Since ICOM Canada’s last Annual General Meeting in Halifax in 2016 at the Canadian Museum Association conference much has occurred. Among other activities, one of the most important was the hiring of a digital outreach and communications staff on contract. Her name is Katie Novak. Katie has been working at Fort Calgary in Alberta for more than five years, running their Education Department and also managing social media and marketing. Katie is very involved in her community, volunteering with with ‘Doors Open YYC’, ‘Beakerhead’, and several other community organizations. Katie loves connecting with the museum community across the country, and is very glad to be working with ICOM Canada coordinating social and digital media.
We continue to host our Google Hangouts on Air, which are live interviews on Google Hangout, recorded and available on Youtube for viewing. This year we interviewed France Desmarais (formerly of McCord Museum in Montreal) of the ICOM Secretariat in Paris, whose dossier is the tracking of illicit trafficking of artifacts with the International Observatory on Traffic in Illicit Goods.
We also spoke with Catherine C. Cole, the current President of the Commonwealth Association of Museums (CAM). CAM’s recent and upcoming workshop was the “Indigenous Heritage Round Table” which took place in Calgary, Alberta on June 20, 2017. Our views increase with each presentation of Canadian museologists featured on our ICOM Canada Youtube channel, so stay tuned for more in-depth interviewing of interesting museum people.
Our President, Audrey Vermette, past President, Shirley Madill and current Vice President, Marie Lalonde all attended the ICOM meeting in Milan, Italy, this year. ICOM presented changes to statutes, their annual report, and the summary financial statement for the organization. Suay Aksoy was welcomed as President. In December, ICOM Executive Board, during its 134th session on December, 2016, unanimously approved the appointment of Peter Keller as Director General and appointed Emma Nardi as ICOM Treasurer, in accordance with the ICOM Statutes and Internal Rules and Regulations – ICOM Canada wrote to congratulate Mr. Keller on his new role.
ICOM Canada’s Bursary program also congratulates our first recipient of the bursary, Rachel Roy, who received funding to participate in the Milan meeting. Rachel’s report was very interesting, and we look forward to funding another student to attend an ICOM conference in the near future. The bursary is a maximum of $1500 to attend an ICOM conference, and this year the deadline was May 5th; a committee of the board will be selecting this year’s recipient very soon!
ICOM Canada’s Awards Committee met in February to select the candidate for the ICOM Canada Award, to be presented at the CMA Conference in Ottawa. Joanne Landry (formerly of the Biodome in Montreal) is the recipient of the award this year. Her daughter accepted the award on her behalf, and she was also present at the meeting.
Short bio of Joanne Landry: Après une maîtrise en biologie cellulaire de l’Université de Sherbrooke, Johanne Landry y a poursuivi des études doctorales en microbiologie, puis en histoire et sociopolitique des sciences à l’Université de Montréal et finalement en didactique des sciences à l’Université de Paris. Arrivée en 1990 au Biodôme, elle a participé à la promotion et au lancement de ce musée. Elle a également été membre du conseil d’administration de diverses organisations muséales nationales et internationales, dont l’Alliance des musées d’histoire naturelle du Canada et les Muséums nature de Montréal qui incluent en plus de l’Insectarium, le Biodôme, le Jardin botanique et le Planétarium. Le dépaysement qui attend Johanne Landry ne l’effraie pas du tout, elle qui a séjourné notamment aux États-Unis et en Thaïlande, où elle a planifié d’août 1997 à octobre 1998 la création d’un complexe de quatre musées scientifiques. De plus, elle considère la France comme sa seconde patrie, car elle y a vécu de 1984 à 1990 alors qu’elle était chargée de projet à la Direction du développement international de la Cité des sciences et de l’industrie de la Villette à Paris. À ses yeux, le choc culturel qu’elle entrevoit sera source de stimulation. «Ça fait du bien de devoir s’adapter à un nouvel environnement. Ça met les neurones en activité, on est moins sur le pilote automatique», dit-elle.
The Board continues to work on promoting the benefits of being a member of ICOM Canada, and particularly wishes to welcome students as new members. With a new Strategic Plan in place, a healthy bank balance, and several new Board members, ICOM Canada is well on its way to starting a new chapter in the annals of its life as an international organization. An initiative that we are hoping will bear fruit in the near future includes a partnership with ICOM USA, and possibly a joint meeting with ICOM Mexico, so stay tuned for updates.
Do you participate in an ICOM International Committee, or do work that you think the ICOM Canada community would want to hear about? We’d love if you shared it with us! Please feel free to tag us or message us on social media and we’ll be happy to share.
Thank you/Merci,
The Board of ICOM Canada