representatives to the board. The following make up the board for 2018:
Þorkell Lindberg Þórarinsson, chairman
Heiðar Hrafn Halldórsson
Sif Jóhannesdóttir
Jónas Einarsson
