A digital version of this newsletter can be found here.

Message from the Chair

The AMA hopes that everyone had a good summer! As autumn arrives and we return to our usual routines, we also have new opportunities to engage with our colleagues, including our Annual General Meeting and the Heritage Summit presented by the eight Provincial Heritage Agencies.

-Andrew Morrison, Chair of the Association for Manitoba Archives

Save the Date! – Annual General Meeting – November 10

Our AGM will be held Thursday, November 10, 2022. Further details will be arriving in your email inbox.

Committee Reports

Digital Initiatives: Digital Initiatives has cleaned up several duplicate authorities in MAIN. We also updated the subject access point “Slaves” to be “Enslaved Persons” to reflect the Library of Congress change in subject headings.

Education and Advisory Services: The education committee continues to work on plans for a workshop on archiving emails and a series on addressing trauma in archival contexts. As well, there is interest from among the region’s museums for a workshop on developing their own archives.

Finance and Grants: Did you know that the funding for the AMA Thesis of Distinction Award comes from our endowment fund with the University of Manitoba? We have been awarding this prize since 1994. For more information, see our website at https://mbarchives.ca/thesisaward

Indigenous Relations: We are planning a panel discussion on MMIWG2S and Archives.

Information and Outreach: The three committee members are maintaining the AMA's social media accounts, as well as actively fielding Advisory Services enquiries.

Membership Committee: Psssst! Have a second to help a Membership Committee member out? Fill in our quick survey and contribute to improving the renewal process.

Survey

Special Initiatives Member-at-Large: We are looking for volunteers to help with the Manitoba Day Awards! If you are interested, or want more information, please email ama1@mts.net

Student Member-at-Large: We welcome Krystal Paine as Student Member-at-Large. Krystal is a recent graduate of the Joint Master’s Program in History in the Archival Studies stream. Currently, she is a PhD student at the University of Manitoba and working as a Research Associate with Kishaadigeh Collaborative Research Centre (University of Winnipeg). Krystal would welcome a co-rep to volunteer alongside her – please email ama1@mts.net if you are interested in this opportunity.

Photo of the Month

September’s photo comes from the Royal Winnipeg Ballet Archives. Thanks to archivist Gayle DeGagne for the submission.

This photo was taken in 1951 during the Winnipeg Ballet’s “Royal Command” performance attended by Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip. The young girl facing them is Janie Adams. It was photographed by David Portigal and is originally from the Winnipeg Free Press collection of the Western Canada Pictorial Index https://images.uwinnipeg.ca/action.cfm?imageNumber=41657

Sheila Killough, one of the young dancers in 1951, wrote a charming account of the Princess’s visit:

"We are sorry now that we gave you such a serious ballet. How we wished you could have stayed for the next number. It was a comedy and lots of fun. We feel sorry, too, that you did not have any young friends in the Royal Box. We had a party after the performance, and we wished that you could have come. You could have hung up your tiara with ours and pinned a white gardenia in your hair and danced and danced with Philip the whole evening."

(Excerpt from The Royal Winnipeg Ballet: The First Forty Years by Max Wyman, Doubleday & Company, 1978).

The company received Royal designation on January 31, 1953 and was the first ballet company in the Commonwealth to receive this honour.

For more information about the Royal Winnipeg Ballet Archives, please visit https://www.rwb.org/who-we-are/alumni/alumni-association/. The Sheila Killough fonds are listed in MAIN: https://main.lib.umanitoba.ca/sheila-killough-fonds

If you would like to feature a photo from your archives, please submit a photograph along with a sentence or two describing the records, to webmaster@mbarchives.ca.  We love to showcase the collections from our member institutions!

Special Announcements

Job postings

The AMA is happy to circulate job postings to our membership. Please note that we will only circulate postings that include specific salary information (e.g., pay per hour, salary per year, or salary range). You can send your postings to ama1@mts.net

Call for Volunteers

We are always looking for members to join our committees.  Volunteering with the AMA is an excellent way to network with archivists, build skills, and shape the future of archives in Manitoba. If you are interested, please contact the Chair, or a committee chair, at one of the email addresses listed on this page https://mbarchives.ca/contact