Events

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. My presentation is drawn from many places in my life. For many years, I worked as a CBC broadcaster so I know a little bit about telling stories effectively using multimedia.

For over a decade, I travelled the world documenting Canada’s relief and development projects. I used to take these epic journeys to distant places far beyond any tourist spots, get out of a plane, and step back into the 18^th century where people still drive donkey carts and live in mud houses. I met some of the poorest people in the world, and if they were to wait for their governments to assist them, they’d be waiting a long time. They didn’t have any money. What they had was lots of community resolve. So they were doing all kinds of things buildings schools, health clinics, houses, wells and starting small businesses to improve their lives. I have never forgotten these remarkable people and I have borrowed from that experience witnessing the power of community resolve.

I have a great interest in local history – my “history addiction” as I call it. My interest began many years ago with my Masters of Journalism thesis on the canning industry of Prince Edward County, once the centre of the industry in Canada. I was an author in search of a subject back then, but I knew within a very few interviews with old-timers talking about the early days of the industry in their kitchens and on their verandahs, that I was sitting on a great untold story of Canada.

Finally, I have spent much of my life working with non-profit organizations as an Executive Director, board member and chair, volunteer and consultant. Over the last decade, I have worked with a volunteer board to restore a heritage property, The Glenwood Cemetery in Picton.  So I have lived the concept I am presenting to you today. And the concept is this:

Every community has its stories to tell.  These are often hidden away in the collections of museums, libraries, cemeteries and archives. But this “hidden history” can be transformed into “popular history” – goods and services that meet the worldwide consumer demand for history and heritage. In this way, history and heritage can be considered a commodity that can be mined and refined, processed and packaged, marketed, distributed and retailed just like any other product.

Heritage organizations are often considered “municipal loss leaders” for the taxpayer funding they require each year. But I believe they are storehouses of history – “history factories” – that can become “profit centres” if only we developed the untapped potential lying dormant in our communities to develop a “heritage economy.”

This presentation is focused on two aspects of heritage:

1. PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONS and COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT on the importance of history and heritage
2. THE MARKETPLACE for history and heritage

Most of us working with small community charities – and this is especially so with heritage organizations, museums, cemeteries, and heritage societies – are “heritage beggars” highly dependent upon dwindling grants, annual funding from municipal governments with limited funds and great demands, and the charity of our communities already supporting a great many other worthy causes.

I believe heritage is ultimately about money. And until we can find ways to finance ourselves, we will always be heritage beggars. We will watch our landmark buildings and special places disappear and be unable to intervene; our organizations will simply age and tire and fade from view in the coming decades; and we will not be a factor in shaping an alternative vision for our communities that embraces and respects the past. We will –at best – watch from the sidelines.

For all these reasons, heritage remains a last priority in most communities – an afterthought. But what if we changed our thinking? What if we did something memorable? Could we change our world? Yes, I believe so…. because that is happening in my own community of

Most of us working with small community charities – and this is especially so with heritage organizations, museums, cemeteries, and heritage societies – are “heritage beggars” highly dependent upon dwindling grants, annual funding from municipal governments with limited funds and great demands, and the charity of our communities already supporting a great many other worthy causes.

I believe heritage is ultimately about money. And until we can find ways to finance ourselves, we will always be heritage beggars. We will watch our landmark buildings and special places disappear and be unable to intervene; our organizations will simply age and tire and fade from view in the coming decades; and we will not be a factor in shaping an alternative vision for our communities that embraces and respects the past. We will –at best – watch from the sidelines.

For all these reasons, heritage remains a last priority in most communities – an afterthought. But what if we changed our thinking? What if we did something memorable? Could we change our world? Yes, I believe so…. because that is happening in my own community of Prince Edward County.

