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            The Preeceville and District Heritage Museum hosted the annual Seneca Root meeting of museums on April 27.

             Museums represented were: Preeceville, Sturgis Station House, Kamsack Power House, National Doukbour Heritage Village (Veregin), Melville, Canora Station House and Fort Pelly-Livingstone.

            Reports were presented from each museum and the Saskatchewan Museum Association.

Sturgis Station House

            Myrtle Boychuk presented the report from the Sturgis Station House Museum.

            "The Sturgis Station House Museum held its annual general meeting on March 1l at which time elections were held and two new board members were recruited, one of which volunteered to be treasurer for a two-year term."

            "We have family and individual memberships available which entitles the holder to discounts at the gift shop, the e-newsletter twice a year, to be eligible to be a board member and voting rights at the AGM.

            “With financial assistance from the Saskatchewan Culture (Museum Grant Program) grant and the Summer Student Works, we are in the process of hiring a curator and a summer student for the 2016 season.

            “The museum will open to the public on May 20 and we have organized an "opening day tea on May 25. During the winter months we have been busy with fundraising events that included: the Kinette fall market, Snowflakes and Sugarplums, soup-and-sandwich events, garage sale hot dog sales, a Rawhides’ supper, selling hamburgers at Co-op equity days, litter pick up, the Rhubarb festival in June, the Sturgis museum’s market and selling tickets for cash prizes.

            “Some funding has been received from the Sunrise Health Region and Parkland Valley Sport Culture and Recreation for the Educational programming - Celebrating First Nations Culture Day on September l1.

            “This summer we are planning to create more space for storage by closing a small upstairs room and converting it to a storage room for artifacts. Plans are also to complete the First Nations’ exhibit and to work to update or re-fresh the fur trade exhibits. Outside maintenance will include replacing some damaged deck boards, making the museum entrance fully wheelchair accessible and re-staining the entire deck," she said.

Preeceville and District Museum

            Agnes Murrin presented the Preeceville and District Museum report.

            "We plan on opening the museum on May 25. The museum will undergo an exterior painting with the job scheduled to be completed in 2016," she said.

            The spring clean up at the museum will be done in May. The museum will host an open house celebrating the Year of Ukrainians with a traditional welcome and the serving of homemade bread, jam and sweets.

            "Projects planned for this year include: the purchase of a larger fridge, acquiring more showcases and replacing the window in the lobby. We will be painting the additional fashion room and lobby this spring. New theme rooms feature: an electronics room, a 50s room, a beauty salon, a washroom and a nearby-community room.

            "We are revamping our patron boards and memorial donation boards. The fundraising projects scheduled for this year include: selling bread baked in the clay oven as well as events offering cinnamon buns, chili and bread, a 50s evening, a culture day event and we continue to sell history books."

            The museum plans to hire a summer student and continues to add to its artifact collections. There are 11 board members and two honorary life members.