The Iona Connection Heritage Co-op Ltd.

North Highlands Community Museum, Cape North

Saturday, 21 October 2006, 11:00 am

Fall General Assembly

1. Attendance                                      

Present

Pauline Thomson, Chairperson                       

Rodney Chaisson, Highland Village

Joan MacInnes, Victoria County Archives

Tammy MacNeil, Whitney Pier Museum

Joyce Rankin, Voluntary Planning Task Force

Pauline MacLean, MacDonald House

Syd Slaven, Sydney Steel Museum

Fred James, Sydney Steel Museum

Ida Lalievre, La Society Saint-Pierre

Murdoch Burton, Bay St. Lawrence

Jim St. Clair, MacFarlane Woods Nature Reserve

Heather Morrison, North Highlands Community Museum

Guests

Paul Collins, Community Museum Assistance Program

Susan Charles, Federation of Nova Scotia Heritage

Regrets

Peyton Chisholm, Old Sydney Society

Nan Moore, Old Sydney Society

Mary Gillis, Old Sydney Society

Tom Miller, Glace Bay Miners Museum

Elke Ibrham, Glace Bay Old Town Hall

Isobel Harris, Glace Bay Old Town Hall

Bob Campbell, Nicolas Denys Museum

Marilyn Ritza, North Sydney Historical Society / Old Sydney Society

Martin Boston, Orangedale

Susan Mallett, Chestico

2. Approval of the Agenda

Moved by Joan MacInnis, seconded by Tammy MacNeil.

3. Minutes of the 2006 Spring AGM Meeting

One correction was recommended by Pauline MacLean to adjust the wording in the Treasurer's Report. She advised that the third paragraph by changed to read: "Pauline MacLean, on the recommendation of the executive, also put $3500 in a Royal Bank GUIC for a one-year term with an interest rate of 2%. The interest should grow to $70 at the end of the year." Recommended changes appear in italics. Motion to accept the corrected minutes by Rodney Chaisson, seconded by Ida LaLievre.

 4. Treasurer's Report

Due to the absence of the treasurer, Marilyn Ritza, the treasurer's report was printed on the agenda:

            GIC                 $1500.00 (maturing on Dec. 14/06)

            Petty Cash            50.00

            Bank Balance    3601.69

            Total Assets      $5151.69      

The following important message was also printed on the agenda: "The board is working on developing membership certificates for organizations to display in their premises and cards for individuals who are members. Reminder: According to our organization's by-laws, unpaid members are unable to vote on important issues. Dues for the fiscal year start on April 1 2006 to March 31 2007." Moved by Pauline Thomson, seconded by Heather Morrison.

5. President's Report

Pauline Thomson reported that she had hoped to welcome the new director of the Beaton Institute, Catherine Arseneau, and the archivist, Jodi McDavid, but unfortunately both had prior commitments. Hopefully they will be able to attend the Spring 2007 AGM. It is good to see new faces at the Beaton.

            The Board has met three times since the last General meeting and we have succeeded in breaking in our new members, Tammy MacNeil, Marilyn Ritza, and Bob Campbell. Marilyn Ritza has taken on the job of Treasurer, and Tammy MacNeil has assumed the Secretary's job and control of the website. All are doing a great job. As a board, we are working on a budget and a new brochure. We are also looking to develop a Public Relations policy.

             Regarding the new website, Pauline Thomson asked everyone present if they are accessing it. Organizations are responsible for updating information about their own sites. Those who do not have passwords to do their own updating are reminded to get in touch with the webmistress, Tammy MacNeil via the website's email component. Please check the front page from time to time. That is where news of interest to all our membership will be posted. The website's designer, Ralph Dillon, had to dismantle the calendar due to hackers infiltrating it. He is working on re-establishing a new one for us. Pauline MacLean had a suggestion that we get rid of the "Open for the Season" feature, since it is the only feature that the individual sites are not able to change.