The Challenge of Heritage Properties

Glenwood Cemetery: A Case History

Some years ago I became active in the restoration of an historic cemetery, The Glenwood Cemetery, in my hometown of Picton. Glenwood is a spectacular, 62-acre Victorian cemetery located in the heart of Picton. It’s a timepiece looking just like it did when it opened in 1873. But by 2000, Glenwood was in rough shape because of:

• 50 years of community neglect
• Three heritage buildings needing urgent repair
• Four kilometres of impassable roads
• Lost records

• Three heritage buildings needing urgent repair
• Four kilometres of impassable roads
• Lost records
• Fallen monuments
• No professional staff/equipment
• No revenues 

Back then, Glenwood gave new meaning to the word “non-profit.”

It’s not easy to market a cemetery. But we began to look at the cemetery as a conventional business with a product line. At the worst of times, we came up with some pretty whacky ideas – “scratch and lose lottery tickets,” “two for one sales,” and “Lucky Wednesdays” just to relieve all the stress we were under. But that was the beginning of our discussions of Glenwood as a product that needed to be marketed. And in the end, we decided to market the story of Glenwood.

Communicating a Vision

We developed a small brochure to tell the story of Glenwood, its history, our vision for it, and how people could help by donating, volunteering, purchasing a plot and leaving a gift to the cemetery as part of their estate planning. The brochure cost $1,200 to print 5,000 copies. Some board members argued we couldn’t afford it. I asked for donations from the board to pay the costs, and those against the expenditure said,” I’m not going to give you any money. I’m giving my time.”

I said,” We’re not raising time tonight. We’re raising money for this brochure so we can go into the community and raise awareness and funds for the cemetery.” Some board members never did contribute and they left the organization. But we got the money. We printed our brochure. And we engaged the community by presenting it to every community group who would listen. And they did.

 Measureable Results

In 2000, Glenwood took in about $5,000 in donations from kind people who gave us money even when we didn’t ask. In 2001/2002 after our community campaign, we took in nearly

$90,000 in donations – money that we were able to match with two $75,000 grants for use for one of our projects, the restoration of the Chapel, an elegant stone building built in 1901, and a project that would take eight years and nearly $300,000 to complete.

We had increased media and public interest and an increase in ongoing donations.

We discovered we were successful because we were marketing “memories” not a cemetery. People sent letters with their donations that talked about their grandparents, their parents, and sometimes their children who were buried at Glenwood. That’s a powerful force to be harnessed. And it all started because through our public outreach campaign, Glenwood was no longer “hidden history.”

Next Steps:

We decided we needed to have people experience the cemetery to see the restorations that were taking place so we developed walking tours. Our Gallows & Graveyards Walking Tours are now in their fourth year. They are held on summer weekends with students in costumes taking visitors on tours of historic churchyards and cemeteries and into the old gaol where we tell the story of two men hanged in 1884.                 

We developed a series of fall and winter lectures series on history and heritagetopics. And we started to make new partnerships within our community.

Community Engagement:

We started with a new partnership with our municipal government who had for years paid a small $20,000 annual grant to assist in the operation of the cemetery. Despite many pleas from the cemetery over many years, the funding remained the same. We decided that we had to negotiate a new agreement that saw our local government increase their grant significantly to $45,000 annually to allow us to hire professional staff.

Since by law local governments have to take over cemeteries if they fail, our council had the choice to partner with us for part of the costs…or they could assume it all. This was not without controversy. But in the end, council reluctantly increased our grant, we hired staff, and the board was able to go back to the work boards should be doing rather than mowing grass and arranging burials.

New partnerships with other heritage organizations

Our success came at a cost to the museums as council simply “robbed Peter to pay Paul” taking money from their budget to give to us. When we found that out, we met with museum staff to explore how we might work together. Those discussions lead to the co- development of the walking tours, lecture series, and the participation of yet another heritage property in our community – The Regent Theatre, an old cinema located on Picton’s Main Street. And this partnership led to another public outreach initiative – The History Moments series.

