WE HAVE GREAT NEWS!
We have a new National Director for CFFM! It is Jo Breyfogle, a part of our CFFM team for ten years and currently serving as our Nominations Chair on the Board. She will take over from me at our Annual Meeting in Québec City. For now, we are working together to ensure a smooth transition.
Jo, English by birth, met her husband Peter when she came to Canada, and between them they have lived in many interesting places. They are now settled in Toronto and have a son who is a Professor of Russian History who is married to a doctor. To Jo and Peters’s delight they recently became grandparents of Charlie. I can vouch that he is adorable.
Jo’s volunteer accomplishments are very varied. Her early museum career included cataloguing for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon, UK and ‘docenting’ at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary. She moved to the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) where she was Chair of the ROM Volunteers and ROMwalk committees, a docent and initiator of the Gallery Interpreter program, President of the Department of Museum Volunteers (DVM), appointed as a Trustee of the ROM, serving two terms during which time she was Deputy Chair for two years and Acting Chair of the Board for four months and Chair of various Board committees. Currently she is an Honorary Trustee of the ROM and a DMV Board member. For the past three years she has been Co-chair of the Volunteer Committees of Art Museums of Canada and the United States (VCAM) Triennial Conference held in Toronto in October 2003.
Jo was elected three times a Municipal councillor, a volunteer position in the Village of Sturgeon Point and at the same time was chair of the many celebrations organized to mark the villages’s 100th anniversary. She is Vice-president of the Sturgeon Point Association. Jo has served as a Director and Commodore of the Sturgeon Lake Sailing club and currently is the Club’s archivist as it approaches its 50th anniversary.
You will agree with me that CFFM is fortunate to have such a versatile person as our in-coming National Director. We all look forward to the future knowing that CFFM will flourish under Jo’s leadership.
Suzanne Stohn
National Director
NEWS FROM OUR FRIENDS
One of the joys of editing this newsletter is reading news from Friends everywhere. In this issue we have news from Great Britain and Australia.
From the newsletter of the British Association of Friends of Museums (BAFM) comes the information that in St. John’s on the Isle of Man, is the home of the oldest continuous parliament in the world. Tynwald was founded in AD 979. A ceremony held every July involves dignitaries with the titles of Deemster, Coroner of the Sheading and Captain of the Parish. But we don’t know what they do!
In Friends’ Review, the newsletter of the Australian Federation of Friends of Museums, Carol Serventy, a past-President of the AFFM, writes of the Museums Association of Malaysia’s International Museums Day celebration: ‘ a joyous program of sport, poetry, song, seminars and museum visiting’. To further celebrate, the museums of Malaysia adopted a longhouse. Not the sort of longhouse we think of; this one is up on stilts, has 64 doors and houses 400 people. The Sungai Buloh longhouse is on the banks of the Batang Sadong river, hence the stilts.
In an example of collaboration, the Textile Museum of Canada in Toronto and the Toronto Zoo produced ‘Zoo: A Textile Menagerie’. It explored the relationship between the animal kingdom and human culture. The textiles in the exhibition came from all over the globe. And the animals came from the Toronto Zoo. Visitors were greeted by an African hornbill at the entrance and later by a boa constrictor and ‘several enormous insects’. Plans for a camel and a yak ( a great producer of wool) had to be cancelled. Neither animal was in the mood for textiles, apparently. Next year a textile exhibition at the Zoo?
Kudos to the Kleinberg’s (ON) McMichael Canadian Collection of Art! In December, McMichael CEO Vincent Varga and Creative Director Shelley Falconer were in Switzerland to receive a United Nation’s World Summit Award (WSA) for excellence in e-culture, honouring the gallery’s website Art2Life. Art2Life is one of the most extensive cultural Web sites in Canada and celebrates 100 years of art, people and events in Canadian life.
Apologies to the Friends of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. We overlooked their announcement of a planned trip to Russia in the spring of 2004.
Congratulations to the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon on 40 years! To celebrate the event, the Board has announced an ambitious facility renovation and expansion plans. Good luck!
The Rambler of the Reynolds-Alberta Museum tells us the ‘shop monkeys’ have taken on their most challenging restoration so far. It is a 1922 Winton, a magnificent looking wooden-bodied touring automobile. It will soon receive a 1922 paint job.
