Outside the Box

As the call for board nominations starts reaching your inboxes, I wanted to say a few words about  what you might expect as a board member. This may be new information even to those who have served on the board before. The board experience is different than it used to be, something that became clear to me after starting my current term as treasurer, following a six-year break from the board. The board currently meets six times a year; most meetings are half-day video conferences (with those outside Regina or Saskatoon able to join by phone). We try to meet once or twice in person, but attendance by phone can certainly be accommodated for those meetings as well, for individuals who are unable to travel. Expenses are covered when travel is involved. As I mentioned, the role of the board has shifted. Day-to-day management of the Council is in the capable hands of our Executive Director, Gloria Bearss (with the b-creative team) and our Archives Advisor, Cameron Hart. That mea...

On March 12th, the SCAA hosted a day-long workshop on the topic of Indigenous-Settler relationships, decolonization, and reconciliation, called the Respect and Relationship Session. The workshop consisted of a morning talk by Eugene Arcand, a Residential School survivor, about his experiences. After lunch, participants were invited to join in a blanket exercise, a teaching tool to share the historic and contemporary relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada. For more information on the workshop, please see this previous post.    Following is a brief review of the event, with reflections on the morning's talk by Crista Bradley of the University of Regina, and reflections on the blanket exercise in the afternoon by the Provincial Archives' Jeremy Mohr.  Crista Bradley University of Regina Archives  Records and Information Management Archivist On the morning of March 12, 2018, SCAA members gathered for the first half of the Respect an...

Only three months late, I thought I would share a bit about Saskatoon's archives week event, an archival "variety show" held at the historic Roxy theatre. This is the third year running we have held an event at the Roxy, and while it has taken some creative thinking on how best to make use of a theatre space (previously our "celebrity reader" events were held at the much more intimate jazz-house), we seem to have hit our stride with a variety show format. The idea grew out of the mixed format we employed last year, in which we showcased a variety of archival films, with a break in the film action for a skit on Canada's flag debate in the middle (Diefenbaker played by yours truly). This year, the evening consisted of a number of readings of materials from archival collections, accompanied by relevant images projected onto the big screen (see below), a showcase of archival footage, and an interactive historical trivia game provided by the Western Development ...