[BCMA] CMA Clip Serv: Maritime Museum of BC charts new course

Mon Sep 20 11:54:35 PDT 2010

Another sad chapter in the Maritime Museum of BC's repeated near-death saga . . . .

Salvation and success, however, lies literally at the Provincial Government's doorstep:
  a.. The historic waterfront CPSS depot is about to be vacated by the Wax Museum;
  b.. The RBCM one block away is responsible for provincial natural and human history;
Nova Scotia did it right by maritime, naval, and marine history years ago; BC didn't.

The former created two maritime museums (Halifax, Lunenburg) and linked them directly to the main provincial museum, as it did with various historic houses and sites across that small province. But  once its main museum and archives were built in the late 60s, BC set-up a haphazard array of its own historic houses, parks, sites, and museums outside the legislative precinct.

At one end of the chain, Barkerville did pretty good in getting resources, while the MMBC at the other got short-shrift. Yet their respective historical realms are equally important.

There's no way today that this creaky provincial edifice can be repaired quickly, but the Province sure can prop-up the MMBC by merging it fully with the RBCM and relocating it to the CPR Depot where the tourists literally pour off the boat.

Dan Gallacher

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Moderated BCMA subscriber listserv. 
  To: bcma at lists.vvv.com 
  Sent: Monday, September 20, 2010 11:00 AM
  Subject: [BCMA] CMA Clip Serv: Maritime Museum of BC charts new course

  Struggling Maritime Museum of B.C. charts new 
  course to survive 
  Katherine Dedyna, Victoria Times-Colonist, Sunday, September 19, 2010 

  Inside the Maritime Museum of B.C., it's hard not to trip over history. 

  That's the idea, from an enormous ship's wheel circa 1875 to the First Nations dugout canoe that nearly circumnavigated the globe. Even the birdcage elevator ride is ranked second-best anywhere by National 
  Geographic. 

  But last year, the museum attracted just 21,000 visitors - an average of 50 a day. That puts it in the same boat it was in nearly 50 years ago, despite having the largest collection of maritime artifacts in Canada. 

  "Does that get my attention? Absolutely," says new executive director Kevin Carlé. "Does it frighten me? No." 

  That's one thing the museum intends to rectify with what he calls its "voyage of renewal." "There's a lot of people who've lived many years in Victoria and never stepped inside," Carlé says. "We want people who say, 'What's new at the maritime museum? OK, let's go see that.' "Carlé plans to build "all kinds of partnerships" with waterfront operations from the coast guard to the shipyard. "There's maritime heritage associated with many of these organizations and they're making heritage every day." 

  But the first order of the day is steering the cultural institution into more "business-like" waters.  Those include more funds raised, more gifts sold, more hands-on heritage for kids, more partnerships and memberships sold, more venues rented in the 1889 heritage site and more emphasis on First Nations maritime history. 

  The new business plan entails expansion of the offerings of the museum over the next three years - although most of the 37,000 artifacts are in storage from Ogden Point to the Bay Street Armoury. 

  The whale in the room? Coming to terms with finances. 

  Carlé won't get into big-picture particulars, although admission fees have gone to $12 from $10.50 for adults, with positive results. 

  "We maybe haven't done as good a job marketing this place and reminding people that it is a museum that relies on admissions," he says. "Some people might look at the name and think that it's part of the government." 

  Which it is not. The maritime history of B.C. is in the hands of a non- profit society, and Carlé is grateful for what provincial support there is. But the museum does not receive an operating budget like the $2 million the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic - which draws 160,000 visitors a year to its waterfront site - gets from Nova Scotia's government. 

  "I think the [B.C.] government support can be characterized as benign neglect, where I would argue that in Nova Scotia, it's conscious support," says museum board chairman Jan Drent. The province points out that the museum got $30,000 in 2008/09 from the B.C. Arts Council for professional art projects but no subsequent council funding due to failure to meet the financial criteria of the peer-review panel. 

