ALHFAM  Returns  to  Canada!

From June 21 to 25, the Association for Living Historical Farms and
Agricultural Museums will hold its 27th Annual Meeting and Conference at
the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

ALHFAM has met 4 times in Canada, most recently in Edmonton, Alberta in
1991 and many will remember the highly successful ALHFAM meeting held in
Guelph, Ontario in 1986.  This year's meeting, entitled A Day In The Life
... Living History of the Everyday, will bring together museum
professionals from across North America (and a few from overseas) for 17
pre-conference workshops, seminars and tours; and 43 concurrent sessions
encompassing 62 presentations by 99 speakers!

The Conference Keynote address, "A Sense of Place",  will be given by
Canadian author and playwright Dan Needles known for his "Wingfield Farms"
plays.  The Conference will also be addressed by Canadian author and
humourist Marsha Boulton who is known for her books Letters From the
Country and Just Another Minute.  Other plenary sessions include a debate
on the future of living history sites and interpretation (a timely topic in
light of cutbacks and closures at facilities across North America) and a
dramatic presentation, Our Common Passage, presented by Abigail Schumann
from the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, which traces the lives of four
women against the backdrop of the American Revolution.

Six one-day bus trips are planned to museums, historic sites and
attractions in the Waterloo Region and the nearby city's of Guelph,
Stratford, Brantford, Hamilton and Niagara Falls.  ALHFAM's Presidential
Banquet will include a reception at the Joseph Schneider Haus Museum,
dinner at Kitchener's Transylvania Club and an informal historical fashion
show.  And there will be a full day excursion for all Conference delegates
throughout the Mennonite countryside of the Region of Waterloo, a trip
aboard the St. Jacobs/Waterloo tourist train and an afternoon and evening
of tours, demonstrations and entertainment at Doon Heritage Crossroads, a
60 acre living history village.

Why should you attend the 1998 ALHFAM Conference?  A review of the
Conference program quickly tells you that ALHFAM isn't just about the
interpretation of agriculture (although it is very important to us).  There
are sessions on developing museum summer programs for children, "everyday"
sewing, teaching about reform movements, using ledgers and day books in
research, historic schoolhouse programs, historic gardens ... you name it
and there's seems to be a paper addressing that subject matter.

ALHFAM has justly gained the reputation of hosting one of the friendliest
and most informative conferences for the museum community.  Our members
include and work at living historical farms, historic house museums,
agricultural museums, community museums, outdoor museums of history and
folklife - all share a passion for accurate, active, participatory,
object-based historical interpretation.

Another good reason for attending the 1998 ALHFAM Conference is cost.
ALHFAM Conferences are usually held on university campuses to keep costs as
low as possible.  And with the Canadian/US exchange rate being what it has
been in recent months, the least expensive alternative for Canadians is to
attend an ALHFAM Conference right here at home and for Americans you'll be
pleasantly surprised to find the exchange rate at between 35 and 40% in
your favour!

If you can only attend for a day or two, or perhaps the entire ALHFAM
Conference, we're sure you'll have a memorable experience.

Registration Forms will be available in early March.  For a registration
form or for more information contact Tom Reitz, Conference Chair, Doon
Heritage Crossroads at e-mail address: [log in to unmask]








Thomas A. Reitz
Manager/Curator
Doon Heritage Crossroads
R.R. #2
Kitchener, Ontario  N2G 3W5
Canada

Telephone:      519-748-1439  ext 227
Fax:            519-748-0009
Email:          [log in to unmask]
http:           www.region.waterloo.on.ca/doon

Plan Now to Attend "A Day in the Life ... Living History of the Everyday",
the 27th Annual Meeting and Conference of the Association for Living
Historical Farms and Agricultural Museums, at the University of Waterloo,
Waterloo, Ontario -
June 21 to 25, 1998.