Museum looks forward to future projects
By Paula White
For This Week
After months of painstaking work, the Rothesay Living Museum unveiled 12 photographs depicting significant historic events and people at Colwell’s grocery on Monday.
But although the unveiling celebrated the completion of that project, the museum committee’s work has only just begun. It is planning a number of projects for the coming months, including building websites, creating historic collections for the other communities that make up Rothesay and painting murals depicting historic events.
Its ultimate goal, however is to obtain a grant under the Canada Digital Collections Program to set up a web site that would provide national recognition for Renforth. The grant is only given to historical events that have national significance.
“That is the prerequisite for the Web site; that it has to be national in scope,” said museum curator Brian Perkins. “James Renforth, the Paris crew and the race outside of the area that was once called Chalet is of national significance.
“This is why we focused this summer in trying to prepare the information so that we could get the Web site proposal all completed. What we’re aiming for is to have student employed next year – four students working on developing a Web site to the history of rowing in the Renforth area.”
Mr. Perkins said the Web site would include information about historical rowing events, as well as current information about the area’s foremost athletes, such as Katie Reynolds who will attend the University of Michigan this fall under a full scholarship, and Olympian Ed Winchester.
“From that eventin1871 to 2000, there is a story (of rowing in Renforth),” Mr. Perkins said, “So our challenge has been to collect that new data, as well as the old materials and try and make a story.”
But first things first- information for the site has to be collected. Enter, Erica Schollenberg and the Renforth collection. Through a federal grant under the Youth Apprenticeship Program, she has been working all summer on the collection, re-photographing, cataloguing and, in some cases, digitally enhancing the original photos and placing the copies in frames. The originals will remain in preservation in the Renforth Room at Rothesay High School and the copies were given to Colwell’s.
Collecting historic photos from other Rothesay communities is one of the reasons the museum committee decided to place the Renforth collection in Colwell’s. Mr. Perkins said it hoped that by doing this, it would encourage residents to use the store as a drop-off.
“I’m sure that there’s this big treasure trove (of photographs) sitting out there.”
The process of collecting the Renforth photographs actually began in 1971. Mr. Perkins said Terry Stilwell, who was mayor of Renforth at the time, and councilors began storing the photos in council chambers, which at the time were located in the Bill McGuire Renforth Centre. When the village amalgamated with Rothesay, the town decided to find a way to preserve the items, and formed a committee known as the Renforth Pictorial History Committee. It was chaired by Bill Carson and counted among its members former village clerk Joan Fitzgerald.
Mr. Perkins, who has a background in photography and experience working with old photographs, was approached by the committee to work with the collection. They came up with the idea of re-photographing the pictures and placing them back into the community, and made a proposal to the town. When it was accepted, the name of the committee was changed to the Rothesay Living Museum.
“That’s been the focus of our attention (so far) because it was so well-organized by Mr. Stilwell, it gave us something we could really leapfrog from, Mr. Perkins said.
It was Mr. Perkins’ job to find a safe place to store the original photos, both Renforth’s as well as any others that come in. With its security system and controlled environment, the high school was the perfect location.“
“We have a good environment physically for them, plus we have the children from all those communities using the facilities. So if you want to maintain your history, if you want to keep and preserve the heritage that you have, the only way you’re going to be able to do that is to tell the children what your stories are – what your history is.”
This is how the schools library became known as the Renforth Room. Other rooms in the school will be named after other communities when enough items are collected.
Through a provincial grant, the committee has hired another student to set up a website about Renforth collection using the information that has been collected so far Andrew LeBlanc will spend three weeks creating the site.
“It’s not going to go into a lot of depth because we don’t have the time right now,” Ms. Schollenberg said.
Another project that the museum committee is working to complete is a calendar consisting of drawings of heritage buildings surrounding the Rothesay Common. This area is the only one in Rothesay to be designated a heritage area. During the past school year, Mr. Perkins enlisted the talents of his grade 11 art students to draw the buildings.
“There were a lot of people that were really good but (one student’s) really stood out. With pencil, he had achieved some masterpieces,” Mr. Perkins said. “I felt that it would be in that student’s best interest to have a calendar done of his singular efforts.”
That student is Dane Richards, and he is working on the calendar for the Rothesay Heritage Preservation and Review Board. Mr. Perkins said yet another student will start cataloguing the historic buildings in the greater Rothesay area under the direction of Greg Murdoch, an architect and member of the board.
Mr. Perkins is also toying with the idea of proposing a project that would involve plotting the topography and landscape of the area for a virtual reality tour.
“It’s really a cutting-edge technology project,” Mr. Perkins said. “The idea is that we create a virtual reality Rothesay Common that one can navigate through cyberspace and treat it as a three- dimensional model.”
That project, however, is still only a twinkle in his eye.
“It’s going to take a while because it is cutting edge and we’re not sure exactly where we’re going. There’s only one such facility like it that exists currently – in London Ont., at the National Research Council, and we want to have sort of a partnership with them and the town and the school to develop this three-dimensional modeling site.”
Wait. There’s more. The Rothesay Living Museum is also involved with the Communities In Bloom project. As part of the project, 56 murals have been painted in Saint John (and on e in Renforth at the Bill McGuire Renforth Centre). Students at Rothesay High School, and Mr. Perkins himself, have painted 12 of those murals, and will complete 5 more this fall.
The museum has received funding support from a number of sources, but so far much of its support, financial or otherwise, has come from the town.
“The town agreed to fund a number of initiatives to preserve, enhance or collect and store, not only this collection, but upcoming materials that may be submitted by members of the community.”
