As summer comes to a close and we look forward to lots of new activity at the gallery, your Volunteer Executive Committee (VEC) would like to look back on some of the activities and events we’ve been involved in this past year.  (Click on the links to read about each one in more detail.)

♦ We welcomed our new Deputy Director and Chief Curator Julian Cox at our Volunteer Annual Party in April. This all-volunteer event, sponsored by the AGO and coordinated by your Volunteer Executive, recognizes the contribution of volunteers to the success of the AGO during an enjoyable evening of shared friendship.

♦ In partnership with AGO Development and using funds from the Volunteer Endowment Trust, we sponsored this year’s E.P. Taylor Library & Archives public programming.  Past recipients of the fund include Look Forward, the rehanging of our permanent collection, in honour of Maxine Granovsky Gluskin, past Chair of the AGO Board of Trustees (2017), and Out of the Vault – First Thursday evening encounters in our Prints and Drawing Department (2016).

♦ Using funds from the Volunteer Bursary Trust we invited artist and alchemist Steve Driscoll and Bill Clarke, Associate Director of the Angell Gallery, to talk to AGO volunteers last October about the process of making extraordinary art and the difference between hanging art in a private vs a public space.

♦ We honoured our retired volunteers for their dedicated past service by hosting the Alumni Tea in May.  This year’s event was hosted by AGO Library staff, who drew from the AGO Volunteer archives to highlight past volunteer accomplishments.  Past teas have involved gallery tours and talks in Prints and Drawings.

♦ The VEC-administered Margaret Machell Study Grant supported Gallery Guide Shirin Divanbeigi as she attended an OCADU course this spring on contemporary art collecting. (A full report on her course will follow soon!) The grant assists volunteers each year in furthering their art education to be able to provide our visitors with extraordinary art experiences.

♦ Led by Phyllis Couzin, Past Volunteer President, the AGO coordinated two more meetings of Volunteers Connect, an exciting forum for volunteers and their staff coordinators at GTA cultural organizations to discuss areas of mutual interest and concern.  The November meeting, held at the Bata Shoe Museum, addressed change management, while the April event at the AGO shared new training techniques.

♦ The Volunteer Blog expanded its volunteer-centered posts with a new series by VEC member and Evening/Weekend GG Susan Morrison.  Connections and Collections follows the acquisition history of the AGO Women’s Committee, exploring how this dedicated group of early volunteers assisted in the accumulation of the AGO art collection from the 1940s to the 1990s.  (Four posts now available; more to follow this fall!)

♦ VEC members participated in important international volunteer bodies – Infoguide Michelle Abrams acted as the Eastern Canada Representative at VCAM (Volunteer Committees of Art Museums).  Daytime GG (and frequent presenter) Fran Bleviss and VEC President Shelagh Barrington represented Eastern Canada on the NDSC (National Docent Symposium Council).

♦ Once the winners of the annual Ontario Volunteer Service Awards were announced in March, the VEC congratulated the AGO’s seven outstanding honorees, connected them at the awards event, and celebrated them with profiles on the Blog.

The Volunteer Executive Committee, in partnership with AGO Staff and Volunteer Resources department (SVR), is here to ensure that AGO volunteers have the best possible experience by celebrating our successes and representing volunteers’ interests, ideas and concerns.  We have enjoyed bringing volunteers together to learn, share and celebrate and will continue to do so.

Cheers from the 2017-18 Executive:

Shelagh Barrington, Volunteer President
Michelle Abrams, AGO Alumni Committee Chair
Anne Fleming, Communications Committee Chair
Catherine Morelli, Secretary
Susan Morrison, W/E Gallery Guide Chair
Lesley North, Information Guide Chair
Brenda Renwick, Prints and Drawings Chair
Marthe Yolleck, Daytime Gallery Guide Chair