In any community acknowledging and respecting the past is a gift for future generations to come.
We hold dear to our past because it is critically important to never forget where we came from.
It is therefore essential that we house our memories, great accomplishments and even our failures in a venue that serves to show everyone, including visitors, the value we place in the past.
On that score the town of Olds gets a failing grade. This is a shame because Olds is the prettiest and most historically significant community in all of Central Alberta. With its wide streets in the downtown core, its multitude of great historical buildings, it rivals Lacombe as the most visually interesting community in the region.
The current home of the Mountain View Museum & Archives is housed in the historic AGT building on 50 Street. That is a good start. But the problems now accompanying this venue are becoming insurmountable.
In this week's Albertan we are told staff now have to deal with an infestation of clothing moths. Paint is peeling off the walls. Floor tiles to the entrance need to be replaced. Office equipment is antiquated.
And these are only the immediate challenges facing this institution. The museum only has 1,600 square feet of exhibition space, the same size as an average house. To hold a major exhibition or an open house event is now so difficult it can be downright embarrassing. We need to only think of how cramped it was inside the museum during the opening night of last February's travelling exhibit, Chop Suey on the Prairies: a Reflection on Chinese Restaurants in Alberta.
Anne Lindsay is the new manager at the museum, and part of her mandate when she was hired was to find ways to improve the facility. The biggest challenge facing the local historical society board and Lindsay is finding new sources of revenue, a problem that is hardly unique to any non-profit agency.
Lindsay and the board are forced to get creative with grant applications at both the federal and provincial levels. But before they even do this they have to come up with a comprehensive business plan, which Lindsay is wisely about to do.
The Town of Olds has provided the building and covers the cost of utilities, and while it might have a few dollars here and there it could throw in, it is unlikely council will be moved at least in the short term to place a high priority on the financial problems facing the museum.
But council can at the very least support the initiative for a long-term business plan. With the town officially involved in this process it might be able to make the future plans for the museum as ones that run in concert with their own.
This could include some sort of medium- to long-term budgetary strategy that would help fund the needs of the museum at some level, at any level. Other Alberta municipalities have done this. They have not depended solely on the province or the federal government for funding a cultural or historical institution.
In the meantime it is up to the community at large to rally behind the museum, to come forward with donations, financial or in kind. It does not have to be much.
Next month Lindsay and the board will be discussing a proposed fundraising initiative by a local businessman. The ideas considered are a scavenger hunt, silent auction and even a barbecue.
That is one idea. In a community of more than 7,300 citizens there has to be many, many more. These can all be forwarded to Lindsay or to the members of the board.
For now though, the museum would be grateful to anyone who could donate a freezer, new or used. The bugs are getting bad. Or a few cans of paint. The walls are in bad shape. Or some used office furniture. The chairs are creaking.
These items, small scale as they are, may seem almost laughable. But it is a start, a new beginning of putting the value of the past where it rightly belongs.