            The number of groups represented at the town hall meetings of the Voluntary Planning on Heritage Strategy spoke volumes. Now their report needs tweaking. The President encouraged all members to read the report, think about it, and submit any ideas they may have to help improve it.

            We are at the beginning of a whole new world in heritage and as such your board is plunging onward with plans for a comprehensive four day workshop on board development. Planning is so important. We have applied to SDI for $4700 to fund this workshop and we have drawn up an agenda of what we want to discuss, what we want advice on, and how we can go about achieving these ends. Most importantly, we need to hear from the members: YOU have to tell us what the Iona Connection should be doing.

            In case anyone did not know, 2008 will mark the Iona Connection's 25^th anniversary. Something special should be planned to celebrate the occasion, so please submit any ideas you may have.

            All minutes of the Iona Connection from its inception to 1999 have been turned over to the Beaton Institute. Members are free to consult them at any time. They have all been indexed by Pauline Thomson to facilitate searches.

            CBRM will be hosting another county-wide meeting of heritage soon. Hopefully other counties will follow suit. Jim St. Clair added that for many years, residents of Inverness County have been receiving a genealogical / historical newsletter called The Participaper. Joan MacInnes added that she also puts out a newsletter for the residents of Victoria County.

            Pauline Thomson also reported that she and Fred James of the Sydney Steel Museum both participated in the annual CMAP Evaluation Program. They both had a great time and learned a lot from this experience.

            The President's Report was accepted by Joyce Rankin and seconded by Ida LaLievre. 

6. Susan Charles, Federation of Nova Scotia Heritage

            Susan Charles, Executive Director of the FNSH, began by telling everyone a little bit about the Federation. She said that Cape Breton has two representatives on its board: Peyton Chisholm (Old Sydney Society) and Rosie Grace (from Cheticamp). She said that Cape Bretoners are very important to the Federation, and an effort is always made to make training available to everyone in Nova Scotia.

            Members of the Federation receive packages with information about training and workshops. However, sometimes these workshops are poorly attended even though they don't cost small museums anything. The Collections Management workshop held at Sydney Mines on October 12 only had 3 people attend due to a cruise ship scheduling conflict. An upcoming workshop on Data Enrichment will be held in the communities of St. Peters, Sydney Mines, and Cheticamp soon.

            Susan Charles asked the members present what is it they are hoping to get out of their membership with the Federation. Jim St. Clair said that he misses the newsletter that the Federation used to send to all of its members, and that their Annual Awards are very important. Pauline MacLean said that she really enjoyed the hands-on workshops that the Federation hosts, and that you learn more from them than theoretical workshops. Pauline Thomson added that publicity for training is a problem.

            Regarding this year's annual Spring Conference, attendance was disappointing. It has been proposed that a three day conference is held every second year and a shorter one every other year. The short conference would consist of a social evening, sessions during the following day, and a tour of the sponsor's site. Several members expressed support of the short conference due to budgeting, scheduling, and flexibility.

            Next, Joyce Rankin reported that the final Heritage Strategy Report would be available on November 15, however the process will continue after the report's publication. The Federation is committed to make sure the report does not remain a document; the Federation wants to see action soon. The final report is based on 140 responses from museums and archives throughout Nova Scotia.

Susan Charles added some brief information on the recent announcements of federal government cuts to museums. She said that Young Canada Works and federal MAP (Museum Assistance Program) will be affected. This should not interfere with the running of most community museums, but it will affect art galleries, traveling exhibits, and aboriginal institutions. Paul Collins added that most people will be affected by the federal cuts if they are members of the Passage Project. The Federation gets its funding from MAP to provide professional development and to support the Passage Project database. A letter from the Federation's president will be sent to ACOA Minister Peter MacKay requesting a new museum policy.

7. Pauline MacLean - CNSA

            The Council of Nova Scotia Archives (CNSA) represents archival institutes across Nova Scotia. Most funding comes from CCI contributions, not grants, to help institutes with their archives.    There are about 50 museum/archive combinations in Nova Scotia, ranging from universities to small museum archives. Seven adjudicate grant applications were sent to CCA, and all were approved. The new application forms should be ready soon.

