Under wraps

Multitasking is, well,  its pretty much the name of the game. Time is always at a premium so finding ways to include as many activities as possible within a limited time frame and budget is key. When I began as Managing Director, the Board were clear they wanted me to spend as much time as possible at members sites. Knowing whats going on in the museums of province is important for both the Association and myself and the best way to do this is by visiting in person.
So I get creative and combine site visits with meetings and careful figuring of mileage and such. A favourite part of the job for certain.

Christine and the Firefly at Shearwater Aviation Museum

A recent meeting with new ANSM Treasurer, Christine Hines of Shearwater Aviation Museum gave me an opportunity for another sneak peak at the Fairey Firefly they hope to soon return to the air in active flight. Tremendous progress since I last saw it a year ago and I'm looking forward to seeing it in flight.

Christine and I have developed a practice of meeting bi-weekly to make sure she is on top of all things financial and we move forward  in planning for operational policies and proceedures related to finance. There's still lots to do, but we continue to work away and progress is surely being made.

Another recent site visit was to Chester (enroute to a weekend visit with friends) an opportunity to see and hear about recent activities of the Chester Historical Society. Definitely a group on the move, they have several large scale projects in hand or just completed. The Society's base is currently in the old Chester Railway Station which they share with the local area VIC. A CAP site managed by the Society is also housed there as well as the Society's research resources and changing art exhibitions.

A small but mighty crew

Lordly House, a fine Georgian property with a long history with the town, is under going major stabilization and restoration work . The Society is very engaged in fundraising for the restoration of the fabric of the building and is including careful plans for how they will use it as their showcase and exhibition space when the doors reopen. They have strong municipal government support which is key for community participation.

Lordly House "underwraps" 

North East Travels....

Tatamagouche Centre - my photo does not do it justice.

Last week I went to various locations in the North East Region on a variety of missions. First to Tatamagouche and area to check out venues for next spring's conference. Looks like we will be gathering at the Tatamagouche Centre, a comprehensive meeting facility complete with heritage houses just outside the town. I had'nt been there since my Grade 12 art class had a retreat at the Centre(and that was not recent times) so it was good to see the facility and meet staff. The facility is on a beautiful property and has been operated by the United Church since the 1950's. They have been good custodians for the property with parkland dotted with ancient trees and some of the oldest houses in the area as guest accommodations. The houses include living rooms so lots of opportunity for informal gatherings after the day's official events.


I also stopped by to visit a man and his mills, Darrell Burke, site manager for Balmoral Mill and Sutherland Steam Mill. On this occasion we talked "Interactive Interpretation", the conference theme for 2011. Darrell has a background in theatre and has presented very creative programs at a number of the Nova Scotia Museum sites over the years. My thought was if we can come up with new and engaging "grist for the mill" for Darrell in terms of interactive interpretation, we would likely inspire others with venerable experience as well as the newly interactive in terms of interpretation....

A joint meeting in Truro of the Training Advisory and Information Technology & Collections Management Committees was hosted by the Colchester County Museum. There is a series of really interesting exhibits on there for the summer including a focus on Truro's Victoria Park and feature exhibit on Loyalist settlers as warm up for next year's anniversary. Our joint committee meeting was facilitated by Max Chauvin and designed to move us through the process of determining new committee roles and responsibilities as we evolve the Passage project into the new Advisory Service and develop the new core curriculum. Very busy and interesting times ahead of us.

Later in the week, I stopped by Cumberland County Museum to visit Shirley and hear how her summer is going. We talked about new summer opening hours, visitor stats, a summer yard sale fundraiser and Passage DB issues. I've come to the conclusion Cumberland was the "canary in the coal mine" for quirks and jags in the system.She has lots of questions about the potential new system, some of which I did not have answers for and sent me off a number of fact finding missions. Onwards.....