April already! A quarter of 2010 has flown by and we here at the museum are having a hard time believing it. This sort of thing happens when you're busy, I guess, and we've been busy.
We had a very successful Antiques Roadshow on March 20th. Thanks to all of you who came out and supported the museum by having your treasures appraised. Hopefully there were lots of pleasant surprises - I did notice that there was a fellow on the front of The Local last week who'd had a painting valued in the tens of thousands. Amazing - and just think, it could be you next year!
In museum news, our Manager/Curator, Kimiko Hawkes, has just completed a course on the theory and practice of oral history, which was offered by the Archives Association of British Columbia. This is a great thing for the museum, as we have an enormous collection of oral history interviews that are in need of - well - they have various needs. Some cassette tapes need to be digitized. Some audio recordings need to be transcribed. Some transcripts need to be indexed. All of the records need to be properly catalogued. On top of that, we need to get out and interview people! There are countless people here who've lived long lives on the Sunshine Coast, and who have stories that ought to be recorded. Now that Kimiko has received training in this area, the museum is ready - almost - to get serious about the work of improving our oral history collection.
But we can't do it without volunteer support. Over the past few years, we've had a few dedicated volunteers help us with transcribing interviews and re-typing old interview transcripts that weren't preserved digitally. Hats off to them! Well, now we're looking to assemble a list of volunteers that can help out with:
-Transcription (must be able to type quickly and be able to spell competently)
-Interviewing (must enjoy talking and be willing to attend training - experience appreciated!)
-Other jobs (there will definitely be other jobs)
We'll also be looking for tips on who to interview. Do you know somebody who's been around the Sunshine Coast for a long time, and who remembers it as it used to be? Do you know anyone whose story ought to be told? Let us know. If you know anyone like this, or you're interested in joining our volunteer roster, contact Kimiko at scma_manager(at)dccnet(dot)com. (Substitute an @ sign for the (at) and a period for the (dot) - putting an email address out on the internet is an open invitation for junk mail!)
Thanks for reading! Drop by the museum sometime!
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Friday, March 5, 2010
The Antiques Roadshow is coming up!
Thanks to everyone who made Heritage Play Day a success! On February 20th, we held our annual family event where kids (and those who are no longer kids but are still young at heart) get a chance to make a variety of old-fashioned toys. It was a gorgeous, sunny Saturday, and we threw the doors open wide to the street. Plenty of people came by and lots of interesting things were made.
Our next museum event will be a big one. It's the annual Sunshine Coast Museum & Archives Antiques Roadshow - the ninth annual, in fact. This year the Roadshow will take place at the Sechelt Seniors Centre (5604 Trail Avenue) on Saturday, March 20, from 10:00 until 4:00. Do you have treasured belongings that you'd like to know more about? Want to know what they're worth? Come on down! You can bring up to three items for appraisal. The fee is ten dollars for one item, fifteen dollars for two, and twenty dollars for three. The Roadshow is always popular, so we recommend coming down early. We hope to see you there!
Our next museum event will be a big one. It's the annual Sunshine Coast Museum & Archives Antiques Roadshow - the ninth annual, in fact. This year the Roadshow will take place at the Sechelt Seniors Centre (5604 Trail Avenue) on Saturday, March 20, from 10:00 until 4:00. Do you have treasured belongings that you'd like to know more about? Want to know what they're worth? Come on down! You can bring up to three items for appraisal. The fee is ten dollars for one item, fifteen dollars for two, and twenty dollars for three. The Roadshow is always popular, so we recommend coming down early. We hope to see you there!
Saturday, February 13, 2010
New temporary display
Hi there everyone -
Next week is Heritage Week in BC, and this year's theme is "Heritage of Sport and Recreation: Community Pride, Active Living." We've just finished putting up a temporary display for Heritage Week that celebrates sports and recreation on the Sunshine Coast. The display features Coast sports memorabilia, including a baseball bat and jersey from Gibsons' own Ryan Dempster. There are also several fantastic photographs from the Coast's early days. Come on down and have a look! We're open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:30 to 4:30.
