The Lake Country Museum and Archives (LCMA) highlighted its activities over the past couple of years at Tuesday’s (June 7) council meeting.
It included the announcement that long-serving president, Dr. Duane Thomson, had stepped down. Long-time LCMA volunteer Tracey Arseneault has taken over the role and Dr. Thomson will be helping with the transition. Lake Country Heritage and Culture Society Executive Director, Lynn Fanelli, told council that the COVID-19 pandemic presented challenges but added there were also positives.
“We enhanced our online platforms and digital presence,” said Fanelli. “Our social media and website have soared.”
Another focus is telling the story of Lake Country.
“Making sure they are relevant to Lake Country residents,” said Fanelli. “We have a lot of stories in Lake Country that haven’t been told. But one of them we have been able to tell was through the South Asian Celebration last fall at the Creekside Theatre. It was a huge success and told of the experience of people immigrating from South Asia to Canada and Lake Country.”
Fanelli said one of the biggest challenges they faced was the serious humidity damage done to some of their artifacts collection. A review of artifacts hadn’t been done since 1985.
“It’s really putting pressure on us to not continually lose more and more of our artifacts to damage from humidity,” she said. “So some hard hard decisions need to be made to find funds to preserve the collection, and we have a large gap in our collection that needs to be filled.”
Fanelli added among other goals going forward the LCMA will position itself to be more family-friendly.
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@GaryBarnes109
gary.barnes@kelownacapnews.com
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