Buy a seat, help a museum

The Waterloo Region Museum is offering you a chance to claim a place in time. The Museum is selling individual naming rights to each of the 114 seats in its state-of-the-art theatre. For $250, you can have your name, the name of a family member or your business name engraved in a plaque that will go on the arm of the seat. Each seat will be sold only once, and the name will remain on the seat for the life of the theatre.

Museum manager Tom Reitz says the program is a partnership with the Friends of Waterloo Region Museum and also allows residents to get involved in the museum’s progress.

“Since the project got underway three or four years ago, we’ve had a number of people who have asked how they can become involved,” Reitz explains in an interview with 570 News.

Aside from visiting the museum, volunteering or donating items for a collection, Reitz says many people were interested in making a modest financial contribution.

Reitz heaps praise on the theatre, which is currently running a 10-minute video that takes viewers back to 1914, the time period in which the living village is set. He envisions different uses for the theatre as the museum matures.

“We would expect that we would have some special movie presentations, lectures, all kinds of things that could take place in this theatre space,” Reitz says.

Reitz admits to a sense of anticipation and excitement since portions of the building opened earlier this year. As for a grand opening, complete with exhibits, Reitz can’t nail down a firm date. But he forecasts an opening in the late fall of 2011.

As for what will be in place at that time, Reitz teases that it’s an ever-changing model.

“The core exhibits in terms of being a history of the Region of Waterloo, that’s intact,” Reitz acknowledges.

To order or learn more about the Friends of Waterloo Region Museum Theatre Seat Appeal, contact the Waterloo Region Museum at 519-748-1914.

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