The History Moments Series

The History Moments are sponsored by local businesses and organizations. It’s an advertising value for them which supports a community awakening to the rich history that is all around us. And they are incredibly popular.

Measureable Results ten years later

The restoration of Glenwood is really a great heritage success story. Over the past decade we have:

• Made major road repairs
• Undertaken a reforestation project to replace our aging urban forest
• Digitized our records and placed them on a website
• Hired professional staff and purchased new equipment
• Renewed the board
• Attracted major donations and bequeaths
• Developed new community partnerships for collective action
• Preserved a community heritage property

Why does heritage matter?

I do a great deal of public speaking in communities across Eastern Ontario and I am sometimes asked why does this matter? Here’s what I say:

It matters because the future of the Past is so uncertain in most communities.

Aging Volunteer Organizations

The big question is what’s going to happen when you and I can’t do our volunteer work anymore 

I believe it’s a great folly to believe that things will always be just because they have always been. I could name you a dozen organizations on the verge of folding in Prince Edward County. They are older; they have no money; no staff; and no succession plan. They often work in isolation competing for limited resources, volunteers and event dates.

But they are also inter-connected and the failure of one can mean the failure of another. At Glenwood, we count on the annual generous donations from many of these organizations. If they fail, then perhaps we will fail. Over the next 10-15 years, many organizations will fail and fade into the past in communities across Canada – a sort of collective collapse of communities.

Municipal governments should be interested in this because the millions of dollars raised each year by volunteers in their communities – all for free – may not be there in the future. The thousands of hours donated – for free – to a wide range of community services may no longer be available.   So what’s going to happen when you and I can’t do that work anymore?

We need to think bigger. We need to act collectively to share limited resources. We need to become the sum of our parts rather than remain as isolated and largely irrelevant organizations. This is how we can renew our organizations and plan for a future time. And if not every organization can be saved, perhaps others can carry on their work. That’s why history and heritage matters.

Reaching Future Leaders

The next generation of community leaders and volunteers are students. We need to engage them in the history that is all around them. We’re tried to do this.

Teachers in Prince Edward County are using the History Moments as learning resources.

This year, students at the high school in Picton are selling the series to raise money for a trip to battlefields in Europe where Canadians fought. The Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board is sponsoring a History Moment on early education in the area.

There are 54 schools and 17,000 students in the Hastings & PEC School Board. You can see the potential of engaging schools, teachers and students in our project. That’s why heritage matters.

Our Disappearing Heritage

Last August, we tore down on a Methodist church built in 1875 located on our Main Street.

It is just down the street from the block we tore down in March last year to build a new box store. That will sit next to the mini-mall we built in the 1970s after tearing down all the gracious old homes that lined our main street.

This is a squandered inheritance. It is testament to poor planning, a lack of vision, and to mistaking progress for the same bland look that is everywhere else. If you tear down all the special places in your community, you have to wonder what’s so special about your community?  And the sad answer to that is “Nothing.”

We have had some successes in restoring heritage buildings, but the fact is we are tearing down heritage properties faster than we can restore them. I believe most communities are engaged in this battle to save open spaces, landmark properties, farmland and all the special places…and it is a battle we are losing. That’s why this matters

A Lost Business Opportunity

Finally, it matters because it is such a lost economic opportunity. If we could transform this dormant asset in our communities – our hidden history – into popular history – goods and services that meet the worldwide marketplace for history and heritage, we could develop a “heritage economy” that powers up our local economies, turns heritage organizations from municipal loss leaders into profit centres, and preserves the historical integrity of our communities 

We need to value heritage not so much as a  “warm and fuzzy” – a vague, cultural asset.  We need to consider it as an untapped commodity –“ a hidden wealth” that can drive our local economies. Heritage ultimately is about money…. and big money at that.

The Marketplace for History

History is one of the top three reasons why people travel. The History Channel links advertisers with a consumer demographic – 9.2 million boomers and their parents. Every month, 68 million people around the world Google the word “history.”

