{"id":2455,"date":"2013-06-05T17:21:29","date_gmt":"2013-06-05T21:21:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=2455"},"modified":"2013-06-12T18:00:54","modified_gmt":"2013-06-12T22:00:54","slug":"conservation-and-new-museum-top-priorities-with-100k-investment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/conservation-and-new-museum-top-priorities-with-100k-investment\/","title":{"rendered":"Conservation and new museum top priorities with $100k investment"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Above: Lindsay Bontoft of the AHS with local historian Jacqueline Stuart, Thursday, ahead
\nof Ms. Stuart’s lecture on the history of the Aurora Collection and historical archives. Auroran photo by David Falconer)<\/em><\/p>\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Items in the historic Aurora Collection won a $100,000 reprieve last week as Council vote to invest $100,000 to look at ways to conserve and manage the artefacts and further ways to develop a museum.<\/p>\n

The decision came after weeks of ongoing debate on just what Council should do with the collection of heritage artefacts that had been collected by \u2013 and donated to \u2013 the Aurora Historical Society (AHS).<\/p>\n

The AHS and the Town entered into discussions last year to transfer ownership of the thousands of artefacts to the Town. This entailed an extensive review of just what was in the collections and appraisals by the consultants Cultural Asset Management.<\/p>\n

While the consultants had praise for the extent of the collection and largely for the current storage conditions at the Aurora Cultural Centre, they also raised some alarm bells, including the condition of the textile collection which is harbouring an infestation of carpet beetles.<\/p>\n

For some Councillors, particularly Councillors Sandra Humfryes and John Abel, who both sit on Aurora\u2019s Heritage Advisory Committee, it was important to spend a recommended $179,000 towards transferring and managing the collection this year. Hampering going forward with the plan, however, was the majority of Council who agreed it would be best to hold off until the completion of a Cultural Master Plan to examine all of Aurora\u2019s Heritage and Cultural elements \u2013 and how they work together \u2013 which is due by the end of the year or early 2014.<\/p>\n

Taking another crack at the issue last Tuesday, Councillors voted to execute a transfer agreement with the AHS and, in a 7 \u2013 2 decision, approved $100,000 to be spent from the tax rate stabilization account to fund a report on \u201cmuseum management, exhibition development, collections management, and a conservation program.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am glad to see us moving forward as far as we have,\u201d said Councillor Evelyn Buck. \u201cI am not a great fan of consultant studies and I never miss an opportunity to say so, but I think this was one of the best studies I have ever seen and the most practical benefit from that work that was done. It has taken us all this time to get to this point and I beg of you do not let us drag this out another month. There is no reason why we shouldn\u2019t continue the momentum. It has been a pretty slow progress.\u201d<\/p>\n

The vision of giving the collection a little bit of a financial vote of confidence was supported by Councillor Abel who said he believed it was essential to take \u201cbaby steps\u201d towards a full funding model and as far as baby steps go, putting forward a $100,000 commitment this year, would take things to the 2014 budget process and thus, perhaps, a more stable funding model. <\/p>\n

More tentative in his support, however, was Councillor Michael Thompson who said it was important not to lose sight of the key reason on why things had progressed as far as it has so far, and that was the vision to re-establish a permanent museum. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor my own satisfaction, I would have liked to have seen a few more alternatives, even just supporting the AHS to a greater degree and having them manage the museum,\u201d he said. \u201cThey do have the expertise and they don\u2019t have the resources to be able to do it. We have spent so much time looking on whether or not we should take ownership of the collection, we may have lost the overarching principle which was the re-establishment of a museum.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see the final vision of it, but I do think it is essential that if we do not move forward with this, that we step up to the plate and move the funds forward for the preservation of the collection\u2026whether we own it, or it stays with the AHS, we need to re-establish the museum and there has to be an interim solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Councillors Chris Ballard and Wendy Gaertner, an interim solution should not progress without a clear vision of what it is to accomplish. Councillor Ballard told Councillors he believed if Aurora was \u201cin for a penny\u201d it was \u201cin for a pound\u201d without that vision.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should plan first and implement second,\u201d said Councillor Ballard. \u201cWe have the Cultural Master Plan study under way, we have asked that the process be truncated, so it would be before the New Year with an eye to make sure we knew where the collection would fit into the greater scheme of things in Aurora. <\/p>\n

\u201cI still want to wait for that before we make a decision to invest almost a quarter of a million into this collection.\u201d<\/p>\n

Added Councillor Gaertner: \u201cI can\u2019t agree with taking over the collection and managing it unless we have some sort of plan in place and it is going to involve money. I do not feel comfortable with taking on the collection and not being able to know how I am going to care for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking in favour of the motion, Mayor Geoffrey Dawe suggested that rather than the funding methods suggested to move this forward, a better solution might be found in taking a portion of Aurora\u2019s $30 million hydro reserve account and setting up an endowment fund to spend on heritage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re protecting our heritage and I think we\u2019re all prepared to set up to it in different ways,\u201d he said. \u201cWhy don\u2019t we look at it as a good use of hydro money? I have an issue stepping up to a long-term support, but I have no problem stepping up to say we need to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Come 2014, The Town of Aurora will assume control of the Aurora Room, the second floor exhibition space at the Aurora Cultural Centre, one of the new clauses in their 2013 agreement. This space will be for the exclusive use of the Aurora Collection.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Items in the historic Aurora Collection won a $100,000 reprieve last week as Council vote to invest $100,000 to look at ways to conserve and manage the artefacts and further ways to develop a museum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2408,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/2013-06-05-12.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-DB","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-18 04:13:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}