Agenda Item

Follow Up

1. Welcome & Introductions

April

2. Guest Speaker

• John Kastner

• Society has changed and museums have had to work hard to keep up with those changes in order to stay relevant to the public. The museum in Stratford has been around for years, changing locations several times.

• When John came into management, a survey done with Stratford residents was being looked at. At that time, 6% of people reported they knew that Stratford had a museum and only 3% people reported that they knew where the museum was located. These results made it clear that things needed to change if the museum was going to stay open. At this time, the museum was agriculturally based. When they started to move away from this theme, controversy was created because Perth county has a large agricultural population.

• One of the first changes they made to their image was getting possession of the First Foray with the Festival Shakespeare’s First Folio. This idea stemmed from the Stratford Festival. They wanted access to this for the play they were doing. However, the owner would only release it to the museum. It was worth 21 million dollars. There were only 81 existing in the world, and only one in Canada. John pushed to be able to get this here in the gallery through funding and donations. Rotary donated to this. When it arrived, there were several security measures that included cameras, guards, and police officers. It was brought in a case that was locked and wired.

• The next year, the Diary of Anne Frank was being done at the Stratford Festival. They were able to create an exhibit here for the Diary of Anne Frank. This significantly increased their numbers from 853 people in 2015 to over 11,000 people the year the Anne Frank exhibit was here.

• As the numbers started to increase the museum continued to make changes, including how creative they were with their space. They began renovating and using the space for a variety of things such as meetings, book clubs, etc.

• To continue to add to the changes at the museum, they created permanent exhibits.  Specifically, a railway exhibit and an ag wall of fame. The museum was able to partner with Off the Wall, which focuses on the arts. They have been able to support bringing some of the exhibits to life.

• The next big project was creating the Justin Bieber exhibit – Steps to Stardom. When they created this exhibit they did not know how big it would get. They announced it quietly and it blew up quickly. It captured the attention of the news. John received a call from People magazine requesting pictures to publish.  They spent money creating this exhibit but have made thousands of dollars off of this. Specifically, in 2013 they were losing money on the gift shop. They slowly started to make more money off the gift shop but the year the Steps to Stardom exhibit was created they made $40,000.00. They gained significant exposure through social media, news stations, radio, etc. A study was conducted and it was found that over 500 million people had exposure to this museum. Likely because of social media and the museum being posted about on influencers social media pages

• The popularity of the Stratford museum is extremely rare compared to other museums. The changes and popularity were so prominent that John was approached to write a book about their year at the museum. This book has been written and will be sold in various book stores.

John

3. Adoption of Agenda

 

April

3. Previous Minutes

April

4. Standing Items

• 4.1 Book Drive

• Goodwill did not seem interested in donating or acting as a drop off spot but have Erin’s contact information if they become interested.

• Salvation Army is looking to see what they will do and will be connecting back with Erin once they know.

• Shira and David have offered to help with pickups of books

• Drop off locations are MTE and Nesbitt Financial.

• We will be sorting books during the first meeting in April

• 4.2 Dueling Piano’s

• Everything is coming together

• We have sold at least $1,000.00 worth of tickets to go towards the charity and more is expected to come through ticket sales

• Any questions can be directed towards Johnathon

• 4.3 Board Update

-April is stepping down March 15th and Nick will be taking over

-Kelly will be reaching out to people about open positions. During our next meeting there should be more of an update.

5. Business Arising

• N/A
   

6. New Business & Idea Sharing

• N/A

7. Next Meeting and Location

Thursday March 21, 2018 @ 6:30 – TBD

8. Meeting Adjourned
 

9. Parking Lot