Improve Your Museum's Accessibility Plan

• Mississippi Valley Textile Museum's Accessibility Plan, 2022
• ArtsBuild Ontario's Accessiblity Toolkit for Creative Spaces, 2019
• OMA's Inclusion2025: A Practitioner's Guide to Inclusive Museums, 2018

CLEO (Community Legal Education Ontario) is launching a survey to get a picture of the legal needs of nonprofits relating to governance, employment law, and privacy/record keeping. It should take about 15 minutes. By participating, you will be helping to inform CLEO about the legal supports your organization needs.

The survey has 15 questions. Please take a moment to complete the survey. To learn more about the Nonprofit Law Ontario project, visit nonprofitlaw.cleo.on.ca.

Mississauga Businesses Receive Over $900,000 in Tourism Recovery Support
City of Mississauga

On March 2, 2023 Tourism Mississauga announced financial support for tourism businesses and organizations from Regional Tourism Organization 5 – Greater Toronto Area (RTO5) to help them position themselves for a strong and resilient economic future. RTO5 received $12 million through the Government of Canada’s Tourism Relief Fund, delivered by the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario). The Mississauga projects receiving this tourism relief funding, include:

• CreativeHub 1352 – receiving $99,800 to support execution of the Mississauga Festival of Trees, which will include 10 family activities and workshops, two culinary markets and three days of live entertainment from local artists.
• Visual Arts Mississauga at Riverwood – receiving $20,000 to update the website revitalization by adding digitization features to better serve newcomers.
• monstrARTity Creative Community – receiving $25,160 to deliver the #BollywoodMonster Mashup festival, with an expected 60,000 attendees.
• The Egyptian Museum in Mississauga – receiving $100,000 to develop a multi-media, self-directed tour of the museum for patrons and help the museum secure new and rare artifacts.

“A thriving tourism industry is an integral contributor to our long-term economic success and prosperity, as its success has ripple effects throughout our entire economy. I would like to thank the federal government for these targeted investments through the Tourism Relief Fund, which will help our industry address the lingering impacts of the pandemic and expand their offerings to attract future visitors to our great city.” -- Her Worship Bonnie Crombie, Mayor of Mississauga

Read the media release HERE.
Read the backgrounder HERE.

The Canadian Automotive Museum has finally regained some financial support from the City Oshawa. Council approved an annual capital contribution of 25 cents per person in the recently concluded budget deliberations – roughly equivalent to $47,000 – as well as a $15,000 grant for “strategic business development” at the museum.

Museum board member Gregory Johnston has been at the forefront of the lobbying effort. Johnston said he made it his mission to restore funding to the museum when he joined the board but eight years of pleading with elected officials and staff but got no further than a $5,000 tax break until he enlisted the support of residents and local businesses. In addition to residents, the museum received support in the campaign from labour organizations (Durham Region Labour Alliance, Unifor 222, GM Salaried Retirees), local car clubs, business groups and charities.

Read more HERE.

The Welland Museum’s brand new website will allow people from across town or the country to shop at the museum’s gift shop, where they’ll be able to snap up all manner of goods featuring the museum’s iconic It’s All Welland Good brand. “We have hoodies, aprons, umbrellas, tuques, T-shirts, socks,” said Mooney, museum co-ordinator, at the official launch of the museum’s new website on March 3. Mooney joined other officials at the event, which was also an opportunity to say thanks to the Ontario Trillium Foundation for a $42,500 grant to create the new website that will feature current exhibits.

Niagara Centre riding MPP Jeff Burch said the new website will help to showcase the museum, located on King Street in a former library that marks its 100th anniversary this year. “The Welland Museum, which has undergone significant renovations during the pandemic, is a source of civic pride where people can learn about the history of their community at the King Street location or by accessing its new user-friendly website,” he said.

Read more HERE.

Thanks to a monumental lead gift of $35-million from Dani Reiss, the AGO is launching an expansion project to significantly increase gallery space for its growing collection of modern and contemporary art. The Dani Reiss Modern and Contemporary Gallery will increase the museum’s gallery space by 40,000 square feet, with at least 13 new galleries across five floors -- increasing the AGO’s total space available to display art by 30%.

The Gallery will expand the museum to the east...nestled between the AGO and the Ontario College of Art and Design University. It will seamlessly connect to, and be accessed by, a number of galleries in the AGO’s existing galleries from four locations, increasing visitor circulation.

Read the media release HERE.

