When Peter and Catharine Whyte opened their facility in 1968, Banff was a very different place, the world was a very different place and, as the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies approaches its 50th anniversary as an active member of the Bow Valley community, staff are pondering its role for the next 50 years.
To help answer this and other questions, the Whyte Museum has initiated a community consultation.
The community consultation will be in the form of an online questionnaire. Between Sept. 10-16, Bow Valley households will receive personal invitations at their door, with information on how to participate. The consultation will remain open until Oct. 14. Anyone not receiving an invitation, and who is interested in providing input, should contact Pivotal Research at [email protected].
“We want to check in and find out what’s going on in this place so we can be engaged to continue being relevant and a more valued institution in a wonderful community such as Banff,” said Whyte Museum director Vincent Varga.
“It’s about top of mind awareness and how do we build that in our community? And that has to do with how people see us as a resource and how does the Whyte Museum touch their lives personally? I think an important indicator would be how quickly someone would say to friends, family or wherever they work that the best place to go in this community to learn about this place is the Whyte Museum.
“If we can have that top of mind awareness and engagement in the community, then I think we’re on the road to making sure we have a lot of support from the community. I think it translates into a level of pride not only in the institution, but pride in place.”
The museum intends to reach out to as many Bow Valley residents as possible, with consultation invitations going out to 9,000 residents and memberships beyond the valley.
Varga stressed a clear idea from a collective voice offering thoughts and ideas of what they should be aware of, particularly with community expectations and engagement with the community, is how a successful institution grows its visibility in the community.
“In Banff and in Canmore, where we can, people will receive a hand delivered invitation to participate in the survey and others will receive it by post. You will be given a pass code enabling the Whyte Museum to keep track of the surveys to keep it as statistically valid as possible,” Varga said.
“The survey takes roughly 10 minutes to complete. The more we hear back, the more resonate the feedback will be for us here at The Whyte Museum. We deeply value input from the community – this is an open-handed invitation we’re extending to our community to provide us with feedback to help us build our future and we look forward to doing it together.”
The priorities of the community consultation include increasing understanding of the communities’ expectations, needs and wants; how best to engage the community with respect to exhibitions, public programming and services;and how best to grow the Whyte Museum’s visibility in the community.
This research will help the Whyte build relationships with local audiences that have an interest in, and an appreciation of, the Mmuseum and, by extension, expand those audiences by way of increased visitations from both residents and visitors.