Gettysburg makes $91 million/year and has created nearly 2,500 jobs from the 1.2 million people who visit annually. Every year, they tell the same story and make $91 million dollars. So why don’t we tell our stories to the world and develop a heritage economy?

Manufacture professionally produced goods and services

We need to develop our own line of heritage products such as:

• Specialty wines and foodstuffs
• Videos, books, lectures, and bus, walking, and historic house tours
• Period events (re-enactments, Picton Fair as an 1880s period fair, War of 1812 bicentennial, 400^th anniversary of Champlain’s visit in 2015, and the 200^th birthday of Sir John A. Macdonald in 2015)

The Macdonald Project

John A. Macdonald spent his early years in the Picton area and as a teenager, he practiced law there in the 1830s. The Macdonald Project is an initiative to erect a bronze sculpture of him in Picton during the 200^th anniversary of his birth in 2015. This project and Macdonald’s birthday have the potential to be a major local, regional and national event.

The Miss Supertest Celebration – August, 6,7^th, 8^th 2011 

50 years ago this August, the Canadian race boat Miss Supertest captured her third – and last – victory in the Harmsworth international races held in Picton.

On August 6,7,8^th we will celebrate this sports history with the launch of a Canada Post commemorative stamp honouring the boat, and a weekend of boat displays and activities.

The celebration has the possibility of being a test case for history in Prince Edward County to show the economic benefit to the community of this once-in-a- lifetime event.

Heritage Revenues

Over the past 5 years, our partnership of several community heritage organizations has evolved and a long- term plan is emerging to:

– Retail heritage products to our 700,000 annual visitors

– Use our heritage products for worldwide online Tourism Marketing

– Track retail sales with a % saved in a Heritage Fund administered by The County Community Foundation

– Our Heritage Fund is complemented by donations and bequeaths and supplemented by 1% municipal heritage fee on new development

Objectives:

• To transform “the hidden wealth” of our history into a heritage economy
• To transform heritage properties (archives, cemeteries, libraries, and museums) into profit centres
• To create “popular history” products as tourism marketing resources
• To create public and educational resources
• To promote new community partnerships for greater community engagement and better use of limited resources
• To create jobs for young people and for our trades
• To create new revenue streams for heritage organizations
• To assist private property owners and businesses to maintain heritage properties
• To preserve our community history and heritage before it is lost to Time.

We’re not there yet…. but we’re working towards this and the formation of a new heritage organization tasked to take on this work – to be an umbrella group for heritage groups to work together, and to be an instrument of change. We have started in our community to “create the will” just by transforming the “hidden history” in our community into “popular history.” And we have changed our world, just a little, by forging new partnerships with heritage groups, diverse sectors like municipal government, schools, private businesses sponsoring the History Moments, crafts people making heritage materials, and retailers who sell our products. We have created public education materials to engage our community and to awaken them to the rich history that is all around us.

The third series of History Moments will be launched on Monday, July 4^th at 2pm at The Regent Theatre in Picton. I invite you to attend this free public event to celebrate our local history. The series will then be featured at the first ever Picton film festival that takes place in July. This year we will be launching a series in Belleville and Hastings County in partnership with groups there.

We have also developed some media partners. If you read Watershed Magazine, a magazine distributed from Cobourg to Kingston, you will notice our featured history articles. The Miss Supertest event is featured in the latest summer edition. So we have made a small start on developing a “heritage economy” by developing a line of heritage products to retail within our community. Marketing our product lines is the next phase of the project. Along the way, our history project has fostered a critical mass for change capturing the interest of our community and directly engaging them as participants in history and heritage.

We have made History.

I will leave you with a question. Why don’t you make history in your community and create the will – a community resolve – to preserve your history and heritage before it is lost to Time?

Thank you very much.

