NATIONAL DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE
Last issue we said good-bye to our Administrative Assistant, Peggy Eades, and this issue we welcome Ivy Egalik. Great to have you with us, Ivy. We also welcome Laurent Weiss, who has been helping us with the convoluted process of transferring our records to our new computer from our very ancient machine. We will soon have everything up and running.
Included with this issue of “Au Courant” is a notice of our Annual General Meeting, to be held on June 9 in Saskatoon, in conjunction, as always, with the CMA Annual Conference. There is also a call for nominations for the volunteer Board of CFFM. Names should be received by the Nominations Committee by May 16, 2005. Please be sure to contact your nominee to be sure that they are willing to stand before submitting their name to us. We look forward to meeting a many of you as possible at this annual opportunity, so be sure to attend if you can.
It is customary to have a CFFM dinner after the AGM, and this year we have decided to join in with the CMA evening festivities to be held at the Ukrainian Museum of Canada and the near-by Mendel Art Gallery. A limited number of tickets for this event at $45.00 per person have been reserved for us, so please join us. Make sure to indicate this when you return your form to us, and enclose a cheque to CFFM for the amount (obviously if you are registering for the CMA Conference you can also get a ticket directly). Details of the evening are in the copy of the CMA Conference brochure that was sent out with the last issue of “Au Courant” (p.11).
Plans are going well for the WFFM Council meeting to be held in Montreal May 18-22. If you have any queries please contact CFFM Board member, Danielle Lecours, (514) 744-9182, < rqabm@qc.aira.com >.
Sadly this issue, #20, will be the last one edited by Flora Agnew. Many, many thanks, Flora, for taking over the reins unexpectedly as you did a few years ago and keeping our lines of communication open. We are lucky to have Carol Smith waiting in the wings to take over future issues, so welcome to the CFFM team, Carol.
Hope to meet many of you in Saskatoon in June,
Jo Breyfogle
National Director
NEWS FROM OUR FRIENDS
From the Royal Ontario Museum members’ newsletter comes a very interesting article about the renowned ROMwalks which this year are celebrating their 25th anniversary. In 1980, when the ROM was closed for renovations, the volunteers at the museum came up with the exciting idea of offering free walking tours of downtown Toronto. Like all good ideas, this one has grown and flourished. Today there are 20 walks and 20 active guides. In the 2004 season, they led a total of 2897 guests on walks in Toronto. Happy Birthday ROMwalks!
As the province of Saskatchewan celebrates its 100th, the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon celebrates its 40th. We, at au courant salute you both and look forward to seeing you in June when we are there for the CFFM/CMA Annual meetings. One intriguing project the Mendel Gallery has undertaken is to move Kenneth Lochhead’s studio to the Mendel site where it will be restored by volunteer carpenters and artisans from the community. The studio was designed by Saskatchewan’s most acclaimed and influential architect, Clifford Weins. There is a very nice two page list in The Mendel Folio of the activities and contributions the Gallery Group at the Mendel makes to the gallery, from coordinating receptions, selling poinsettias and gift wrapping, the Group takes time to educate its members with monthly Art Appreciation Group meetings.
The 2004 Annual Report of the Volunteer Committee of the Art Gallery of Windsor tells the tale of a busy and productive committee. The committee pulled together a most successful VCAM (Volunteer Committee of Art Museums) Conference after a hiatus of several years. As well, they had several successful fundraising events, their cookbook , a Kitchen and Garden Tour and several trips which turn over 10% of the trip cost to the gallery. Well done, Windsor! And good luck at your Motown Classic on April 16.
Much credit to the Gardiner Volunteer Committee (of the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art), who has operated a most successful and attractive off-site shop while the museum is closed for expansion. The museum’s exhibition, ‘Picasso and Ceramics’ was housed at the University of Toronto’s Art Centre. Docents from the Gardiner Museum, the U. of T Art Centre, the Art Gallery of Ontario and two Museum Studies and Fine Arts students plus newly trained and vetted volunteers acted as Picasso Guides during the exhibition. Now that’s Friendship!
The article on page 2 is by Michael Robinson, President and CEO of the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, who was recently appointed as a Member of the Order of Canada. He is a Rhodes Scholar and applied anthropologist who studied law at the University of British Columbia. Mike (as he is known) worked for Petro-Canada (1980-1986) as one of the first generation of environmental and social advocates within the petroleum industry, and as the executive director of the Arctic Institute of North America (1986-1999). He has been at Glenbow since 2000.
Once again, we thank Julian Armstrong of The Gazette in Montreal, for obtaining this article for au courant.
THE CONCERNS OF MUSEUMS IN CANADA TODAY
by Michael P. Robinson
An invitation to write a few pages on the above topic is enough to fill a contemporary Canadian museum Chief Executive Officer (CEO) with both hope and trepidation. The hope part of the equation centres on the growing awareness in academic and policy circles of the role that cultural institutions play in attracting and retaining young, bright people with options to cities. The theoretical work of Richard Florida, Joel Kotkin, Mark Kingwell and Jane Jacobs is now finding favourable readers in civic, provincial and federal departments, and the Federal Cities Task Force. Central to both the theory and the practice is the notion that creative people involved in cultural pursuits are key to civic economic growth.