Also, don't forget to drop by on Heritage Play Day, which is on Saturday, February 20th from 1:00 until 4:00. It'll be great fun for kids and their families - we'll make old-fashioned crafts and toys, just like they used to in the days before Nintendo came along. Come on by and make origami cranes, whirligigs, balancing birds, totem poles, and more!
Next week is Heritage Week in BC, and this year's theme is "Heritage of Sport and Recreation: Community Pride, Active Living." We've just finished putting up a temporary display for Heritage Week that celebrates sports and recreation on the Sunshine Coast. The display features Coast sports memorabilia, including a baseball bat and jersey from Gibsons' own Ryan Dempster. There are also several fantastic photographs from the Coast's early days. Come on down and have a look! We're open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:30 to 4:30.
Also, don't forget to drop by on Heritage Play Day, which is on Saturday, February 20th from 1:00 until 4:00. It'll be great fun for kids and their families - we'll make old-fashioned crafts and toys, just like they used to in the days before Nintendo came along. Come on by and make origami cranes, whirligigs, balancing birds, totem poles, and more!
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Heritage Play Day
Hello everyone - our apologies for the lag between postings! It's been a busy January, and it promises to be a busy February as well.
In case you haven't heard, we're planning to have our annual Heritage Play Day on February 20th this year. From 1:00 until 4:00, people of all ages are invited to come down to the museum for an old-fashioned good time! It'll be fun for the whole family. We'll be pulling out some tables and some crafting supplies, and providing some professional-quality coaching on origami, whirligigs, and other crafts. You can also check out a photo display on old-time sports and recreation on the Sunshine Coast that we're putting together in celebration of BC Heritage Week, which runs from February 15th to the 21st. This year's Heritage Week theme, not surprisingly as the Olympics draw near, is sports and recreation.
Putting together the photo display reminds me what a spectacular resource our photo collection is. A historic photograph is a powerful thing - it shows you something that can be both familiar and jarringly different. Take the photograph of Gibson's Landing behind the title of this blog as an example! We're hoping to make good use of our photo collection in our revitalized upstairs exhibits this year, so stay tuned. We're also hoping to make photo prints available for sale in our gift shop very soon.
So long for now! Hope to see you at Heritage Play Day! Or, if you can't make it then (or would rather miss out on making crafts), any other time between 10:30 and 4:30, Tuesday through Saturday!
In case you haven't heard, we're planning to have our annual Heritage Play Day on February 20th this year. From 1:00 until 4:00, people of all ages are invited to come down to the museum for an old-fashioned good time! It'll be fun for the whole family. We'll be pulling out some tables and some crafting supplies, and providing some professional-quality coaching on origami, whirligigs, and other crafts. You can also check out a photo display on old-time sports and recreation on the Sunshine Coast that we're putting together in celebration of BC Heritage Week, which runs from February 15th to the 21st. This year's Heritage Week theme, not surprisingly as the Olympics draw near, is sports and recreation.
Putting together the photo display reminds me what a spectacular resource our photo collection is. A historic photograph is a powerful thing - it shows you something that can be both familiar and jarringly different. Take the photograph of Gibson's Landing behind the title of this blog as an example! We're hoping to make good use of our photo collection in our revitalized upstairs exhibits this year, so stay tuned. We're also hoping to make photo prints available for sale in our gift shop very soon.
So long for now! Hope to see you at Heritage Play Day! Or, if you can't make it then (or would rather miss out on making crafts), any other time between 10:30 and 4:30, Tuesday through Saturday!
Friday, January 15, 2010
What we did over our Christmas vacation.
