Civic Museum of Regina gets funding to keep doors open

A museum in Regina that many people didn’t even know existed could soon be reopening its doors.

After preserving the city’s history for the last 55 years, the Civic Museum of Regina said it was forced to close at the end of August. Despite the city providing $115,000 worth of funding for 2015, President Rob Deglau said it was still too costly to keep the place open.

“Our problem has been over the last 20 years is rents have increased but our funding’s stayed the same, and so we eventually came to a point that we were spending most of our resources for the physical facility other than running programming, marketing and all that kind of stuff,” he explained.

The city’s community and protective services committee recently approved a total of $85,000 worth of additional funding for the museum. A total of $25,000 would be used for Deglau and staff to help come up with a sustainable business model.

“We’re going to be using the additional $60,000 to actually open up the doors of the museum and run operations as normal.”

City council still has to formally approve the funding at its meeting on Sept. 28. If it’s given the OK, Deglau said the museum could reopen as soon as the next day.

He said the building houses a number of interesting items such as Canada’s first ATM machine. How the museum is shaped and what it includes in the future are things Deglau hopes the public can provide feedback on.

“We want to tap back to the citizens of Regina and say listen, we’ve got a chance to reinvent ourselves as a museum. What should that museum look like?”