The Friends of Fort George received over $47,000 in funding from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, which created summer jobs for three university students. For the Friends, the ability to hire summer students to work as historical interpreters at Brock’s Monument was more than providing a summer job. It was also a chance to return to telling the history of the War of 1812, particularly the Battle of Queenston Heights.

“We had some really positive feedback from teachers that got to come out and see what the battle site was like and see what soldiers wore,” said Amanda Gamble, executive director of the Friends.

Read more HERE.

The Art Gallery of Sudbury’s contributions toward their upcoming space at the Junction East Cultural Hub received a $150,000 boost. The Douglas A. Smith Family Foundation pledged the money to support the gallery’s capital campaign.

"This innovative and responsive donation to the back of house operations will enable the Gallery staff to catalogue and house new acquisitions along with current artworks in an appropriate setting,” gallery director and curator Demetra Christakos said in a media release.

The Junction East Cultural Hub is $98.5-million municipal project, which is slated to see a new central library join a new Art Gallery of Sudbury and space for the Sudbury Multicultural Folk Arts Association at a new building next to the Sudbury Theatre Centre downtown.

Read more HERE.

Council ended a decades-long practice at the regular February meeting by voting to hold future council meetings in the community hall/banquet room instead of in the Prince Township Museum’s classroom.

The change of venue was requested in January by Coun. Margaret Christenson, who also chairs the Prince Township Museum Board/Heritage Committee. Christenson said at the previous council meeting that desks, chairs, and assorted clutter were left in the classroom between council meetings, and that museum board members had to tidy the room before holding their own meetings or hosting events.

Mayor Enzo Palumbo agreed it was time to resolve the question of where to hold council meetings.  After the vote, he added that council would amend the township’s procedural bylaw at the March 14 meeting to designate the community hall/banquet room as its future meeting place.

Read more HERE.

The Dionne Quints Heritage Board is looking for the city of North Bay to give them a chunk of land adjacent to the Dionne Quints Museum. Board chairman Ed Valenti made the request during February's council meeting. Valenti said they want benches, plaques around the home and storage space. While making the request for land, Valenti also asked for $5,000 in funding to assist in the cost of landscaping. “We’re always operating on a shoestring budget,” he told council. Last week council voted down the request from a variety of community groups who asked for funding in the 2023 budget.

Valenti said the board hasn’t been officially told their request has been denied. “I know council is always looking for places to trim their budgets. I think for such a small investment it gets big rewards. And we get a lot of attention, because it’s a unique museum.” In 2022, there were 1,500 guests, many of which were “unique” visitors who specifically came to North Bay to visit the museum.

Read more HERE.

Ontario's Marine Museum of the Great Lake acquires Titanic-era ship
Global News

The Museum has acquired the S.S. Keewatin, a Titanic-era steamliner, which was built in 1907. The historic ship will be incorporated into the museum following its transportation from Port McNicoll, Ont., this spring to a shipyard for much-needed repairs and maintenance, the museum says.

“The story of the Keewatin is a story of Canada’s creation as a country. It is vital that the ship, which is the last of its kind, be preserved for current and future generations, and our Museum has the expertise, facilities, and funding to be able to do this.” -- Chris West, chair of the board of the museum

The Keewatin is expected to arrive at the museum dry dock in Kingston in late summer or early fall 2023. The ship will be integrated into the marine museum’s extensive transportation collection covering the last 200 years of Great Lakes history and offer a new cultural experience in Kingston.

Read more HERE.

Resiliency Learning and Productive Failure in Museum Practice

In a conversation moderated by Cara Krmpotich (Faculty of Information, UofT), Dr. Fiona Rawle (Dept. of Biology, UTM) and Dr. Amy Barron (Fleming College) will apply research on Resiliency Learning and Productive Failure to our work in the museum field. Rawle outlines ways of understanding failure as a necessary and inherently useful tool for learning while Barron speaks to her relationship with failure, risk, and learning as an educator and museum professional.

Watch the session recording HERE.

Commotion: How can we put truth and reconciliation on display in Canada's museums?
CBCArts

March 8, 2023, Janis Kahentóktha Monture, new CEO of the Canadian Museums Association, speaks to Elamin Abdelmahmoud about implementing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 67th call to action, and ongoing efforts to repatriate cultural artifacts.

Listen to the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast episode HERE.

For all questions or inquiries please contact the OMA: community@museumsontario.ca 
or call 416-348-8672 / 1-866-662-8672.