For This Week
After months of painstaking work, the Rothesay Living Museum unveiled 12 photographs depicting significant historic events and people at Colwell’s grocery on Monday.
But although the unveiling celebrated the completion of that project, the museum committee’s work has only just begun. It is planning a number of projects for the coming months, including building websites, creating historic collections for the other communities that make up Rothesay and painting murals depicting historic events.
Its ultimate goal, however is to obtain a grant under the Canada Digital Collections Program to set up a web site that would provide national recognition for Renforth. The grant is only given to historical events that have national significance.
“That is the prerequisite for the Web site; that it has to be national in scope,” said museum curator Brian Perkins. “James Renforth, the Paris crew and the race outside of the area that was once called Chalet is of national significance.
“This is why we focused this summer in trying to prepare the information so that we could get the Web site proposal all completed. What we’re aiming for is to have student employed next year – four students working on developing a Web site to the history of rowing in the Renforth area.”
Mr. Perkins said the Web site would include information about historical rowing events, as well as current information about the area’s foremost athletes, such as Katie Reynolds who will attend the University of Michigan this fall under a full scholarship, and Olympian Ed Winchester.
“From that eventin1871 to 2000, there is a story (of rowing in Renforth),” Mr. Perkins said, “So our challenge has been to collect that new data, as well as the old materials and try and make a story.”
But first things first- information for the site has to be collected. Enter, Erica Schollenberg and the Renforth collection. Through a federal grant under the Youth Apprenticeship Program, she has been working all summer on the collection, re-photographing, cataloguing and, in some cases, digitally enhancing the original photos and placing the copies in frames. The originals will remain in preservation in the Renforth Room at Rothesay High School and the copies were given to Colwell’s.
Collecting historic photos from other Rothesay communities is one of the reasons the museum committee decided to place the Renforth collection in Colwell’s. Mr. Perkins said it hoped that by doing this, it would encourage residents to use the store as a drop-off.
“I’m sure that there’s this big treasure trove (of photographs) sitting out there.”
The process of collecting the Renforth photographs actually began in 1971. Mr. Perkins said Terry Stilwell, who was mayor of Renforth at the time, and councilors began storing the photos in council chambers, which at the time were located in the Bill McGuire Renforth Centre. When the village amalgamated with Rothesay, the town decided to find a way to preserve the items, and formed a committee known as the Renforth Pictorial History Committee. It was chaired by Bill Carson and counted among its members former village clerk Joan Fitzgerald.
Mr. Perkins, who has a background in photography and experience working with old photographs, was approached by the committee to work with the collection. They came up with the idea of re-photographing the pictures and placing them back into the community, and made a proposal to the town. When it was accepted, the name of the committee was changed to the Rothesay Living Museum.
“That’s been the focus of our attention (so far) because it was so well-organized by Mr. Stilwell, it gave us something we could really leapfrog from, Mr. Perkins said.
It was Mr. Perkins’ job to find a safe place to store the original photos, both Renforth’s as well as any others that come in. With its security system and controlled environment, the high school was the perfect location.“
“We have a good environment physically for them, plus we have the children from all those communities using the facilities. So if you want to maintain your history, if you want to keep and preserve the heritage that you have, the only way you’re going to be able to do that is to tell the children what your stories are – what your history is.”
This is how the schools library became known as the Renforth Room. Other rooms in the school will be named after other communities when enough items are collected.
Through a provincial grant, the committee has hired another student to set up a website about Renforth collection using the information that has been collected so far Andrew LeBlanc will spend three weeks creating the site.
“It’s not going to go into a lot of depth because we don’t have the time right now,” Ms. Schollenberg said.
Another project that the museum committee is working to complete is a calendar consisting of drawings of heritage buildings surrounding the Rothesay Common. This area is the only one in Rothesay to be designated a heritage area. During the past school year, Mr. Perkins enlisted the talents of his grade 11 art students to draw the buildings.
“There were a lot of people that were really good but (one student’s) really stood out. With pencil, he had achieved some masterpieces,” Mr. Perkins said. “I felt that it would be in that student’s best interest to have a calendar done of his singular efforts.”
That student is Dane Richards, and he is working on the calendar for the Rothesay Heritage Preservation and Review Board. Mr. Perkins said yet another student will start cataloguing the historic buildings in the greater Rothesay area under the direction of Greg Murdoch, an architect and member of the board.
Mr. Perkins is also toying with the idea of proposing a project that would involve plotting the topography and landscape of the area for a virtual reality tour.
“It’s really a cutting-edge technology project,” Mr. Perkins said. “The idea is that we create a virtual reality Rothesay Common that one can navigate through cyberspace and treat it as a three- dimensional model.”
That project, however, is still only a twinkle in his eye.
“It’s going to take a while because it is cutting edge and we’re not sure exactly where we’re going. There’s only one such facility like it that exists currently – in London Ont., at the National Research Council, and we want to have sort of a partnership with them and the town and the school to develop this three-dimensional modeling site.”
Wait. There’s more. The Rothesay Living Museum is also involved with the Communities In Bloom project. As part of the project, 56 murals have been painted in Saint John (and on e in Renforth at the Bill McGuire Renforth Centre). Students at Rothesay High School, and Mr. Perkins himself, have painted 12 of those murals, and will complete 5 more this fall.
The museum has received funding support from a number of sources, but so far much of its support, financial or otherwise, has come from the town.
“The town agreed to fund a number of initiatives to preserve, enhance or collect and store, not only this collection, but upcoming materials that may be submitted by members of the community.”