The society accomplished the majority of our goals in 2023 for both the heritage house and the Lillooet Visitor Centre. Here’s our Miyazaki House 2023 Year In Review:
Heritage Week Feb. 20th to 26th – we partnered with the Lillooet District Historical Society to hold a storytelling and slide show to celebrate our heritage Always in All Ways. The event was held on Friday, February 24th, from 7:00 to 9:00 pm. More than 30 people attended.
AGM & Dinner March 15th, 2023 – we welcomed three new board members to replace the two people who retired. Thank you to Louise and Kevin for their many years of dedication and service to the Miyazaki House. Louise Monk was our house manager and kitchen manager for many years and spent countless hours volunteering to keep the house open.
Miyazaki House Restoration Project – our new board member Scott Taylor took on this project with our focus towards repainting and restoring the exterior of the building, replacing wood siding and eves troughs. Replacing single pane window glass with a more energy effecient glass. And replacing the furnace with a heat pump for heating and air conditioning. We met with a number of local contractors to determine the scope of work and obtained quotes.
Tourism Week from April 24-30, 2023 – we shared statistics and the benefits of tourism to our community on our Facebook page.
Staff – Hired a full-time General Manager and a part-time Visitor Information Councillor to operate the Miyazaki House and Lillooet Visitor Information Centre. Two students were hired and trained as Visitor Information Councillors. These summer staff were a great addition to our team, thanks to Canada Summer Jobs funding.
We officially opened the Miyazaki House and Lillooet Visitor Information Centre on May 3rd, 2023.
Music in the Garden concerts were held throughout the summer. These were organized by our partner organization, the HUB. Summer staff helped with these and other events.
Bus Tour for Nikkei National Museum Cultural Centre – We were honoured to welcome guests from all across Canada. Guests included Japanese Canadians (some who were interred as children in Lillooet), university students, and families who wanted to learn about the Japanese internment camps and their history. The tour guide said it was the most well-organized lunch they had on their tour.
Lillooet Free Market – Shannon Hecker organized a monthly free market. Everything is free, bring items you don’t need and take what you do. Music, pot luck lunches and everyone pitched in to help. These were well attended and it was amazing to see how many items found new homes. The final market of the year included a delicious salmon dinner and roasted fall vegetables.
Historic Places Days – July 8 – 23, 2023, our objective was to promote the heritage house and Lillooet as a destination. We participate in this every year.
Staff did a FAM Tour at Xwisten Experience to learn more about St’at’mic history and culture and to better promote this tourism business. We highly recommend everyone book a tour to see the villiage and pit houses also know as s7ístken.
Apricot Tsaqwem Festival Baking Competition and Bake Sale. For many years we held a community art show during the Apricot Tsaqwem Festival and decided to try something different. The event was a great success and the baking was sold out immediately.
Social Enterprise Workshop – we brainstormed and generated a list of income-generating ideas.
Miyazaki Heritage House Rehab & Storytelling Project. Laura Saimoto, Resonance Group. Laura and her team visited the Miyazaki House on August 15th to inspect the building and determine needed repairs. We are very excited about this project and have had many discussions with Laura. We provided the Renosance Group with all the quotes and list of contractors we gathered to assist them with their project.
National and BC Cultural Days – the Visitor Centre used this online platform to promote all the arts and cultural events in Lillooet between September 22nd and October 15th, 2023.
St’at’mic Flag-raising celebration – we concluded our Indigenous Learning Project with a celebration and ceremony on October 14th. We raised the St’at’mic Flag and unveiled our new land acknowledgment sign. This event was well attended with representation from most bands and the broader community.
The Miyazaki House and Lillooet Visitor Centre closed for the season on October 29th.
2023 was a huge success. We made great strides and checked many things off on our to-do list. Having paid staff take care of the day to day operations plus bring fresh ideas to the table made a huge difference. We set lofty goals for the year and achieved the majority of them.
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