Last but not least, congratulations to Doris Smith of Ottawa, a mover and shaker in the Canadian Friends of the Hermitage. Doris has been awarded a lifelong membership card to the Hermitage. Doris has been a member of the CFFM board and editor of CFFM’s Communiqué. Well done, Doris!
NOTES FROM THE NATIONAL DIRECTOR
And now for some notes from our National Director, Suzanne Stohn:
Be sure to check pages 8 and 12 of the CMA Conference brochure for CFFM information. We have included a notice of our Annual Meeting to be held Thursday, April 29 in Québec. Please fill out the form and return it to us as soon as possible.
Better Still, Come to Québec City
To get in touch with us by mail:
CFFM/FCAM
c/o Art Gallery of Ontario,
317 Dundas St. West,
Toronto, ON M5T 1G4
Tel. #: 416-979-6650
e-mail: cffm_fcam@ago.net
OVCAM CONFERENCE 2004 – APRIL 18 & 19
The Ontario Volunteer Committees of Art Museums (OVCAM) 2004 Conference will take place in Windsor, Ontario hosted by the Volunteer Committee of the Art Gallery of Windsor. The 2004 Conference is presenting a variety of topics from a workshop on Japanese art techniques to a presentation, “The Virtual Volunteer” about internet recruiting. A pre-conference tour of the Hiram Walker collection followed by a reception at the AGW is offered on the Sunday afternoon as well as dinner at the Windsor Club on Sunday evening. The keynote speaker is Lois Snedick, Past President of the AGW and currently Dean of Graduate Studies at the University of Windsor. She has been an avid art volunteer for many years.
If you are interested in attending, the OVCAM e-mail is: OVCAM2004@cogeco.ca.
TRAVEL WITH FRIENDS
Royal Ontario Museum ,Toronto ON
North of Sixty, Bathurst Inlet Lodge and Yellowknife. June 29 – July 11, 2004. 1-800-387-1483
Cuba with a Difference. Feb 21 – March 1, 2004. 416-487-9733
Morocco & Southern Spain. April 22 – May 8, 2004. 416-482-3323
Southern Ireland in the Spring. May 5 – 16, 2004. 416-480-0460
Nova Scotia: The Acadian Legacy. September 17 – 26, 2004. 416-488-7900
Treasures and Pleasures of China. September 29 – October 18, 2004. 416-920-1965
Western Oases and Upper Egypt. November 13 – December 1, 2004. 416-924-9134
Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, ON
April in Paris. April 9 – 17, 2004. 613-549-8002
Prague, Vienna and Budapest. September 26 – October 10, 2004. 613-542-5473
Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art
Russia. May 20 – June 1, 2004.
Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg. MB
Belgium and the Netherlands. April 26 – May 5, 2004.
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
Shaw Festival Inside and Out. (Niagara-on-the-Lake). June 9 – 11, 2004. 613-231-2035
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. All enquiries – 416-979-6660, ext. 444#
Sicily. May 1 – 11, 2004
New York. May 14 – 16, 2004
Paris. October, 2004
Vienna. Early November, 2004
VCAM CONFERENCE 2004 – BREAKING NEW GROUND
Volunteer Committees of Art Museums of Canada and the United States, commonly known as VCAM, is run by volunteers for art gallery volunteers. Founded in Toronto 52 years, it is an important vehicle for communication among volunteer groups. A triennial conference provides a forum to discuss common volunteer issues and networking opportunities with like-minded volunteers.
The theme of the 2003 conference in Toronto, “Breaking New Ground”, resulted from a ground-breaking partnership between the volunteers of the AGO and the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). There was excellent co-operation from both staffs and volunteers of the AGO and the ROM and much discussion about current volunteering and the changes volunteers are making to accommodate the universality of the computer and the internet.
The keynote speaker was University of Toronto Economics Professor David Foot, author of “Boom, Bust and Echo”. His talk “The Demographics of Volunteering, from Vigilante Consumer to Vigilante Volunteer” gave an insight on how to identify the volunteers of the future.
The 2006 Conference will be in San Francisco. The current VCAM President is Grace Robin of the Vancouver Art Gallery so there will be, with Grace Robin as President, a definite Canadian presence.
| Frances Hogg, VCAM Conference Co-chair, AGO |
Jo Breyfogle VCAM Conference Co-chair, ROM |
