National Trust Conference 2015 October 22 24, 2015 Liza Dawber - Grants Specialist Marilyn MacArthur Manager, Business Development
Heritage Energized National Trust Conference 2015 Wednesday October 21, 2015 The conference registrations for this conference were complimentary as recognition for our heritage project efforts. National Trust for Canada Conference Meet and Greet. Spoke with Ron Kelland from the Alberta Historical Resources Foundation. Ron was interested to talk about the RCAF base and enquired as to progress with designations. All property owners seem to be on board but as it is a massive task to designate such a nationally important site the AHRF are interested in helping and guiding us through the process. I will touch base with Ron after our next heritage Advisory Board meeting. Heritage Energized A fabulous opportunity to mix with dedicated community volunteers, Provincial and Federal Government representatives and funders. Met with Jim Mountain from the National trust for Canada. Jim will also be a good contact when designating a national historic resource. Both as an advisor and from a funding perspective. Thursday October 22, 2015 Learning Tour cspace (King Edward Creative Hub) & Currie Barracks Cutting-Edge Developments. cspace is an example of how historic buildings can be repurposed for other uses. The King Edward school was a catholic school until 2010, it then sat vacant for a number of 1
years until it was purchased for a multi-disciplinary hub facility. The grounds were sub divided and sold, the land will be re-purposed as high end flats or condominiums, and the other sub-division will have seniors facilities built. The old sandstone building being the hub for each development with creative learning, preschool, restaurant and arts space. It was a good learning opportunity to encourage out of the box thinking when it comes to our heritage properties. Quite often re-purposing a building can be more cost effective than tearing down and building new as is common to do these days. We need to thoroughly explore all options or we are in danger of losing our past for the sake of convenience. Currie Barracks This was a bus tour of the barracks with examples of how they have re-purposed their buildings for modern use. The old officers mess being a central point and now used as a site for show-home developments adjacent to the building. The old stables were recently purchased by a micro-brewery, and the barracks are occupied by a number of differing age groups of school children. It was interesting to see the different ages play and mingle on the old parade square. Classroom learning Getting it right Design on Main Street. How to treat your downtown community as a whole with a bottom up approach to historical buildings. Some communities have lost their connection to the past and as a consequence lose their individuality. We can suffer from home blindness where we lose sight of what is right in front of us. Suggestion - Think of having an innovation hub somewhere down town where people can walk in and see what the plans for main street are and provide their opinions. A main street business mix tends to change every 5-10 years, how do we manage those buildings, and how do we manage change? 2 Many main street buildings are heritage, they just have coverings. When you remove those coverings the buildings are often relatively un-harmed or unchanged beneath.
Suggestion do a get to know your downtown tour. Invite property owners and interested parties to tour the downtown and talk about each building. We learned about different styles of buildings throughout the years from boomtown to art deco. We learned the different ways that towns lost their identities through devastating fires and inappropriate façade treatments how do we manage these? Suggestion Have a Main Street Historic District, this way we can attract funding for historic buildings individually without having to do a whole main street historical project. Friday, October 23, 2015 Energy Investment heritage as a source of strength Examples of for profit and not-for-profit investors in heritage properties. How investment in heritage properties increases community pride and encourages self-investment from property owners. Suggestion Take members of the Heritage Advisory Board to Medicine Hat s historic clay district to see what they did with Medalta. They started with no money whatsoever and have turned it into a World Heritage Site. Made contact with Barry Finkelman and he is happy to talk with us. Poster Presentations Launch of the National Trust This Place Matters campaign. A crowdfunding platform where the National Trust will match.50c for every dollar donated to the restoration or preservation of a historical resource. Concentrating on lighthouses right now as may are disappearing from coastlines but could we do one on the prairies for elevators? Sent information to the HAB and to Aspen Crossing for their elevator renovations. Presentation from Marla Touw Alberta heritage Places as Film Locations. They have a photo library that is used when looking for film locations. Will contact her about adding some of our heritage sites (scary movie in the Grange Hotel? (War 3
type TV Series at the RCAF base?) We have a wealth of locations that could be showcased. Contacted Marla regarding photo library how do we get in on the action? Presentation on First Nations Historic sites First Nations sites are often overlooked, but there is a growing trend for sightseers looking for First Nations sites for cultural and spiritual purposes. Heritage Incentives as Catalyst for Community Revitalization presentation on incentives some municipalities provided by way of encouragement financially and inkind for some of their heritage property owners. Fillipino Newcomers and the Extraordinary Revival of Maple Creek s Commercial Hotel Maple Creek s Commercial Hotel had gone through many hands, suffering from a major flood in 2005 it was slated for demolition. A group of Fillipino recent immigrants purchased the Hotel and with assistance from the local community and their municipal government restored the hotel to its former glory. Now housing a world class restaurant and desirable accommodations. In all this was a very useful conference to attend. Due to this conference not being in the budget we unfortunately had to cut our attendance down to 2 days, while the conference went on through the weekend. We also missed out on a number of sessions that required payment for the same reason. Future heritage conferences will prove useful. This is an excellent way to draw word wide attention to the Vulcan County area. People believe that our County is flat with little in the way of Historical Artifacts. Unless we attend conferences and make our presence known on a regular basis we will continue to be over looked. There is no reason we could not have a world heritage site at one of our First Nations sites, the RCAF base is a fantastic example and probably the best preserved in the whole of Canada, our main street hotels are in dire need of a cash influx. 4 Having the registrations ($1,250 value) complimentary to us was fantastic. I appreciate being able to take advantage of it at relatively short notice.