The Great Recession and “where, for the best price, can I get…”: creating and running education programs on a budget: HME Meeting Monday October 21, 2013

Leader: Merri Fergusson

The food was great, and discussion lively last night at the Argyll Street Grill; we happily welcomed a few new faces to the group with our first bring-an-intern meeting.
Here are some notes from the evening.

Free stuff

• Kijiji and Craigslist but spend time going through it
• church and estate sales
• Scrapbooking supplies and old art and craft supplies
• Wallpaper stores will give away free samples or discontinued ends, as will paint stores. Just leave your name with them and when season changes, they discard old samples.
• In Mississauga: The Creative Zone joint effort between Catholic and Public Peel Region and everything is free but need to be from the area or school board. They get things donated in bulk
• Quilling a paper shredder will cut paper finely enough for this craft
• Senioropolis are professional downsizers will give to charitable or non-profit. Companies who relocate seniors from homes to apartments will give away stuff.

Low Cost Stuff

• Liaise with these companies to get stuff
• Habitat for Humanity Restore for paint
• Recycle Stores
• Burlington Reuse Centre 
• Thrift stores
• For City employees, there’s internal sell/trade pages
• Lyrical / Staples but for 40 percent less
• Popourri site to sell or give away (Mississauga City Employee pages)
• Baldwin craft supplies in Burlington Appleby Line
• Michaels 40 percent off coupons online
• purchase following seasons when everything is on sale
• Dollar stores
• Lens Mill Store in Stoney Creek
• Liquidation Centres
  Steel City Surplus @ 182 Dundurn St S, Hamilton, ON L8P 4K3 905-526-8551

Running Programs

Issues: Budget and staff cuts

Sometimes supplies are old and tired and too well used

Reflects badly; what's the pull to get schools to our sites?  Especially if your supplies are tired-looking, broken, missing

people with fresh ideas don't get the time

introducing technology into education programs and how to get funding

theatre companies have storage and may be willing to partner

eg: Players Guild on Queen Street in Hamilton

Mississauga Museum

intern from OISE project with two camps

partner with drama, dance and history Bradley Mashup

concept, introduction, and curriculum; had 70 hours to work

reworked old camp idea and refreshed it

critique and feedback from staff the intern put all of the evaluations together

Outreach vs at institution

Outreach can be a cheaper way to teach about our collection while using school resources (rather than museum resources) and link to curriculum.

History Matters Association WWI Benares Historic House in Mississauga

schools resist due to hiring cost of supply teachers

free vs paid tours: free might mean no commitment

Computers for Schools Program St Catharines

Tech Soup: good place for inexpensive software

webinar by historical society for new Ontario curriculum

Building Stories heritage assets in your community from Waterloo and mobile App

Changes between old and new curriculum