Creating The Will heritage conference in Cobourg June 3-5, 2011

Creating The Will is the theme of a June heritage conference in Cobourg sponsored by Heritage Ontario and the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario. Peter Lockyer of History Lives Here Inc. will be one of the featured speakers discussing Making History: The Economics of Heritage – Municipalities, Heritage Organizations, and Communities as Stakeholders in History.

The presentation builds upon the author’s decade of experience developing strategic partnerships in his hometown of Prince Edward County to awaken the community to its rich history and the potential economic benefits of developing a heritage economy by telling old stories to new audiences.

For more information, visit the conference website at  http://www.cobourgtourism.ca/heritage.html

Peter Lockyer speaks to Kingston Rotary Club  

WHY DOES THIS MATTER?

Why bother will all this old stuff from a long time ago? I’m sometimes asked that – and here’s what I say:

The Aging of Canadian Volunteer Agencies

IT MATTERS BECAUSE THE FUTURE OF THE PAST IN MOST COMMUNITIES IS VERY UNCERTAIN.

Community and heritage organizations in small towns and big cities all across Canada are aging.

It’s just demographics really. All these organizations count heavily on volunteers to raise funds and to carry on the work they do. Their volunteer base is getting older; and they are tired -fatigued from years of fundraising and the struggle to stay open. 

It’s a great folly to think that these organizations will always be here as they are today. 

I could name you a dozen local organizations on the verge of folding unless there is a means of recruiting new volunteers within the next decade and finding new revenue streams to sustain them. This challenge to the volunteer sector won’t result in the loss of just one organization in one community. It’s going to be an unprecedented failure in communities all across Canada. And since these organizations raise millions of dollars collectively each year – at no cost to us for a wide range of worthy community causes – there will be a domino effect; a collapse of community. 

We need to renew these organizations with a new and shared vision, forge new partnerships in our communities so groups compliment rather than compete for limited funds and volunteers, and to develop new revenue streams beyond municipal funding and grant programs. That’s why it matters.

Reaching A Future Generation of Volunteers

IT MATTERS because there is a future generation of volunteers now in schools who learn about history – but it’s apparently history that happened a long time ago someplace else. I would argue that history is all around us…and it’s unfolding everyday. We’re making history today. We need to develop professional products and services that engage and excite this next generation to get involved in their communities.

A Loss of Heritage

IT MATTERS because there is a pitched battle taking place in every community in Canada at the moment. It’s the one you hardly ever read about. But it’s a battle communities are losing badly. It’s the battle over our disappearing heritage. 

In Picton this year, we lost an entire block of the downtown. We’re going to have a new mall sitting next door to the shopping mall we built in the late 1970s that knocked down some heritage houses. I used to live in one of these gracious old homes that lined our Main Street.

One block from our new shopping site is a 175 – year old former Methodist Church that is being demolished as we speak. This iconic structure is a landmark – a fixture of Main Street that will soon be gone.

It’s across from the Bank of Montreal, which sits on the front lawn of one of Prince Edward County’s most historic houses – the residence of Captain John Pepper Downes built in the 1850s. You’ll get to see that house today in one of our vignettes. The building is surrounded by a shopping mall and other more modern developments. It’s needs a lot of work and it’s up for sale. Most likely, it will be decked for more parking spaces soon.

There are more demolitions scheduled. There have been many in the past. The old law office of Sir John A. Macdonald, our most famous resident, was demolished back in the late 1950s or early 1960s. It sat on the top of the town hill. John A. is the subject of our first vignette. It’s too bad his old office is no longer here since his 200^th birthday will be celebrated nationally in 2015.

It’s true we have had some restoration successes – the Glenwood Chapel, the Crystal Palace and the grandstand were saved by some dedicated volunteers when we wanted to tear those down for parking spaces; Macaulay house and church were purchased by the municipality in 1974 and continues to be restored as a museum; some enlightened development has taken place along our Main Street to build condos and trendy shops in other buildings threatened with demolition.

It’s just that we can’t restore buildings as fast as we are destroying them.