Hello history fans! Happy 2010 to all of you! First of all, we're sorry that we let so much time go by between the first post and this one. We'll try to be more punctual in the future! Anyway - we started this blog to keep you posted on what we're doing around here at the Sunshine Coast Museum & Archives. As it turns out, we've been really busy lately, and (we like to think) it shows. We were closed to the public from December 19th to January 5th, and over that time, we gutted and renovated our office. And boy, oh, boy, is it ever different in here now. Better. Much better. Way better.
There's lots of work to do in this little museum (which we'll tell you about on this blog, by and by), and some might wonder why we chose to re-do the office rather than, say, any one of the exhibits that we've been meaning to get to. Well, the thing about an office is that it's where the museum staffers spend ninety percent or more of their time. It's the place where most of our work gets done - research, writing, collections management, admin. And our office, pre-2010, had some fundamental flaws. Well, flaws might be too strong a word. It's just that, for instance, only one of us had a desk. Curatorial Assistant Matt Cavers and Graphics Technician Gary Morrison had been hitting their knees on drawers underneath their makeshift computer terminals for years. And then there was the clutter. Most offices experience some degree of entropy, but our office was messy, even at its cleanest. So the office, in a way, was the top priority - a messy office makes it hard to do good work.
These are the "before" pictures. Picture trying to get work done in there! Impossible! (OK, that might be a bit hyperbolic, but you get the idea.)
So over the break, Manager-Curator Kimiko Hawkes, Exhibit Technician Jon Hird, and the aforementioned Curatorial Assistant (I've now, by the way, subtly introduced you to most of the museum team) set to work putting things in boxes, disassembling furniture, moving heavy objects out of the office, vacuuming up yesteryear's cobwebs, sanding, spackling, painting, assembling furniture, and putting together a brand new office, in which everyone has a desk. The results are remarkable. There's floor space. We don't have to squeeze past one another to get to the photocopier/printer/scanner/fridge/door. Things have places. It's a harmonious work space, finally. It's dreamy.
Those, of course, are the "after" pictures.
So now it's back to work for 2010, in a brand new office. This promises to be an exciting year - we have exhibits to redesign, Museum School programs to run, and a long-anticipated new museum software system to install. Looking forward to telling you all about it! In the meantime, we wish you a very happy and successful new year. So long!
There's lots of work to do in this little museum (which we'll tell you about on this blog, by and by), and some might wonder why we chose to re-do the office rather than, say, any one of the exhibits that we've been meaning to get to. Well, the thing about an office is that it's where the museum staffers spend ninety percent or more of their time. It's the place where most of our work gets done - research, writing, collections management, admin. And our office, pre-2010, had some fundamental flaws. Well, flaws might be too strong a word. It's just that, for instance, only one of us had a desk. Curatorial Assistant Matt Cavers and Graphics Technician Gary Morrison had been hitting their knees on drawers underneath their makeshift computer terminals for years. And then there was the clutter. Most offices experience some degree of entropy, but our office was messy, even at its cleanest. So the office, in a way, was the top priority - a messy office makes it hard to do good work.
These are the "before" pictures. Picture trying to get work done in there! Impossible! (OK, that might be a bit hyperbolic, but you get the idea.)So over the break, Manager-Curator Kimiko Hawkes, Exhibit Technician Jon Hird, and the aforementioned Curatorial Assistant (I've now, by the way, subtly introduced you to most of the museum team) set to work putting things in boxes, disassembling furniture, moving heavy objects out of the office, vacuuming up yesteryear's cobwebs, sanding, spackling, painting, assembling furniture, and putting together a brand new office, in which everyone has a desk. The results are remarkable. There's floor space. We don't have to squeeze past one another to get to the photocopier/printer/scanner/fridge/door. Things have places. It's a harmonious work space, finally. It's dreamy.
Those, of course, are the "after" pictures.So now it's back to work for 2010, in a brand new office. This promises to be an exciting year - we have exhibits to redesign, Museum School programs to run, and a long-anticipated new museum software system to install. Looking forward to telling you all about it! In the meantime, we wish you a very happy and successful new year. So long!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)