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Doors Open Kincardine needs proper person in charge, says Rigby By Liz Dadson headline |
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Doors Open Kincardine needs a volunteer administrator in charge to make the event run smoothly. That's the word from former event chairperson Jane Rigby. "We need an individual from the local area who is prepared to take on the task of Doors Open and administer it," she says. "Then we have to give that person 'carte blanche' to get as many committee members as possible, and include somebody from Kincardine council as well. And this must be done in the next two weeks if Kincardine wants to host this event next year." Rigby is upset that the event was cancelled this year after it was hosted successfully from 2004-2007, and 2009-2010. It was not held 2008 so there would be no volunteer burn-out the year of the Kincardine Reunion, she says. "In 2009, as we began planning for last year's Doors Open event, I told Steve Murray (former economic development and tourism manager and now community services co-ordinator), that I would not be continuing after 2010," says Rigby. "I was tired. I was into my sixth event non-stop. The municipality had to start looking for people to run this event." She says nobody came forward to begin planning for the 2011 event, so Rigby gave all the material she had to Murray and tourism co-ordinator Kelly McDonald. "Steve said that he and Kelly would run it," says Rigby, "but they had no idea what to do. They ended up dropping the ball and the event was cancelled." She says Murray came to Heritage Kincardine at the end of March, before the Kincardine Home Show, and tried to get that group to run the event. However, Heritage Kincardine had been disbanded in October, 2010, and had just been reformed in March, 2011, so the answer was no, says Rigby. "So, nothing was done until April and things were way behind," Rigby says. "They had 10 sites selected for the Ontario Heritage Trust booklet, but nothing else. No promotion, no posters, nothing. "We asked Steve (Murray) where the files were that we had given him, and he said they were in a storage shed. He hadn't even looked at any of it." Rigby was helping set up the Heritage Kincardine booth at the Home Show, so she mentioned to Murray that there should be Ontario Heritage Trust Doors Open booklets at that show, so he managed to get a box of them for the booth. "A month later, in May, he was asking me for a list of possible sites to include in the tour," says Rigby, but it was too little, too late for the event to proceed. "The histories I wrote for the booklets were copyrighted and I would allow them to use those, but the site monographs were not made available to them (Murray and McDonald). They are also copyrighted and I'm not giving them up. They took a lot of work." Rigby says that council needs to talk to the former members of the Doors Open committee and find out what really happened because the truth is not being told. She would consider assisting with the event again, but just doing the historic work, nothing else.
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 Jane (L) and Paul Rigby set up the display for Heritage Kincardine at the Kincardine Home Show in April, 2011 "Doors Open is an important cultural heritage event," she says. "It brings people to the area - people with money who stay in the local hotels and dine out at the local establishments." Rigby says that Murray's comments about her resigning from the Doors Open committee are incorrect. In April, 2011, she resigned from Heritage Kincardine. If she were ever to return to Heritage Kincardine, it would be as a paid employee. "I worked for Heritage Brockton," she says. "I have a degree in architectural history and worked for 15 years in Hamilton and 15 years here." Scrolling stops when you move your mouse inside the scroll area. You can click on the ads for more
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