So this matters because we are losing the battle to maintain our heritage in Prince Edward County. In the great rush for “sameness” to pave over farmland and rural landscapes, to make the entranceways to our county a bland blur of pavement, box stores and shopping malls. We have to ask ourselves if we tear down all the special places in our community, then what’s so special about our community? 

On the worst of days, I’m always cheered by the fact that the pyramids are safe as long as they stay in Egypt -because in Prince Edward County we would have decked them a long time ago.

You might think I am anti-development. I’m actually not. I grew up here many years ago when this was a poor place. I think we can welcome box stores, shopping malls, and fast food places – just not at any cost. 

I believe that we need to put heritage first – and not last – on our list of priorities. If heritage guided our planning and development decisions, we could have progress while saving our heritage and maintaining “this special place.”

A LOST ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY 

FINALLY IT MATTERS because the loss of our heritage is also a lost economic opportunity.

We talk a lot here about our creative economy. And indeed there are many creative people who now live here. But what if we were even more creative?

What might have happened if we had encouraged the box stores, fast food places and shopping malls to redevelop Camp Picton – our old army camp. It’s minutes from the downtown core; it has a wonderful view of the harbour; it’s not on prime farmland, and it needs development. What a shopping experience that could have been for visitors to say they shopped in stores on an old restored army camp. 

What would happen if we helped the agricultural society renew the Picton Fair, one of our featured vignettes today and an organization celebrating its 175^th anniversary this year? What if we helped to transform the current fair into an 1880s period fair with displays of old farm equipment and tractors, antique shows, period meals cooked by county chefs, classes in quilt making and food preservation, exhibits drawn from our museums on The Barley Days, the canning era, a film festival of old films about Prince Edward County – there are a least 5 of them we have uncovered at the National Archives; the photographs of the County by two period photographers from the 1880s, and ‘90s, William James Topley (1845 – 1930) and Marsden Kemp, an amateur photographer who lived in Kingston and Picton up until the 1940s. This could be.

Every month there are 68 million around the world who google the word “history”. They’re looking for history. We have it.

The History Channel in the U.S. and Canada were formed to match advertisers with a consumer demographic – baby boomers and their parents who are now in the midst of the greatest wealth transfer in the history of the world. (This seems to be news to my Mom…but it’s actually happening).

Gettysburg in the United States is best known for three days of history – for a battle that took place there in the 1860s during the American Civil War. It’s worth over $90 million dollars a year to them from the 1.5 million visitors they receive annually. It’s created almost 3000 jobs.

We have a little more than three days of history. We have 226 years of Loyalist settlement.

We need to take this “hidden history” lying dormant in our archives, libraries, museums and cemeteries and transform it into “popular history” that meets the market –based demand for professionally produced products and services on heritage themes. This is the hidden wealth within our community….a renewable and sustainable resource because we will never, ever run out of history. I believe we should market it; place it on our municipal books as an asset rather than an afterthought. We should forge a new vision for our community that places history and heritage first as defining principles for our development.

Prince Edward County has around 700,000 visitors every year. What if we sold them $10 worth of heritage each year by telling them these old stories? What if the money went into a heritage fund that sustained our historic properties, helped the museums add to their collections of local materials, helped us work with property owners and developers to retain our heritage buildings because we had the money to do it?

This is why history and heritage matter – why these History Moments, our walking tours, our lecture series and a whole host of other heritage activities here matter.

I began today by saying that my company tells old stories to new audiences. Let us now tell you 12 wonderful stories about Prince Edward County. 

I don’t do this work alone. I have 14 wonderfully talented associates living in Ottawa, Toronto, Kingston, Picton and places in between. When you watch these, know that this work is also their work. And they are very, very good at what they do.

And afterwards, I hope you will join us for a reception and a glass of History Lives Here wine by our sponsor The Black Prince Winery. Thanks for coming.

Remarks by Peter Lockyer

History Lives Here Inc.

August 6, 2010