CARSTAIRS - In a recent meeting, Mountain View County council heard the future plans for the Carstairs Heritage Centre, which receives funding support from the county, the town and the Alberta Museums Association.
The heritage centre is operated by curator-manager Michael Dougherty and run by the Carstairs and District Historical Society (CDHS).
The five-year plan, which was presented to council, is the key planning tool for the CDHS and the centre.
"We update it annually," Dougherty said to the Gazette. "Every February we go through the previous year's objectives and see how we've done. We weigh that against what we want to do in the future and we lay out five years.
"So it's an annual review we do. After it's approved by our membership at our annual general meeting in February, it's forwarded to town council here in Carstairs and also to county council."
The centre has just switched to summer hours, which are Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m.
Dougherty said the centre is in an exhibit development mode.
"We have a cattle exhibit, a mixed farming exhibit, an agricultural implement exhibit and a transportation exhibit yet to develop," he said. "Those will all be developed in the next probably six to 12 months. That'll likely be the end point of our static exhibits. Then we'll be moving into a more programming mode."
Dougherty said the centre has been growing in attendance every year and he hopes that trend will continue.
"Our art gallery, which opened this spring, has had just great response," he said. "We didn't know the need in the community for a visual arts gallery, but now that we have it established we know what that need was.
"I have a strong feeling it's going to close to double our attendance numbers as we change over the art every two months."
Dougherty said they had another successful concert series, which just wrapped up. The concert series will pick up in September.
"That's always the last Sunday of the month - the concert in the church," he said. "The guest speaker series wraps up in June. In September we'll be bringing it back but we'll be switching it to evenings."
Dougherty said the centre had one evening guest speaker in February and the house was packed.
"The board has decided to re-examine evenings for our guest speaker series," he said. "So starting in September our guest speaker series will move from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
"So hopefully that will open it up to a bigger audience and more people will be able to come."
Dougherty said the rotating art gallery will be changing over at the end of June. The gallery will feature artist Karen Scarlett from Calgary.
"She is a direct descendent to Sam Scarlett who ran the Stopping House and was the first settler in the Carstairs region," he said.
"So we have this neat heritage link. She's doing a Prairie theme to her exhibit for the summer."
To help celebrate Canada's 150th birthday the museum is actually looking into the future.
"In the Ing Gallery we're hoping the museum of the future display will pick up speed," he said. "The Ing Gallery is our rotating gallery where we often have travelling exhibits through where we curate our own exhibits.
"For the summer we're hoping the community curates their own exhibits. We're asking what item today will be in a museum 50 years from now."
Dougherty said they already have a few good pieces such as a fax machine, a BlackBerry device, a dictionary, an ashtray and a pack of cigarettes.
"There's a lot of thought of what we currently use and won't be using 50 years from now," he said.
The centre has several prizes including ones for $500, $300 and $200 for creativity and best submissions.
"We didn't know the need in the community for a visual arts gallery, but now that we have it established we know what that need was."Michael Dougherty
