Guest Speaker : John Picken introduced the guest speaker, Shirley Madill, who is the Director of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (AGGV) and who has just completed her first year as Director there. Shirley spoke about the gallery now and its future plans. Although it is not an old Gallery - it was founded in 1947 - it is one of the top 10 Art Museums in Canada based upon its collection, programs, and scale. The collections include extensive holdings of Emily Carr’s work, much of which is not shown, which the museum hopes to change. The East Asian collection is second only to the collections of the ROM, and out-ranks it in Japanese art. There are also strong Canadian and European collections which would be coveted by many other museums. The gallery hopes to leverage its collections to be able to get excellent shows here (I’ll lend you some of my art if you lend me some of yours...). The Gallery is active in community outreach, has 136,000 visitors per year, and 50,000 hits per month on its site. The collection is on the museum's digital database. Membership consitst of about 3,800 households, 12,500 students in programs, and 3,000 adults in programs each year. There are more artists per capita in Victoria than anywhere else in Canada. The gallery supports artists with the Moss Street Paint-in, and a rental/purchase program, among other things. The Gallery mounts three major programs each Fall. This year is Coast Salish Art; Winter will show Treasures Unearthed and will feature the biggest donation ever to the museum, tied with “Heaven and Earth Unveiled” which is from Hamilton. Spring will be “Warhol, Larger than Life” from Winnipeg. For visiting exhibits, the gallery mounts complementary exhibits from its own collection in other gallery spaces. The Museum has an annual operating budget of $2.6 million, 64% of which is raised via the community, which is a challenge but satisfying. It also has a 2.3 million endowment, $250,000 in capital and a $1 million endowment for acquisition, which is critical. The museum hopes to open a branch downtown, while retaining Moss Street. This will provide more space for both archival storage and for exhibitions and provide higher visibility and better access to tourists in town. The museum would like to partner with a developer similar to the arrangement that the Seattle Art Gallery enjoys. Shirley ended by inviting the members to be part of the Gallery, as a member, as a tour guide, as a volunteer, by joining the “President’s Circle”, or by decorating using the Art Rental program.

Joe Prentice thanked Shirley for her excellent talk, especially about the AGGV’s future plans and involvement in the community; Jack provided the famous, much sought after, four-way test mug.