WRmuseum feature 11/1/11 11:21 AM Page 1 A SPECIALADVERTISING FEATURE OF THE WATERLOO REGION RECORD - NOVEMBER 2011 WRmuseum feature 11/1/11 11:22 AM Page 2 FREE ADMISSION NO V . 12 & 13, 2011 GRAND OPENING! FREE GRT SHUTTLE from 1 to 5 p.m. on Saturday & Sunday from Fairview Park Mall to Waterloo Region Museum! Family fun activities on both days featuring the magnificent Exhibits Opening! magician Wilber Cortez! Visit website for full schedule of events • What Makes Us Who We Are? Saturday, November 12 • Community Highlight Exhibit: 9:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. The Hmong i n Waterloo Region 10 a.m. Official Opening Ceremony for Exhibits 6:30 - 9:30 p.m. Ernie Kalwa Jazz Trio • Unconventional Thinking: Innovation in Waterloo Region Sunday, November 13 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Exhibits 0pen! Connect with us. 10 Huron Rd., Kitchener, Ontario Tel: 519-748-1914 www.waterlooregionmuseum.com WRmuseum feature 11/1/11 11:22 AM Page 3 A SPECIAL ADVERTISING FEATURE OF THE WATERLOO REGION RECORD - NOVEMBER 2011 • WATERLOO REGION MUSEUM 3 Investing in Our Future with Our Past with Ken Seiling,Regional Chair he Waterloo Region Museum represents functional community and teaching space. “It's a not just the history of one of Canada's most building to which anybody can relate,” says industrious and ambitious communities, it Seiling, “because there's a piece of all parts of the is also a monument to the cooperation and shared Region in it. It will serve a long time in telling the Tvision of scores of people for nearly two centuries. story of the community.” “The scale of the project and Regional Council’s The process of assembling, categorizing, and investment was absolutely necessary to adequately curating the wealth of documents and artifacts tell Waterloo Region's story,” says Ken Seiling, since 1912 – through the hands of collectors, Regional Chair. Seiling notes that Waterloo Region historical societies, and others – has been a labour was one of the last municipalities in Ontario to be of love for the many hands along the way. The without its own museum, but the long planning Waterloo Region Museum, though, is not the end A local curling team period is certainly worthwhile, considering the of the road, neither is it a conclusion to the story of shows their Scottish results. this place. As significant an achievement as it is – and adapts, the museum – its structure, exhibits pride around 1900. Seiling commends the 14-member steering and it is – the museum is part of the ongoing and supporters – will take on new meaning as a committee, two architectural firms, community history of Waterloo Region and its many reminder of and providing insight about our past, organizations, museum staff, and countless others communities. As the inevitable changes in the as well as a place to tell about the hopes and who worked together to create the multi- world take place, and Waterloo Region innovates ambitions of a story yet to be told. Personal Commercial Financial Celebrating the history of Waterloo Region R0011146502 What you want to protect the most 519 579 4270 ... we protect the best! www.erb-erb.com ALLIANCE ROOFING & Sheet Metal Ltd. CONGRATULATIONS Twin City Tile CO. LTD. Alliance Roo´ ng is ON YOUR Celebrating 70 Years of History 1942-2012 proud to have worked on GRAND Ceramic • Vinyl • Carpets this community project. Hardwood • Laminate • Terrazzo OPENING! Marble/Slate • Granite Countertops 25 Cope Court Guelph, Ontario Tel: 519-763-1442 • Toll Free: 1-888-331-1442 596 Frederick Street | Kitchener | 519.743.4179 www.twincitytile.com www.alliancerooµ ng.ca R0011141817 WRmuseum feature 11/1/11 11:22 AM Page 4 Make Time for Great Music | 2011/12 Season 4 WATERLOO REGION MUSEUM - NOVEMBER 2011 Yuletide Classical Mystery National Spectacular Tour: Music of Chinese From the initial plan, through its introspective design process, innovative construction, and the Beatles Acrobats pops Dec 16 & 17 A GREAT FAMILY provocative programming, the Waterloo Region Museum provides a remarkable expression HOLIDAY TRADITION! Feb 10 & 11 May 10 & 11 of this community's will to determine its own identity and express it as an act of creation. Russian Fire Spanish Origins: Mozart Festival Dec 2-4 Bolero & Rodrigo April 20-22 Regional Council is responsible for the operation of Waterloo Region Museum, Doon Feb 17 & 18 Heritage Village, Joseph Schneider Haus and McDougall Cottage.The Region of Waterloo signature approved construction of the Waterloo Region Museum in 2008.The museum building Distant Worlds: music from FINAL FANTASY opened in May 2010. One Night Only! Feb 28, 2012 special © 2009, 2010 SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved. CHARACTER DESIGN: TETSUYA NOMURA musicforyou REGIONAL COUNCILS Tickets from $19 I For full season details contact us 2006-2014 kwsymphony.ca I 519.745.4711 I 888.745.4717 R0011151881 Ken Seiling, Regional Chair Les Armstrong Jane Brewer Todd Cowan Your walls Doug Craig