Spring 2026
Despite our long hard winter Scott Manor has held up well with no storm damage to the building or to our big beautiful Oak tree. But the weather has not been our big concern this past year, lack of volunteers and finances have been at the top of our list. Volunteer numbers decreased over Covid and we have still not recovered. I know we are not alone; many organizations are suffering the same fate. Thankfully we have a small dedicated group who regularly take on more responsibilities in order to keep the Manor in top shape and continuing to offer research and history to our neighbours and visitors. Even though the summer is busy with the Tea Room and displays, the winter months also find our members completing local research projects and answering questions. We are often approached by local planners and officials to help provide details on various sites too.
We have all heard about the new budget cuts and we are waiting to see how deeply we will be hurt. We did get a wakeup call last September when we suddenly received an unexpected tax bill for $4000.00 that was due the next month! Thankfully we were able to pull the funds together but our bank account cannot handle this annually, and will restrict budgeting for future projects.
Our Annual General Meeting will be this Thursday evening March 26 at 7:00 pm and you are welcome to attend. You can learn about our many committees to see if you may want to get involved and we would be happy to show you the many opportunities available. We are in real need of a communications person who can help us keep up our Facebook pages too.
Membership is $20.00 a year. You may wonder why you would have to pay a $20.00 membership fee just to help volunteer but these numbers and the visitor count in the guest book are some of the many items of importance to the government when we apply for help. These fees plus our tea room sales help us to pay for our liability insurance and now for our taxes too. We are registered as a not-for-profit charity and rely on grants and donations to operate.Regardless, we have a full summer season planned and we hope to see you at the many events and displays that will take place at Scott Manor this year.
Debbie Miller