Museums, art galleries, libraries and archives all do their part in this task, and a city that ignores their contributions is not likely to out-perform those that do. To the degree that these cultural institutions also support symphonies, dance companies, theatre groups and the film industry, the urban mix is further enriched, and attraction and retention rates are higher.
At the same time that these “creative cities” arguments are flourishing, many museums in North America and Europe (the trend is broader than just Canada) are also dealing with the spectre of falling government revenues, and greatly increased competition in the philanthropic marketplace. In Canada provinces now spend at least 60 percent of their tax and federal transfer revenues on health and education, and there are correspondingly fewer revenues for cultural institutions. As a result, we have become more and more entrepreneurial, fundraising in the corporate, foundation and individual planned giving sectors as never before.
Glenbow, my institutional home, is no exception to this trend. This fiscal year (2004-05) we are reliant on government for only 27 percent of our operating revenues. Foundations and corporations now contribute $2M annually to our bottom line, 20 percent of our total $10M in revenues.Admissions, membership sales, revenues from shops and restaurants, and sales of traveling shows and exhibitions are also very important contributors to museum budget health. At Glenbow they account for another 20 percent of our total revenues. Clearly, every component of the museum now has to consider its contribution to overall operations.
In this budget environment we have to ask ourselves increasingly, “Are we becoming too business-like?” As a CEO, I confront this issue daily. At the Board level, we discuss it at every meeting in some form or another. How can our institutions not become more business-like when the financial bottom line becomes more reliant on business practice? While this growing reliance on the business model of operations is challenging, we cannot at the same time forget that we are part of the not-for-profit realm for good reasons.
Not all aspects of the Canadian collective common good are can be reduced to dollars. In fact, we join health care and education in this respect. The cultural contributions we make to civil society are amongst the first choices of healthy, educated Canadians when they plan the use of their leisure time. And as philosopher Mark Kingwell has nobly demonstrated in ‘The World We Want: Virtue, Vice and the Good Citizen (2000)’, this choice is a core component of human happiness. Who amongst us would choose a world without creative spaces where we can reflect on our collective history? For those of us who treasure the past as an indication of our future potential, museums will always have a place. They help us to become who we are.
TRAVEL WITH FRIENDS
World Federation of Friends of Museums
XIIth Congress. Seville, Spain. October 18 – 22, 2005
Contact: CFFM office. (see below)
Department of Volunteers, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto
Wonders of the Adriatic. September 13 – 28, 2005
Churchill: Polar Bear Capital of the World. October 28 – November 1, 2005
Egypt: A Voyage along the Nile. November 16 – 29, 2005
Splendours of North India. January 23 – February 9, 2006
Looking Ahead: Oaxaca, Winter ‘06. Eternal Russian, May ’06. Libya, Spring ‘06
For more information, contact ROM Travel at 1-416-586-8034
Volunteers Circle – National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Saints and Sinners, the Stratford Festival. June 7 – 10, 2005-03-28
Affordable Paris. October 14 – 23, 2005
For more information, contact 1-800-236-5555 or email jsheikh@executive-trvl.com
Canadian Friends of the Hermitage, Ottawa
Festive Arts of Moscow and St. Petersburg. May 28 – June 11, 2005
For more information, contact 1-800-236-5555 or email jsheikh@executive-trvl.com
The International Committee of Museums (ICOM)
has chosen May 18, 2005 as
International Museums Day
The theme is “Museums Bridging Cultures”
A final note…..I could use this occasion to reminisce about my 25 and more years of being a Friend of CFFM, starting ‘way back in the early days of its founding, travelling to WFFM meetings first with Carol Sprachman to Birmingham and then as we grew, with a goodly turnout of enthusiastic CFFM members to Paris and Treviso, and going across Canada (again with Carol and then Suzie Stohn) to AGMs of CMA and getting to know museum people from across this huge country, but I won’t. I’ll just say to Carol Smith, I hope you get out of this job as much as I have and that you enjoy it as much as I have.
I’ll end with a quote from the Honourable Dr. Lois E. Hole, who until her recent death was the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta:
“When we invest in the arts, we’re improving the chances
of building a world worth living in…culture is the ultimate
renewable resource”.
How to reach us: CFFM, c/o Art Gallery of Ontario, 317 Dundas St. W. Toronto ON M5T 1G4
By telephone: 1-416-979-6650
By e-mail: cffm_fcam@ago.net
NOTICE OF MEETING
The CFFM ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING will be held on Thursday, June 9th, 2005, 5.00-6.00 pm at the Sheraton Cavalier Hotel, 612 Spadina Crescent East, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
CALL FOR NOMINATIONS
Our purpose continues to be one of involving Friends from all across Canada. If you would like to participate as a Board member, or if you wish to suggest someone who might like to participate, please contact the one of the Nominations Chairs, Jean Read or Martha Wilder,
via the CFFM office (tel: 416-979-6650, email: < cffm_fcam@ago.net >) by May 16, 2005.
REGISTRATION FORM
CFFM ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Thursday, June 9, 2005 @ 5.00-6.00 pm,
Sheraton Cavalier Hotel, Saskatoon