Kim Denouden will thank us. Rob Deutschmann Tom Galloway Jean Haalboom Brenda Halloran Ross Kelterborn Geoff Lorentz 103-187 King Street South, Waterloo Claudette Millar In the Bauer Marketplace | 519-745-2278 Jane Mitchell www.PaulaWhiteDiamond.com Wayne Roth Jake Smola Bill Strauss Sean Strickland Jim Wideman Carl Zehr WATERLOO REGION FRIENDS OF THE MUSEUM STEERING WATERLOO REGION COMMITTEE: MUSEUM: Tom Galloway (Councillor, Chair) Kelly Smith, President Jean Haalboom (Councillor, Vice-Chair) Richard Deckert, Vice President Les Armstrong (Councillor) Alison Jackson, Treasurer Jane Brewer (Councillor) Carmel Marshall, Secretary Claudette Millar (Councillor) Ross Edwards, Past President Jane Mitchell (Councillor) Shalagh Cassidy Ken Seiling (Regional Chair) Debbie Kinzie-Maidment Sean Strickland (Councillor) Kim Rambaldini Cathy Blackbourn (Community Member) Barbara Rice Lou Cull (Community Member) Mary-Lou Schagena Karen Dearlove (Community Member) Bonnie Street Debbie Kinzie-Maidment (Community Member) Brian Snyder (Community Member) Warren Stauch (Community Member) Waterloo Region Museum is a not-for-profit museum owned and operated by the Region of Waterloo and is part of the Planning, Housing and Community Services Department. R0011149990 Rob Horne,Commissioner of Planning, Housing and Community Services Lucille Bish, Director of Community Services WRmuseum feature 11/1/11 11:22 AM Page 5 A SPECIAL ADVERTISING FEATURE OF THE WATERLOO REGION RECORD - NOVEMBER 2011 • WATERLOO REGION MUSEUM 5 This is how we make history Waterloo Region’s past, present & future he new museum, which first opened its doors in May of 2010, has been a long time in the making. Tom Reitz, the Manager/Curator of the Waterloo Region Museum, begins the story of the region's repository of culture just where you might expect: at the beginning. “1912 marked the founding of the WTaterloo Historical Society,” he explains. “There was, at the time, no one collecting local material culture in this way.” A few stalwart citizens with an appreciation for the emblems of human achievement began collecting donations of old newspapers and documents, objects, and materials. As the collection grew, the Historical Society identified the need for “a fireproof facility” to store the wealth of artifacts that ranged in origin from natural history to First Nations, agricultural, and industrial. The striking new museum on Homer Watson Boulevard, says Reitz, is the realization of the Society's – and then the Region’s – nearly century-old mandate to find a safe place to preserve the region’s human history and cultures. “In the mid 1990s,” Reitz notes, “the Waterloo Region Curatorial Centre Above:Tom Reitz, Manager/Curator for Waterloo was constructed, which allowed for the proper storage, inventory, and Region Museum, stands in front of an orginal cataloguing of the collection. It was a necessary step, and in hindsight was Conestoga Wagon. really the best process.” With a thorough catalogue of the 43,000 objects in Left: A hair curling or permanent wave machine the core collection and more than 100,000 in the archaeological collection, used at a local beauty parlour in the 1930s. the decade head start of organizational efforts allowed for the new Right: Emila Mogk in a traditional costume in the museum to be built from the exhibits, out. early 1900s. The challenge remained for Reitz and Waterloo Region Museum's curatorial staff to take what amounts to a small fraction of the collection and create a cohesive, compelling continued next page WRmuseum feature 11/1/11 11:22 AM Page 6 6 WATERLOO REGION MUSEUM - A SPECIAL ADVERTISING FEATURE OF THE WATERLOO REGION RECORD - NOVEMBER 2011 Historycontinued from previous page narrative that would engage and inform communities here meant reaching out to visitors to the museum about the area's experts when appropriate. Such expertise complex and diverse historical and was needed for the First Nations section of contemporary cultures. The museum’s the long-term exhibit. primary exhibit, entitled What During community consultations prior Makes Us Who We Are? is, to developing the museum's according to Reitz, “a broad- programming, the brush representation of public identified First Waterloo Region's Nations' history as community.” something of great With such a wealth of importance to the story of material to choose from, Waterloo Region. But, as a selecting the stories to be diverse community with a told and the tools with highly politicized cultural which to tell them – history, it was clear to Reitz such as choosing from and the others curators that they lacked sufficient knowledge a vast number of Visitors to the Waterloo Region Museum will find an amazing selection of artifacts and exhibits from about local Aboriginal culture to photographs, some of early pioneer contributors to 20th-century items such as an Electrohome microwave shown above produce an appropriate exhibit. The which were sourced from local and the famous RIM BlackBerry (left).