For their hard work and dedication, which has helped to bring The Vault Cultural Collective to where it is today, Lynne Fair and Loralee Laycock were honoured with Lifetime Memberships to the arts organization.

The awards were announced during the annual general meeting for the Vault Cultural Collective on March 4.

Carolyn Steeves, Chair of the Vault Cultural Collective explained there were about 20 or so people in attendance for the AGM, almost the entire board of directors, and local volunteers.

“We wanted to do a couple of special things because of the situation that we're in with just being a startup business in Strathmore,” she said.

“This has been about an 18 month journey and Lynne Fair, had decided to step down from the board of directors. She is so very actively involved in the Western District Historical Society and wanted to put her energies into that area which is directly involved with the Vault,” said Steeves.

“We were thinking, ‘How can we thank her? How can we recognize her in a way that would be meaningful?’ and what we decided to do was to give her a lifetime membership to the Vault,” she said.

Steeves explained that in the last few months the collective had initiated a new membership campaign where people can purchase a selection of memberships that include individual memberships, artist, and business memberships.

This was the first time the collective had selected an individual for a lifetime membership.

“We wanted to recognize everything that she has done as a member of the Western District Historical Society, along with Rhonda Stockwell in getting the Vault started up all those initial planning, the infrastructure that they put into the Vault. All those meetings every week on Tuesday morning at 10:00 o'clock hours and hours and hours of work. And we thought that this would be really meaningful to her and it was a total surprise,” said Steeves.

Loralee Laycock was also honoured with a lifetime membership for her investment in the creation of the Vault.

“Loralee was unable to attend the annual general meeting on Friday night, but she is also an initial board member who has been involved as the Vault for 18 months and has contributed to the start-up of the Vault especially in the very early stages determining what was going to happen with the building and what direction we were going to go in,” said Steeves.

“She was on the Vault as a member of the Strathmore Children’s Choir. She decided to step down as well and again just to recognize her for everything she has done for the start-up of the Vault and all of us working hard together we wanted to recognize her as well,” she said.

Fair had this to say about being recognized.

“I feel very honored to be the recipient of the first-ever life membership from the Vault. I've been involved in it right from the very very beginning before it was even a formal society and I believe in everything that we've been trying to do there, and I think we've got a great start and people's interest have been piqued now.”

“We really hope to get more people in our door when the weather is better and there are more people out on the street and more events happening, we want to be a part of a lot of it,” she said.

In terms of her work with the Western District Historical Society she said, “I've always been really passionate about history, partly because my family has been part of this community since back in about 1910 and ever since my mother came here in 1927 to teach school, I have been absorbing Strathmore history for my whole life.”

“I am very passionate about the Historical Society and have been a member of it right since our very fledgling beginnings too before we even became a society,” she said. “I'm ever so grateful that we are part of the vault too.”

Within the Vault facility in downtown Strathmore, there are a number of display cases that feature historical artifacts that are unique to the town of Strathmore. Some of the items include calendar plates, original editions of the Strathmore Standard newspaper, and antique china, along with the history of the Vault building which has over the years changed hands from the Union Bank to the Royal Bank, The Strathmore Standard, and The Standard Shoe Shop.

“I think it’s important that people realize that that is one of the last remaining historic buildings on main street,” she said.

She remarked that some residents may not realize that the building dates all the way back to 1910.

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