West Grey Virtual Museum - Coming soon

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Hi there, and welcome to the future home of the West Grey Virtual Museum!

My name is Mat Johnson. I am a life-long resident of West Grey with over 15 years of professional experience in the museum and heritage fields. This an exciting community initiative I am spearheading - the West Grey Virtual Museum. 

Though a physical museum facility would be ideal for West Grey, the reality is that there simply isn’t the money available in the municipal budget. This doesn’t mean, however, that steps can’t be taken to create a virtual museum that will become a one-stop hub for all things related to our shared heritage. Throughout Canada, virtual museums are becoming increasingly more common. Though physical artifacts aren't actually in front of people, a virtual museum acts as a sensible and cost-efficient means of conveying and celebrating our heritage.  

The virtual museum will operate in the way a physical museum does. It will have archives, permanent exhibits, rotating temporary exhibits and a gift shop to help raise funds to cover web hosting and associated costs. In addition, community programming and live, in-person special events will eventually be added to help bring citizens and visitors together to celebrate and reflect on our heritage. 

As you can see, I have created the virtual museum framework and am now in the process of refining the website and developing content. This is far beyond the scope of what one person can do in their spare time and it is here that we can work together as a community. We have many talented writers, historians and history buffs right here in West Grey. I have read a lot of your work - it is fantastic! The museum welcomes content as well as any offers of assistance with fact-checking, photography, interviews and other information-gathering pursuits. This is an excellent opportunity to contribute to your community while sharing your love of history with other like-minded people. All work remains property of you; consider it as a loan to the museum.  

The West Grey Virtual Museum will be linked to my business, Marathon of History, for ease of operations as we get started. All sponsorship and income generated from the gift shop will fund the operating costs of the virtual museum, such as web-hosting fees and future community programming and events. I will serve initially as director of the virtual museum and use the platform of my Ontario Museum Association award-winning local history magazine to help promote the exciting new West Grey Virtual Museum. 

Perhaps in the future funds will become available for a municipally owned, physical museum. At that time it would be proper to fold the virtual museum into the physical museum to create a multi-platform heritage hub. Until then, we will work with what we have and work together to celebrate our shared heritage in beautiful West Grey. 

For more information, please feel free to contact me at: mjohnson@marathonofhistory.ca

Thank you,

Mat Johnson