Mandate

a. To gather and preserve information, records and objects of educational, historical and cultural value associated with the area, and without limiting the generality of the foregoing.
b. To establish and maintain a museum for the purpose of preserving, recording and exhibiting for public enjoyment such material.
c. To support the development of the arts through exhibition, presentation, performance, commission, development and production.

Vision

To be a community museum that makes a difference … improving the lives of residents and visitors to the Sooke Region.

The Sooke Region consists of the communities: East Sooke, Sooke, Otter Point, Shirley, Jordan River, and Port Renfrew. As well, we help tell the stories of the Scia’new, T’Sou-ke, Pacheedaht Nations. The Sooke Region also consists of the waters and lands between these communities.

Questions you should ask yourself:

• Does this object provide authentic evidence of the Sooke Region’s history?
• Is it rare or considered a treasure of the Sooke Region?
• How can it contribute to the story of the Sooke Region?

To preserve and interpret history and advance our understanding of the Sooke Region, we only accept items that support this vision while factoring in our limited resources.

We will accept just about anything related to human or natural history. Our goal is collect a wide array of items to tell a comprehensive Sooke Region history.

We will not accept:

• Items containing food and/or liquid
• Firearms
• Human Remains

We cannot make any guarantees about new donations going into exhibits. When we design new exhibits, we consider the thousands of items we have in the collection. Often, we choose items that best represent the history we are depicting, that may or may not be your donation. Every donation enriches our understanding and knowledge on the history of the Sooke Region. Your donation may help in other ways like assisting a researcher in the quest to find information!

It depends on what you are donating. In any case, plan for 10-15 minutes when donating. This can change depending on how much you are donating, and how much information you have on the items.

Yes. It is not required, but we strongly encourage everyone to reach out to our Collections Manager before coming in to donate. Our Collections Manager will review the collection, and consider our resources to accept the item. This can be done before you come in, and it might save you a trip if we do not accept your donation. If you walk-in with a donation, please give yourself more time since this will have to be at the time of the donation.

During the donation:

We will ask you questions regarding the donation like: who used it, where was it used, how was it used, etc. There is a short form that needs to be filled out as well.

After the donation:

The Collections Manager accessions the donation and gives it a unique number to identify in our collections database. Then, it is catalogued (which includes description, images, measurements, etc.) and the information is inputted into our database. Depending on it’s condition, it may be cleaned. Lastly, it will go into storage. From time to time, the item may be considered for an upcoming exhibit, it may go into an exhibit, a researcher might request to see it, among many other things.