            There are two projects coming up for the CNSA. The first project is a needs assessment of members, which will be ongoing until the end of March 2007. The second project is an annual genealogy conference called "Archives and You" which has been held in Ottawa and Saskatchewan. CNSA President Michael Mooseberger attended and he wants to bring the conference to Halifax in the spring.   

            The CNSA has a website. The outreach worker is Anne MacLean for as long as Karen White is sick.

8. Education Advisory

            Susan Charles reported that there will be an update on November 1, 2006.

9. Paul Collins - Community MAP

            This year 22 museums were evaluated across Nova Scotia. One new museum has applied to be a member. It is the Canning Community Museum, which consists of a rescued lighthouse donated by people from California.

            The results from this year's evaluation have just been sent out. The average score has gone up to 72% from 71% last year. Paul Collins will be speaking in Sydney to the Union of Municipalities about CMAP and the importance of Special Places. Jill Scott and Jeffrey Reed are also part of the program. 

            There were 16 SDI applications this year. SDI has been in operation for seven years now. They always spend less than their $200,000 budget so everyone is encouraged to submit applications for funds.

            They now have an interactive website where you can update your own profile. There is a genealogy component. They are also working with the Department of Education on an "Interpretation Database" so that teachers can tie heritage in with their curriculum.

10. Richard Cloutier - Passage Project

            Susan Charles read the report submitted by Richard Cloutier as he was unable to attend the meeting.

            Efforts are well underway with documenting "Made in Nova Scotia" arefacts. In July we received word that we had obtained a CHIN partnership to assist with the enrichment of these items. Travel to partner sites was delayed while efforts were made to hire and train a Data Enrichment Coordinator, Karin Kierstead. As part of this grant we were allocated two Young Canada Works interns, Matthew Hughson and Tara Ring, to assist sites with their research. We also received a MAP grant to allow us to hire two Data Cleaners, Chara Kingston and Erin Doyle, to perform data cleaning on all existing partner's databases. This cleaning consists mostly of relocating data from the description field (where most sites stored the bulk of their information) to more appropriate fields. Data Cleaning is only being performed on artifacts and not on archival items.

            The Data Enrichment Project is scheduled to run until mid-February with the upload feature for sites to send their enriched records set to be ready for use by the end of November or the beginning of December. Only artifacts will be uploaded. Sites that wish to upload more than just the "Made in Nova Scotia" items my do so by placing a check mark in the "Include on the Web" box. Data Cleaning will run approximately until the end of June.

            This year 60 sites indicated a desire to be a part of the Passage Project. Unfortunately 5 sites were not able to maintain their membership commitment for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to a lack of funding, shortage of staff, etc. With the delays experienced late in the spring with my mother being ill, during the summer with the hiring and training of staff, most of my site visits took place late in the summer and have gone on well into the fall. I still have 4 or 5 sites to visit and will complete those by mid-November.

            Over the next 5 weeks efforts are being increased to create and install a blended automated and manual method to upload information to Artefacts Canada. CHIN has provided us with a bit of extra funding to hire Brendan O'Halloran to assist with the development and installation.

            We have applied for SDI funding for another year of the project and will focus on the actual digitization process of capturing the artifact image that can be used along with the textual record or on the web, in brochures, etc. We also included monies to hire another Co-op student to assist with digitization and website development for the project. Our experience with Greg, this year's summer student, was nothing but positive and the results of the survey he carried out for us is paving the way for next year. Greg redeveloped the FNSH website while he was with us and built in a Passage Project section. Please check it out.

11. New Business

             Jim St. Clair proposed that the Iona Connection award $300 each year to a child, young person, or organization who promotes heritage on Cape Breton Island. This award would bring publicity to the Iona Connection and it would stimulate interest in local heritage. The motion was seconded by Rodney Chaisson. A vote was held. All in favour.

