Air Training Plan museum seeks $50K

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This article was published 20/12/2019 (2298 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum is asking the city for $50,000 in operating expenses for the 2020 fiscal year to avoid another year of drawing from its foundation.

Stephen Hayter, the museum’s executive director, said the museum started asking its foundation for money five years ago, when it needed $15,000 to make ends meet, but last year needed $25,000.

“Certainly that’s what our foundation is for, operating funding. The problem is our costs have increased to a level that’s really going to surpass the ability of our foundation to grow if we keep accessing operating funding from it,” Hayter said when reached on Thursday.

The hope is that with a financial boost from the city the museum will be able to let its foundation grow and eventually build it up to more than $1 million. That would put it in a better financial spot in the future, and the museum could draw operating money from the interest earned.

There wasn’t one specific factor that forced the museum to start drawing money from its foundation, Hayter said. Wages went up, and maintenance fees mean the decades-old building costs a significant amount to keep running.

“When you’re running 300-watt light bulbs in a hangar for any length of time, you’re spending money whether you want to or not,” Hayter said.

The museum has taken steps to reduce costs, he said, such as a $22,000 grant from the Brandon Area Community Foundation to install energy-efficient LED bulbs in those hangar lights.

The museum also doesn’t have the same donor base that it used to, he said, mainly because there are fewer Second World War veterans around. Now the museum is relying on their children and grandchildren to remain actively involved.

“It’s not that we’re not trying to be forward-thinking and find new avenues of income, the challenge for us is of course at the start of this museum it was veterans and we’re saying goodbye to those veterans now,” he said. “It’s the challenge of changing demographics.”

The museum has planned fundraising events to coincide with Manitoba 150 celebrations, including an evening with the director of the movie “For the Moment,” Aaron Kim Johnston. The 1993 movie stars Russell Crowe and was filmed partly at the Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum.

Visitorship and revenue are also trending upward, Hayter told Brandon City Council on Monday evening, buoyed by school groups from the Brandon School Division coming through. Despite this, upgrades to maintain the facilities are expensive.

The museum is also looking to eventually install a new fire suppression system at the museum, which would protect the exhibits. Hayter said the current water mains at the museum are from the Second World War. While historic, they don’t provide enough water pressure to protect artifacts loaned from other museums.

With a new fire suppression system, the museum would be able to receive artifacts and exhibits on loan from other museums, like the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.

Brandon City Council will consider the request during 2020 budget deliberation in later January and early February.

The museum will be open throughout much of the holiday season, but will be closed on Christmas Day.

» dmay@brandonsun.com

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