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Cultural Centre should release numbers on gallery partnership: Councillor

March 19, 2014   ·   0 Comments

By Brock Weir

The Aurora Cultural Centre last month announced a major new partnership with Meridian Credit Union, which included the naming rights on the former Red Gallery – but now one Councillor wants answers.

Councillors are due to consider a notice of motion from Councillor Evelyn Buck this week wanting more information on who gave the Cultural Centre authority to sell naming rights to rooms within a Town-owned building.

The motion, she says, is not opposing the name change from the Red Gallery to the Meridian Gallery, but is intended to get more information on how these changes can be made.

At last month’s unveiling of the new gallery, Aurora Cultural Centre Board president Frank Pulumbarit said naming rights would also be available for the adjacent Bluew Gallery as well as the Great Hall Gallery on the second floor, but pointedly did not include Brevik Hall in the list of rooms up for grabs.

Brevik Hall was named after the late Margaret Brevik, a long-time supporter of the Aurora Historical Society, who left a considerable legacy used for the extensive renovations of the Church Street School landmark before it re-opened as the Aurora Cultural Centre in 2010.

“I would be deeply concerned if this organization thought they had the authority to change that name in particular,” said Councillor Buck. “In the Seniors’ Centre, there have been donations made and rooms had been [allocated] in the names of the people who made the donations, but that was all under the Town’s umbrella and that is the thing that concerns me.

“We purchase a service from the [Cultural Centre]. We don’t charge them rent and they don’t have to realise funds from selling the names of the rooms in order to pay their overhead. A nominal fee is there to make it a legal agreement, but it is not a fee that gives them the right to sell of the naming off their rooms.”

When asked how this potential revenue generator, however, would equate to her view that the Aurora Cultural Centre should be self-sufficient, Councillor Buck said she was not convinced they were yet on that road.

“The purpose of the initial funding was seed money,” says Councillor Buck. “It was never intended to be an annual funding program, it was to get a private corporation off the ground and their responsibility was to ensure that whatever activities were going on in this facility would pay for themselves or be subsidised by whatever donations they would be able to raise in the community.

“They have been very careful to avoid the information about what they did raise in relation to the naming of a room. I think the community has the right to know the details.”

At February’s unveiling, Mr. Pulumbarit said the amount raised by selling the naming rights could not be disclosed under the sponsorship agreement with Meridian.

The Auroran was unable to reach him by press time.

         

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