12. Site Reports

Joan MacInnes - Victoria County Archives, Baddeck

The archives have been very busy this summer. Most days were spent with visitors instead of indexing. This summer Joan MacInnes had to run a school board election. Now in charge of archives, removed from the Department of Tourism. Joan MacInnes also working with two women from the public library on material from the old museum/archives that was stored in the post office.

Fred James - Sydney Steel Museum, Sydney

            The Sydney Steel Museum still does not have a home, but it has a website that is always being improved. The website is getting hits from all over the world. The committee is negotiating a move into the Lyceum building when the Cape Breton Centre for Craft and Design moves into its new building on Charlotte Street. We had two students on their work-term from NSCC and we were able to keep one for the summer. We are continuing to work on digitizing the collection. We have two Powerpoint presentations that we present in schools in the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board to grade six students from January to June. We plan to apply for $300 award for all the work we do to teach children about the island's steel heritage.

Ida Lalievre - La Societe Saint-Pierre, Cheticamp

            La Societe Saint-Pierre had a good season considering tourism was down this summer.  The museum had 8000 visitors and Les Trois Pignons had around 15,000 visitors. We have finished phase one of our archival project. We applied to HRDC for two workers to accession material, and we received funding to go forward with the second phase of our archival project. We are also working on putting together a program that can be used in schools to teach children about Acadian culture and heritage. We are also publishing a newsletter for the local community and we are upgrading our website.

Pauline MacLean - MacDonald House

            We had an average season for visitors. Our new board member, Louise de Lyall, helped to organize an event for every Sunday in July and August. We charged admission for these events and they were very successful. We are trying to find someone to repair the barn's roof.

Jim St. Clair - McFarlane Nature Reserve Woods

            This year we grew by 75 hectares with the donation of an adjacent piece of property. The McFarlane Woods are now close to 350 hectares of old growth forest. Our activity has been recognized by the Province, and other forests are being recognized by conservators as well.

Rodney Chaisson - Highland Village

            Numbers were down a bit this year, but not by too much, about 5%. There were more Nova Scotians visiting the Highland Village, especially Cape Bretoners this year. We offered comprehensive daily animations and special programs such as crafts, stepdancing, candlelight tours, pioneer days, and Celtic Colours. We also launched a new website this year, www.capebretonceilidh.com. There are virtual exhibits online, and a strong focus on celtic arts.

            The MacLean Collection was donated by Joe MacLean. This collection of fiddle music dates back to the late 1700s. It is part of the Nova Scotia Museum Collection housed at the Highland Village. The immediate plan is to digitize the collection.

            Over the next two months our focus will be on organizing several events. We will be hosting a Halloween program over 3 nights in October. We will celebrate Gaelic Day in November. We will also have a Christmas open house which will coincide with a book launch from Cape Breton University.

            We also have a new stone wall.

Tammy MacNeil - Whitney Pier Historical Museum

            This summer we had over 3600 visitors. We revamped our exhibits and added a few new ones. We also conducted an inventory of everything that is in the museum and updated the Passage P4roject database.

Heather Morrison - North Highlands Community Museum

            This year our numbers were down significantly, to between 4000 and 5000 visitors. We had to put the admission fee up to $5, which helped financially. Our co-ordinator has been working on reduced hours (only 12 hours per week), and our curator had to be laid off. We have a beautiful building for our museum, but we can't afford to run it.

            Our big project this year was a staging of the play "The Spirit of Aspy Bay." All eight performances sold out. Esther, a master-weaver, ran a course in the spring and another course may be offered this fall. There was a school museum project this year with the local students in grades 5 and 6. We also received grants for Gaelic and storytelling.

            The church next door has been donated to the museum. However if the museum can't afford it, the congregation will tear it down.

 Motion to adjourn by Joan MacInnes.

The Spring 2007 AGM will be held on Saturday, April 21 at the Glace Bay Town Hall.