Letter from the BAHS

Members and Friends of Bedeque Area Historical Society, 
The summer of 2021 for the Bedeque Museum has turned out to be an improvement on the dire summer of 2020. We had a much greater number of visitors and we were able to hold a Blueberry and Ice-cream Social in August. However, as you are already aware from our June Newsletter, because of Covid we were not able to hold our Monday evening history talks nor our annual seafood raffle. We also postponed three of our  planned new exhibits to 2022 (the exhibits on Island clocks from about 1770 to 1930, the story of the Mizuno family of Bedeque, and the history of Freetown). 
We were again very concerned about the effects of Covid on our fund-raising this summer: to remain viable  we have to raise about $13,500 each year from sources other than our government grants for student wages and the Community Museums development grant. (This is a rise from last summer’s estimate of $10,500, on account of higher rent and insurance charges.) However, as outlined in the next paragraph, we have again managed to raise sufficient funds to get us through the current year. 
We extend our thanks to all those who have made donations this past summer: $1,597 has been donated  by our members, plus a separate major private donation of $5,798. We raised $1,183 in ticket sales to our  Blueberry and Ice-cream Social and received another $1,350 from businesses and individuals sponsoring the  Social. Then, we received $2,500 from a provincial Covid-related support grant for museums and have just  applied for a Covid-related grant of $5,000 from the federal government’s Museum Emergency Assistance  Program. The above private donations plus the additional $7,500 coming from government has enabled us  to pay the bills! We especially appreciate all of those individuals who have contributed through membership  subscriptions and by making special additional donations.  
This newsletter is shorter than our pre-Covid newsletters because most of the summer events that we normally report in our fall newsletter did not take place. Let us hope that next year we will get back to our normal summer activities!  
Best wishes, 
The Board of the BAHS