Colleagues:
You have all had another good AGM gathering, I sense, from reports I have heard and read. I regret that several of us from the Mennonite Heritage Village (MHV) museum could not make it due to bad weather. You did get the MHV report, however, we are told, and it was read to all of you.
You may have a note on the preparations starting for celebrating the 50th birthday of the museum in 2014. I am attaching something which starts a series of monthly columns of Village News in our local paper, The Carillon. These columns, telling the story, bit by bit, of how the program developed over five decades, will continue through 2013 and most of 2014 if all goes well.
With MHV incorporated as a Canadian institution we feel we may be fitting in somewhere among various other groups (some with reports at the meetings, and some not) . We are most interested in establishing closer relationships with other across-the-country Mennonite heritage groups. We hope to be sending more information as time goes on to all of your groups, and want to invite you to join us in our celebration in some manner. With many thousands of visitors each year (ca 6000 on Pioneer Days (four) weekend alone), we are also in a position to hand on data you might wish to share with others. We believe such sharing can also be arranged.
For the moment - basically this announcement. You will have heard from the MMHS report at the AGM that MHV and MMHS share a common history, as the attached column also intimates.
We are glad to have received a report on the AGM which we hope to publish in Heritage Posting to which you were also introduced at the AGM. If you have not been receiving it till now it should appear in a spring issue, and we will be keeping in touch with you to send a copy of the issue. If you would like to see the most recent issue connect with Maria Lodge, the editor. You may obtain copies of our twice -a-year journal, Village Review by writing to the editor in chief, Barry Dyck. November , 2012, is our most recent issue. Subscriptions to both are also available at the addresses [given below].
.I will be very happy to share my bound volume of AGM reports with my museum colleague, director Barry Dyck, because he will definitely be interested in what is underway with MHSC. A possible closer collegiality in the context of the 2014 celebrations will be welcomed warmly by him also. Our MHV planning committee and board will be receiving reports on your meetings.
I have had the privilege of reading the Mennonite Global History Volume 5 recently, and find it most interesting. I may have missed a section on historical work among North American Mennonites, but I shall look again. Do take a look at the volume if you have not so far. We are all looking forward now to the MCC history which, we sense, is about ready for the press.
A one-volume History of Mennonites in Canada is something I personally would heartily endorse. The 3 volume set we have on the story has no doubt intimidated some (though many copies have been sold) who might find a modest one-volume item less daunting to get into. I don't know if we can get the popularity of On the Zwieback Trail, but the people who did that had something - almost akin to the best-seller cookbooks, dare one say?
Thanks for listening and carrying on MHS work so faithfully! The best for your visions and ventures in 2013 and beyond!
Lawrence Klippenstein
(204)346-1808
102 - 388 1st Street
Steinbach, MB
R5G 0C7