We have a title; welcome Katimavik; good-bye Disney!

So, we have a title for our event (the one I wrote about a few weeks ago). We actually have had a title for a few weeks now but I wanted to wait until the invitations were mailed before I revealed the big secret.....

For those who have no clue of what I am talking about, I had mentioned awhile back that we are having a Donor Appreciation/VIP party (all of our donors are VIP's, whether they have donated to Archives, Collections, to a mail out, helped with an event or program, etc). We were looking for a FUN name, not just "The Galt's Donor Recognition Party" or something similar. We had a great fun game idea that our Collections guru, Kevin Maclean, had pointed out to me some years ago that another museum does at their annual fundraising supper, we had music and food booked, but we had no title!

After much humming and hawwing, google-ing trying to find ideas, and chatting with each other, it was one of our staff's husbands who had the brilliant brainwave that was soooo fitting! This year, our donor appreciation event is called ArtiFACT or FICTION. This fits in with the game we will be playing (which is along the lines of Fact or Fiction using artifacts) and it's fun, interesting and different - something that should get people's curiosity when they open their mail!

This is definitely going to be a fun night! We would love to have YOU receive an invitation for our 2011 event - all you have to do is donate in some capacity in 2010, to some area of the Galt. One cannot weigh the value of a donated artifact or letter, so we invite ANYONE who donates anything/any amount to attend! You could be a part of this event next year....and I'm sure you'll be anticipating just seeing the invitation and what name we come up with at that time.

On another note, we were excited to have our two newest Katimavik placements start yesterday. Danielle comes to us from Halifax and Nadia is from Quebec City. They will be here until the end of May and both are very fun, nice women! Nadia wants to learn more English and we are hoping her French will rub off on us a bit, too!

And finally, I am sad to say that the Disney program to promote volunteering has ended! We received an email just last Friday, March 5th, stating that 600,000 of the 1 million passes were now spoken for (not necessarily earned but 600,000 volunteer positions had been signed up for since January 1st) so they knew the program was going to close earlier than December 15th.

Low and behold, last night I went to their site to check out some volunteer opportunities we had posted and to make sure they were current, and I found out that last night the millionth opportunity had bee signed up for and the program is done! Wow, talk about an amazingly successful program - it was planned to run for most of the year and it had to conclude in early March because it was so popular! Sadly for us though, that means many people who were planning on earning passes later this year to use for their trip to Disneyland, will not be able to participate in this program. We will still gladly accept them for a volunteer opportunity if they are interested, but we won't be able to issue them a Disney pass for their time.

Maybe if we put the pressure on Disney, they will release more passes or do this program again annually or every few years??? If you thought it was a great idea, I recommend picking up a pen or typing an email and letting them know how much it was appreciated and how great it would be to promote volunteerism this way on a regular basis!

THANK YOU to all of those who earned Disney passes by assisting us. We gave away around 150 passes and about 30 of those were actually donated to Dreams Take Flight Canada! You helped make a difference to the Galt Museum & Archives and we hope you enjoy your free day at Disneyland/Disneyworld.