Report to the Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society Annual General Meeting – 2009

The past year has been quite eventful for the Mennonite Heritage Village. By and large, these events are not visible while driving by our location in Steinbach but have a significant impact on our operations. Many are visible when one visits our site.

Our gallery hosted three different temporary exhibits in the last year.

Cover Photographs from the Messenger, by Dave K. Schellenberg (Nov. 2007 - May, 2008)

Nature’s Power, Wildlife Photography by Dennis Fast (May – June 2008)

Honey: The Story of Beekeeping in Western Canada (July 2008 – April 2009)

MHV accepted 102 donated artifacts and accessioned 1192 artifacts recovered from archeological excavations at the Blumenhoff site in 2008. This brings our total number of artifacts in our collection to over 13,000. The process of logging the items in this collection was completed recently by one of our Katimavik volunteers.

The archeological excavation project referred to above was a significant activity for our Curator, Dr. Roland Sawatzky. With the help of 21 university students and 5 University of Winnipeg staff, progress was made at the excavation site 3 miles north of Steinbach. We anticipate more activity there this summer.

Our Heritage Building Restoration Project saw a number of initiatives addressing the Chortitz House Barn dwelling, the Old Colony Church, the Lichtenaur Church, the Private School and the Granary. A village the size of MHV requires significant investment in ongoing restoration and maintenance.

We also experienced a number of staff changes. Bob Strong, Executive Director, resigned in September of 2008 and was replaced by Barry Dyck in February of 2009. Dr. Roland Sawatzky, our Curator, resigned in July of 2008 and was replaced by Rebecca Plett for a short term. We are pleased to report that Roland has returned to MHV as our Senior Curator in January of 2009. Dora Penner joined us as our Food Services Manager for the 2008 season and we’re happy that she and her team have decided to return for the 2009 season. The ethnic cuisine in our Livery Barn Restaurant adds authenticity and “flavour” to the experience of our guests.

At our annual general meeting in March, it was reported that Mennonite Heritage Village had again experienced and operating deficit in 2008. Our auditor reminded us that we have a wonderful and valuable enterprise here and encouraged us to dig deep to assure its ongoing sustainability. It is a pleasure to report that MHV has hired John Milinkovic, a local business person, as our Fundraising Manager effective April 1, 2009. The Board of Directors will be meeting for a day in April to do long term strategic thinking and planning. We welcome your ideas and general support for the work of MHV

Respectfully Submitted by:

Barry Dyck

Executive Director