News Leader News for January 22, 2008
ARTS COUNCIL PLANS CLEAN-UP
If you want to see some improvements to downtown, circle Monday, April 21, and join the party. Princeton Community Arts Council has chosen this project for Arts and Culture Week. The main project of the Arts Council is the repair and painting of the foot trail from First Bench down to Billiter Avenue. Some local business people have decided to do small beautification projects to improve their store fronts.
Council has agreed to form a committee to work with the Arts Council and local business people to make improvements.
The Arts Council met at Riverside Wellness Centre on January 16 to discuss what member groups are doing. There are a lot of activities in the planning stage. Community Band
Joan Kelly reported that Princeton Community Band played at Vermilion Court in December, and has been invited back monthly. On January 31, the band will go to Penticton to hear a symphony in which three of the local band members will be performing. Field Naturalists Kelly advised that Vermilion Forks Field Naturalists will welcome Tanya Lutz who will be speaking about bats. This event occurs on February 12 at Riverside Wellness Centre. The public is welcome to attend. Potters Guild
Princeton Potters Guild is hosting a workshop on February 3. There are no vacancies for this workshop. Vermilion Artists
Vermilion Artists earned $400 as a result of their raffle of a watercolour. Their next workshop is on pastels, with teacher Irene Gray. The workshop will begin on April 11 in the afternoon and continue on the following day. For further information, contact Mary Bedford.
Bedford said the watercolour given for the raffle has been made into art cards which can be purchased at Image Emporium. Bedford showed the Arts Council one of these unique attractive cards. Vermilion Artists will receive 50 percent of the sale price of a card. Princeton Museum
Nick Mills reported the museum will be open, if all goes well, on Easter weekend.
He added that August will be proclaimed Heritage Month in Princeton, and the museum and Princeton Traditional Music Society (PTMS) will hold a festival that month. The museum will celebrate its 50th anniversary along with British Columbia's 150th anniversary. Traditional Music Society
PTMS has applied to Heritage Canada for a grant for the music festival to be held August 15 and 16.
Jon Bartlett told the Arts Council that PTMS has invited every Morris dancer he knows to come for the festival.
Bartlett said the singers group called Princeton Waits had a great time singing at residences and the Overwaitea at Christmas time. The group will meet again in February.
DISTRICT FIGURES SHOW GROWTH
On examination of the summary of operating grant comparisons for School District 58 (Nicola-Similkameen) from the 2007/08 final budget, there is some good news.
School Trustees reviewed the budget at their January 16th meeting in Princeton.
The student-based grant allocation for 2006/07 totaled $2,497.13. The estimated grant for 2007/08 was projected to be down slightly to $2,423.50 when in actual fact it went up to $2,514.06.
What does that mean? According to district Secretary-Treasurer Bruce Tisdale it's a very significant figure, which shows there has been an increase in student population in the district.
"For the first time in a while we are a growing district," Tisdale announced.
"We are one of about ten districts in the province that can say that." This brings the total operating grant to $24,234,384, which puts District 58 in 34th place out of the 60 districts in the province.
Enrolment-based funding for the Nicola-Similkameen district totals $14,698,444.
MUSEUM STARTS ANNIVERSARY YEAR
2008 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Princeton's museum, and this will be celebrated along with the 150th anniversary of the founding of British Columbia. Special displays are planned.
The annual general meeting of the Museum Society saw the return of the previous Board of Directors. Evelyn McCallum is President, with Brenda Gould as Vice-President and Lori Thomas as Secretary-Treasurer. Directors are Kathy Clement and Jim Pincock. Nick Mills continues as Operations Manager.
The annual report showed a slight decrease in the number of visitors, largely due to a late start in opening the museum last year. All in all, 2007 was a difficult year for the museum, and plans for expansion were put on hold until work is done on the building. The need for structural upgrading came to a head last fall when the basement began to show groundwater leakage.
The basement of the museum is where the archives had been stored. The extensive collection of documents, newspapers and photographs can be damaged by humidity. These were moved to the Skills Centre pending repairs to the basement wall facing the Pentecostal Tabernacle.
The Museum Society employed young people as visitor guides, using grant money from Weyerhaeuser and Young Canada Works, supplemented by the society's own funds. The society will apply for more youth employment grants this year. The other major expenditure was shelving obtained at a bargain price from the University of B.C.
Visitors to the museum are not charged an admission fee, but are encouraged to leave a donation. Donations were down slightly last year, totalling only $3,580, but other donations were received, adding $1,060. Persons wishing access to the archives must pay a small fee.
Plans for the museum expansion are still in the works, and the work is expected to be complete in 2010. Plans can go ahead when the building is repaired and the library has moved to its new location in the former Goldion Restaurant.
The Museum Society welcomed Councillor Maria Sadegur for another year as Town Council representative.
February 18-24 is designated as Heritage Week in B.C., but the Princeton Museum will be closed at that time, as Heritage Week in Princeton will be celebrated in August. At that time, Princeton Traditional Music Society will host a weekend music festival.
Jon Bartlett addressed the problem of the deteriorating audio tapes in the museum archives. These tapes contain interviews conducted with elders of the Princeton area, preserving their recollections. These are priceless bits of local history, but they are reaching the point where they may not be able to be reclaimed. The museum is acquiring machines that will transcribe the tapes onto CDs. Bartlett said he has hundreds of hours of taped music in his own collection and is looking for a grant to have these tapes transposed to CDs. The mechanical function is not costly, but a person must be employed to monitor each tape. This will be an ongoing project.
New members of the Museum Society are always welcomed. Meetings are held in the Chamber of Commerce Boardroom at 2:30 PM the second Tuesday of the month.
