Congrats, Joelle!
November 3rd was a special day at the Rossland Museum & Discovery Centre: it marked ten years since Joelle Hodgins began as Museum Director! Joelle keeps a pretty low profile around town and in the Museum: she generally prefers the behind-the-scenes stuff. But many pretty incredible goals have been achieved since Joelle moved down here from the Yukon. Today, we wanted to bring a few of these to the forefront!
Visitation Highlights
2015: The RMDC opened as a year-round operation instead of closing through the winter.
2016: Visitor attendance hit nearly 7,000, surpassing visitor numbers from 2009 (the last year that Museum operations included a mine tour).
2018: Visitor attendance topped 10,000
2024: Visitor attendance surpassed pre-Covid numbers
Revenue Highlights:
The Museum’s revenue has more than tripled over the past decade! Most of the growth has been through diverse funding streams, such as federal and provincial grants, which means it’s money coming into the local community! With these additional funds, we’ve been able to:
remain open year-round
hire museum professionals, recent graduates, and local youth (17 in 2024!)
complete more archival and research projects (check out our newest Digital Museum Exhibit on Skiing or explore the collection on our Community Portal!)
provide additional programming opportunities (have you signed up for an upcoming Senior Workshop?)
organize more community events (RSVP for Richie Mann’s upcoming speaker series event here or our December community event) - and more!
Community Highlights
With our strengthened capacity, we have been able to play a more central role within the community and act as a gateway to the region. Over the past decade, we’ve been excited to explore the Museum’s potential:
running summer camps, day camps, and school-year programming for local youth
leading seniors’ programs and speaker series events
hosting community events, such as Canada Day, Winter Carnival, Easter Egg Hunts, Halloween, Family Day, and more!
At a recent event, a participant told us, “When my kids were young, there was never much to do up at the Museum, but I’m here all the time with the grandkids!”
Renewal Highlights
RMDC President Libby Martin, Museum Director Joelle Hodgins, and Museum Consultant Wayne Wilson, during construction for Renewal: Phase One, in 2017. At the opening celebration for Phase One, Libby said of Joelle, “she has so much energy, enthusiasm and expertise — I do wonder when she sleeps, however. Without her, we would not be where we are now.”
Since signing on at the Museum, one of the major strategic priorities on Joelle’s plate has been the “Renewal Project.” In 2017, having raised $700,000, we broke ground on Phase One: Renovation of the Entrance Gallery. The ribbon was cut for the grand opening on July 4, 2017, exactly fifty years after the grand opening of the original museum building in 1967. (If you don’t remember what the gallery was like before 2017, take a look here!)
Phase Two of Renewal was an even more ambitious project! With Phase Two: the Mine Experience, we hope to create an informative and experiential replica mine tunnel exhibit, along with the development of other permanent exhibits and the addition of a new atrium. Rising construction costs since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic have held us back, but as of October 2024, we have raised more than $4.4 million - the vast majority of that from grant money coming into the community - and begun the final design stage for the project. Check out some of the design renderings below!
We plan to break ground in mid-2025.