Museum visits more than double over last year

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This article was published 07/11/2023 (1056 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Visits to the Brandon General Museum & Archives have more than doubled compared to the same point in time last year, representatives told Brandon City Council on Monday.

According to a yearly update provided by museum board chair Brent Chamberlain and general manager Keith Waterfield, the facility has had more than 680 patrons visit since January. That, Chamberlain said, is up from 270 at the same point last year.

When the museum reopened after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, the admission fee was changed to be by donation rather than a fixed cost. Chamberlain said that is still in place and the museum has raised more than $1,600 in donations from patrons so far this year.

Events held by the BGMA in the last year include a continuation of its historic walking tours and pub crawl in association with the Brandon Neighbourhood Renewal Corporation, Dark History Tours held with the Western Manitoba Regional Library, Doors Open Brandon, the Pine to Prairie Relic Run vintage car event and a new Show & Tell speaker series.

Earlier this year, the museum received about $18,500 in provincial funding to help modernize its exhibits for the 21st Century.

Waterfield said that will include interactive tablet displays, showing an example of a display being developed for an arctic fox in the museum’s BJ Hales taxidermy gallery, including information about the species and an embedded audio clip presenting what they sound like.

Efforts are also underway to develop a new permanent display on local Indigenous history intended to go beyond the 1882 founding of Brandon. The museum was a sponsor of the city’s Truth and Reconciliation Week events this year.

Because of volunteer support and assistance from other local organizations like the Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum, the museum was able to save the Brandon Sun’s print archives from being put in the landfill.

Currently, the archives are at the air museum as the groups involved decide what to do with the century-plus worth of newspapers.

As a board member since 2018, Coun. Shaun Cameron (Ward 4) said he was proud to see the museum growing again after some difficult years.

Coun. Barry Cullen (Ward 3) credited the museum for installing creative new exhibits and for increasing the number of visitors so far this year.

“I think we’re well on the way to recovery,” said Chamberlain. “But we’ve got to make it fresh. Younger people have different ways of looking at things compared to older folks.”

The museum is open from Tuesday to Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Also providing a yearly update on Monday was Erika Martin, the director of library services at the Western Manitoba Regional Library. She said the library’s branches serve more than 64,000 people, the majority of whom live in Brandon.

According to her, the library’s yearly budget is focused on staff, collections and facilities, with a secondary emphasis on programming, marketing and transportation.

Increases in this year’s budget, she said, are being sought due to rising staffing expenses, trying to update its collections and dealing with the effects of inflation.

To try to save money, Martin said the library has switched to different management software at a savings of about $25,000 per year and has tried to reduce budget line items related to building maintenance, travel for board members, supplies and equipment.

In July, Martin said, a permanent security guard was placed in the library’s downtown branch from Mondays through Saturdays. She said it has been a big positive, decreasing incidents, increasing the sense of safety felt by staff and patrons and improving the response time to serious events.

Providing an example, she said one staff member previously spent a lot of time dealing with issues in the branch’s washrooms – including having to repaint them at one point. With the guard in place, she said this staffer now has more time to focus on their duties and assisting the public.

Coun. Bruce Luebke (Ward 6) asked why Martin is asking the city for a grant to hire security rather than include it in the budget. Martin said that the issue is primarily a downtown-Brandon-related expense and that security isn’t needed at branches in other member communities or even the other Brandon branch at Shoppers Mall.

“It’s not a regional issue,” she said.

She said it wouldn’t matter to the library whether the city provides the security directly or if the city were to provide a grant so that the library can hire security.

When next year’s budget is discussed, Coun. Shawn Berry (Ward 8) said, there will be a push to hire more police cadets rather than have the city contract out private security. Martin said she wouldn’t be opposed to security being provided by a cadet, as long as they are dedicated to working just at the library.

Martin presented two draft budgets for the library, one where all communities funding the library pay the same levy and another where Brandon pays a slightly higher levy than the other communities.

The presentation was still ongoing as of the Sun’s print deadline.

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