Webinars
BC Museums Association is pleased to present a monthly educational webinar series!
Join your museum colleagues from around the province for a lunch-hour webinar. These engaging learning opportunities cover a different topic each month, from education to conservation, marketing to exhibit fabrication and everything in between. Museum experts from within our membership – and other special guests – present the webinars, which are recorded, archived and accessible through BCMA’s member portal.
Cost: FREE for members (two-ticket maximum per institutional member), $15 for not-yet-members
Interested in presenting your own webinar topic? Click here.
*Special Webinar Archive Access*
To support our community with the ongoing Covid-19 closures the BCMA has made all of our previous webinars publicly available for viewing on our YouTube channel. Explore sessions on communication, fundraising, digitalization, advocacy, climate change and more. View the Youtube webinar archive.
2020 Webinar Schedule
Monday, May 25, 2020
Events and Programs Re-imagined for the Digital Landscape
12:00noon – 1:00pm PDT
See webinar description
After over two months of COVID-19 closures museums across the province are preparing to welcome staff and visitors back on site. However, welcoming visitors back for events and programs is still a long way off. How can events and programs transition into a digital landscape where visitors can learn, engage and celebrate?
Join BCMA and Michael Unger, Programs Coordinator at the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre, to talk about digital events and programming in a time of social distancing.
Registration is FREE for anyone who wishes to join, you do not need to be a BCMA member. Bring a friend. Or two!
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
Creating engaging online projects
12:00noon – 1:00pm PDT
See webinar description
The Virtual Museum of Canada is an investment program that helps Canadian museums and heritage organizations build digital capacity so we can all access a wide variety of stories and experience.
Join VMC Director Megan Richardson to hear about the exciting changes the program is making to better serve you and your visitors. Learn about some of the benefits of VMC funding, see some inspiring online projects – like virtual exhibits and tours – and get some tips on how to conceive, pitch and develop your own project.
Registration is FREE for BCMA members; $15 for non-members.
Wednesday, June 17, 2020
Succession Planning: Planning for Plan B
12:00noon – 1:00pm PDT
See webinar description
You are a staff-of-one or almost-one. You’re the one who takes care of the million and one day-to-day details. You know more about every aspect of your museum than anyone else; you’ve built up a vast knowledge about your collections, facilities, community, schedules, finances, volunteers, membership, policies, practices, etc. You’ve got it all under control, except for just one thing: what happens if you are suddenly unable to do it? Who takes over, and how will they know what needs to be done?
Join BCMA and Tammy Bradford, Manager of the Creston Museum, to talk about emergency succession planning and creating a plan for Plan B. Considerations and action items for “non-emergency” succession planning will also be addressed.
FREE for BCMA members; $15 for non-members.
Wednesday, September 2, 2020
Measuring what matters: Tracking data and measuring impact at your cultural heritage institution
12:00noon – 1:00pm PST
See webinar description
Tracking statistics at your institution is an important way to measure the impact your programs have in your community. Yet collecting and analyzing that data can be time-consuming. Ken Amaral, Policy and Research Analyst from Department of Canadian Heritage, will discuss the importance of data collection by museums in our province and how such data can be used to tell the story of our sector. Ken will discuss his work with The Government of Canada Survey of Heritage Institutions: 2019, how their survey seeks to collect and interpret data and what data is important for BC museums, galleries and cultural centres to capture – no matter what the size of your institution. Ken will also discuss best practices for collecting “industry characteristics” data, such as number of visits, volunteer hours, employees, research requests, etc. Webinar participants will come away with ideas on how to streamline data collection processes at their institution as well as how to use this data to make a case to your local government about your impact.
Registration is FREE for BCMA members; $15 for non-members.
More 2020 webinars coming soon
Brought to you thanks to our 2020 Webinar Sponsor
Webinar Archives
All past webinars are archived and accessible to BCMA members on our new member portal.
Consider becoming a member to gain access to these valuable resources. Past webinar topics include:
- Write Your Own Fundraising Plan
- Planning Successful Exhibitions
- Strategic Plans: Their Importance and Limitations
- Overcoming Challenges of Recruitment and Retention in Youth Programming
- Activate your Exhibition
- B.C. Libraries and Reconciliation: Planting Seeds of Change
- Bringing Your Photographs Online: Perspectives from the Haida Gwaii Museum
- We Speak Translate: A Google Translate Workshop
- Climate Change – Implications for your museum practice
- And much, much more!
A Note on BCMA Webinars
Our webinars are running on the Zoom webinar platform, which may be blocked by some firewall settings. Please contact your IT department if you are not sure if you can access the webinar.
We are aware of security concerns about Zoom meetings and the so called “Zoom Bombing” that has been in the media recently. Precautions to avoid these situations have been taken and procedures such as enabling the waiting room feature, muting all participants upon entry and disabling screen sharing have been implemented. The safety and privacy of our virtual programs are a priority for us and we are closely monitoring the situation and installing security updates that are regularly released by Zoom.