cktimes.ca Archives for Cultural Musings on Chatham-Kent
Cultural Musings on Chatham-Kent
DOORS OPEN 2010 IS AN ECONOMICAL ARTS AND CULTURE EXTRAVAGANZA
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Is it just me or do you find as one ages that time flies by at an incredible speed? It seems like only a short while ago that the Municipality of Chatham Kent approached the Kent Historical Society to be the lead sponsor of its first ever Doors Open Chatham - Kent.but... that was over five years ago!However, as May 2010 comes quickly upon us, we are doing the last moment preparations to put the final touches onto the FIFTH Annual Doors Open Chatham Kent.
Initiated by Arthur Pegg in 2005, on behalf of the Municipality, the Kent Historical Society came on board, obtained a Trillium Grant and hired a coordinator in order to ensure that Doors Open Chatham Kent became a reality in May of 2006 .
Former Chatham Kent Central Library Coordinator Sheila Gibbs was hired and, with a small but enthusiastic committee ( Arthur Pegg, Mary Lou Little, Dave Benson, Hans Vanderdoe, Mel and Carol Robert, John Keech,Vicki Heyninck and myself), put together three very impressive Doors Open programs for our area and this year’s is even “bigger and better”!
The Doors Open program is, as you probably know, a world-wide initiative that had its Ontario debut in 2002 when over 40 communities participated in 17 events and attracted over 300,000 visitors.
Since then nearly 2.5 million visits have been made to thousands of heritage sites across Ontario with statistics revealing that 59% of the out-of-town Doors Open visitors enjoyed meals locally, 52% made purchases locally and 12% stayed overnight at local accommodations.
As one can see, these are important figures for an area such as ours that is economically depressed and lacking in a large number of arts and culture activities.
The idea of any Doors Open program is to get inside buildings that you do not normally get a chance to see on a daily basis. Its primary aim is to provide residents and visitors with an unique opportunity to explore and enjoy sometimes hidden but always interesting places and spaces in the local area.
The 2010 Doors Open Chatham Kent certainly offers a wide range of options scattered strategically across all of Chatham Kent ( a momentous task in itself in a municipality the size of some small European countries!) This year we are attempting to basically concentrate on Chatham, Wheatley and the Morpeth area with logic stops in between.
Old crowd pleasing favourites will be on once again, for those who may have missed them last year. Sites such as the Chatham Greenhouses, Maple Leaf Cemetery and Mausoleum, Retro Suites, Trinity Church ( Morpeth), Uncle Tom’s Cabin Historic Site, Caleb Village and the former Pines Chapel, CFCO/CKSY/CKUE Studios and the eye-catching murals of Downtown Chatham have all been on before but because it is only one day many people did not get a chance to see them all.
In addition, we have some really interesting and exciting new sites that I will discuss in more detail next week. Some of them are ones that you will certainly not want to miss!
So....mark on your calendar right now, Saturday May 8th, 2010 from 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. . Pamphlets with maps, addresses and GPS orientations are now available at any Chatham Kent Service Center, any library branch of the Chatham Kent Library System, Chatham Kent Tourism and, of course, all of the sites previously referred to in this article.
Oh yes...did I mention that it is all FREE!! A Chatham-Kent arts, culture and heritage extravaganza that you won’t soon forget and one that is very easy on the pocket book! It doesn’t get any better than that!
Jim and Lisa Gilbert are local, national and international award winning educators and historians.
