Two Vault Cultural Collective members step down, awarded lifetime memberships
By John Watson Local Journalism initiative Reporter
Photo Courtesy of Carolyn Steeves
The Vault Cultural Collective has awarded two retiring board members with lifetime memberships as thanks for their service in getting the organization off the ground.
Carolyn Steeves, chair of the Vault Cultural Collective, said the presentation was made during their Annual General Meeting (AGM) on March 4.
“We wanted to make it a special event … we had about 20 volunteers and artists and board members in attendance,” said Steeves. “We wanted to make the first meeting significant because we had two board members retiring from the board – Lynne Fair, who was representing the Western District Historical Society and Loralee Laycock, who was representing the Strathmore Children’s Choir.”
Though Laycock and Fair will no longer be involved on the board, the two have decided to still be involved in the organization.
Steeves added the idea to give the two retiring members lifetime memberships made sense, granted the Vault is currently also currently doing a membership drive.
During the AGM meeting, Fair was present for the award, though Laycock was unable to be there.
“(Lynne) has donated so much in time, energy, money, thoughts, strategies, ideas – everything and we’re going to miss her on the board, but she’s still going to take an active role,” said Steeves. “She was involved in the project before I came on board, before some of the board members who are on the board now and have been in the last year. She was involved right from the very beginning.”
As of the AGM, the Vault board has four new members who, according to Steeves, are excited to get started
“We’re in the process of planning for shows (and) events that we’re going to hold at the Vault and the first thing on the list is the Strathmore Theatre Players Guild and their members who are involved in the production of Mamma Mia,” said Steeves. “We have a lot on the go and that’s the way we want it – to be a cultural hub, we want it to be a historical hub, we want it to be a champion of the arts … some of the plans that we have and that we were hoping would happen are starting to be fulfilled.”