  "We do recognize the importance of the Maritime Museum and B.C.'s maritime heritage," a provincial spokesman says in an e-mail to the Times Colonist. Since 2006, the government has subsidized the museum by spending $850,000 to maintain and operate the building. 
  The province also supplied about $500,000 in remediation to the 121- year-old building in recent years. 

  Then again, the province got the building for $1 from the city back in 1977. 

  "The museum is working to develop a business plan that will allow it to become financially self-supporting over time and the Ministry of Citizens' Services is supporting these efforts," the spokesman says. 

  Drent says he has never seen an invoice from the province setting out what is owed. However, he says, the province told the museum in 2009 that it was looking at all expenditures; the museum was costing the province money and that the problem had to be resolved. He notes that the Royal B.C. Museum receives $12 million in annual grants from the province. 

  Tourism, Culture and the Arts Minister Kevin Krueger could not be reached for comment. 

  The museum has been in sink-or-swim positions more than once. 

  In 1974, the City of Victoria tried to evict the museum, offering another site that would have required major renovations. Museum trustees voted to close, and the problem wasn't resolved until 1977, when the province agreed to pay the city $1 for the building and place the museum under provincial control - at least as a venue. In 2003- 2004, the province stopped subsidizing the museum's rent, which was more than $200,000 a year. 

  However, the government agreed to a partial subsidy and reduced the museum's share of the rent to $75,000 after museum officials said it might go under. Since 2006-2007, the museum has not paid rent. 

  Is the museum in a sink-or-swim situation now? "Wow," says Drent, repeating the question before answering: "We're confident that we can move the museum ahead. We feel that on the basis of our results over the last several months that the trend arrows are pointing in the right direction." 

  The museum finished the 2010 financial year with its first surplus since 2001 - $22,000 on its $615,000 budget, which does not include rent. 

  Despite a significant downturn in tourism, staff and volunteer efforts have led to increases in admission revenues and gift shop sales. 

  "The challenges remain formidable but I believe that these trends are indeed encouraging," Drent says. 

  Things were chaotic enough in April, though, to call a special meeting. 

  "The executive director left and a few other staff left, and the rumour mill was going, 'Oh my God, the museum's going to close, they're going to give away all the collection,' " recalls Jamie Webb, past chairman of the museum's board of directors. That wasn't the case, says Webb, who is on board with hunkering down to create stability. 

  The special status as a provincewide resource the museum was supposed to garner hasn't panned out, says Jim Harding, executive director of the B.C. Museums Association, suggesting the insecurity of its venue is "extraordinary." Moreover, it's a mid-sized museum with a full-size mandate to represent the province, engage the public amid stagnant tourism, safeguard the maritime history of the West Coast without operating grants and manage and rotate far-flung valuable artifacts worth $5 million. All in a heritage building that makes high-tech more complicated, not to mention housing a working tax court on the third floor. 

  "There's no shortage of challenges, but I think it's going to be fun," says Carlé, a retired naval officer with no previous museum experience. 

  Meanwhile, the museum is putting itself out there. It's promoting itself on B.C. Transit buses, inviting the public to Adopt an Artifact, showcasing a replica Viking boat from Denmark today through Tuesday, hosting a fundraising gala based on a CP steamship theme and positioning the upgraded gift shop as a destination for Christmas shopping. 

  The museum will make a pitch for inclusion in arts funding distributed by the Capital Regional District - more than $2 million this year - Drent says. 

  Currently, it does not qualify, one reason being the $42,000 it gets from municipalities, along with intended recipients being organizations for visual, performing and literary arts, says CRD arts committee chairwoman Vicki Sanders. 

  The bottom line should not be the primary concern of the museum, says Rick Goodacre, executive director of Heritage B.C., a non-profit organization. The public interest is in protecting the museum, its collection and Victoria's status as a heritage tourism destination. 

  "We've been saying for some time that our heritage in this province has just been undermined," Goodacre adds. 

  "The government may come up with all sorts of reasons, but basically, they just don't want to spend the money." 

  ---   30   --- 

  ---   30   --- 

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