Staff and Board

He was the Assistant Curator at Diefenbunker: Canada’s Cold War Museum, and Program Coordinator for Young Canada Works in Heritage Organizations with the Canadian Museums Association. Paving the way for safe museum spaces, Michael has empowered the MVTM to become Canada’s first Rainbow Registered Museum and strives to create a more diverse and inclusive museum sector. With this goal in mind, he has served on numerous boards, committees, and councils across the tourism and heritage sectors, currently sitting on the Heritage Advisory Committee for the Municipality of Mississippi Mills, the Lanark County Museum Network, and the Ontario Historical Society’s Museums Advisory Committee. As a Cultural Achievement Award recipient within the Municipality of Mississippi Mills, Michael has been consistently improving the Museum and enriching the local community by advocating for funding, inclusion, and partnership. Viewing museums as forums for learning and unlearning, Michael is working towards a sector that is sustainable, equitable, and relevant to the communities it serves. Michael is a proud member of the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community.

“With over 20 years of experience working in the field, mostly in a small-town museum setting, I would like to provide insight into the challenges of small museums, and how they can be advocates, cultural hubs, and safe spaces for their communities. Funding and capacity-building are foundational to sustainable museums, while diverse and truthful storytelling are essential to relevant museums, which is why advocacy both for and within the museum sector is key to a progressive field. I am excited to explore a renewed definition and direction of museums at the OMA and support our members in growing with the sector.”

Trained as a business systems analyst, Joe had a 24 year career in Branch, Regional and Head Office Management appointments with the National Trust Company and Scotiabank. Joe served as Museum Manager of Lang Pioneer Village Museum from 2003 to 2018. During his time at Lang, Joe also served as Board Chair of both the Kawarthas Northumberland Regional Tourism Organization (RTO8) and the Peterborough and the Kawarthas Economic Development Corporation’s Tourism Advisory Committee. 

“I have worked in a variety of roles in the private, public and not-for–profit sectors over my 40-plus-year career. Many of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had have come since I joined the museum profession as Manager of Lang Pioneer Village Museum. I have had the opportunity to be involved in a number of rewarding initiatives which have had a lasting impact on the community and this has inspired me to continue to take an active role in supporting the museum profession. I look forward to, once again, working with my colleagues on the OMA Board of Directors to support the industry in recovering from the challenges of the current pandemic.”

He has contributed essays, articles and reviews to magazines and journals such as Espace-Sculpture, Ceramics Monthly, and Ceramics Art and Perception. Recent curatorial projects include The Decorated Surface (2023), Voices (2022) and Confined (2022). He is the co-founder of the Canadian Craft Biennial (2017) that included four exhibitions, two residencies, workshops and an international symposium. He was the publisher and managing editor of Cahiers métiers d’art: Craft Journal (2006-2016). In 2020, Denis was the recipient of the Craft Ontario John and Barbara Mather Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 2023, Denis received the Barbara A. Tyler Award in Museum Leadership from The Canadian Museum Association.

“My interest in joining the Board of the OMA stems from my experience here at the Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery navigating through staff changes and a pandemic to initiate and implement a new vision and mission that put its community at the core of its programming. I want to share my experiences with colleagues, and contribute actively, in continuing the OMA’s mission of strengthening capacity among institutions and individuals in Ontario’s museum sector, facilitating excellence and best practices, and improving the communication and collaboration of its membership. As a college and university teacher, and a mentor for ArtsBuild Ontario, among others, I quickly realized that many institutions do not have capacity, both in human resources and financially, or the tools to adopt new inclusive strategies, and to grow as an institution. Too often the daily operations take all the resources available. Yet, change is necessary, sometimes rapidly, to address the many contemporary social and cultural issues for museums to remain relevant. I sincerely think I can contribute to make this happen.”

I have been working with a Private Collector on a complete collection inventory of over 7,000 objects ranging from ceramics, metals, ephemera, and textiles. In my role as curator of the Murney Tower Museum National Historic Site of Canada, in Kingston Ontario, I oversaw a complete inventory of the museum’s collection which had not been done in over two decades as well as updates to the displays. I also worked and volunteered at the Agnes Etherington Arts Centre at Queen’s University helping to digitize the European Works on Paper collection and cleaning up the database., as well as contract with the Royal Military College Museum to digitize 1088 archival objects and provide advice on proper storage. Most recently I worked at the Smiths Falls Heritage House Museum, Smiths Falls, Ontario as the Special Projects Coordinator. While at the Smiths Falls Heritage House Museum, I wrote grants and designed and led a 5-year strategic plan. With Inclusive Voices Incorporated I contributed to The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives Collection and Community Engagement Review – Recommendations Report 2022.

“I believe that museums are a vital part of our communities. Collaboration has been a main theme in my professional practice. I believe that being a Board member will allow me to collaborate with a wider range of sector colleagues. I believe that the Board has an opportunity to foster innovative, sustainable and dynamic solutions to the challenges that face the museum sector emerging from the realities of COVID-19. I am interested in promoting inclusivity and diversity within museums, ensuring that exhibits and programs reflect a broader range of perspectives and cultures. I believe strongly that people should be able to see themselves in museums.”

From 2010-2015 Newby was the Executive Director of the Chatham-Kent Black Mecca Museum. Following that, Newby worked in the Special Events Department at Black Creek Pioneer Village in Toronto for several years before returning to the Chatham-Kent area. As custodians of the intellectual and cultural treasures left by our ancestors, Newby firmly believes that we have an obligation to safeguard our heritage and share it with the public.

“My goal through joining the Ontario Museum Association Board is to further my commitment to this while also having opportunity to provide a voice for smaller communities, smaller institutions as well as IBPOC museum workers. I look forward to learning from my colleagues and hopefully helping to further advocate for the importance of museums in our communities. Because I believe if I had that “A-HAH” moment regarding museums at such a young age, that through engagement and advocacy more and more youth can too. Which in turn will create museumgoers all over the province.”

Audrey’s role as director marked her return to George Brown. In 2019 and 2020, she worked with the college to develop recommendations and a reconciliation framework in response to the TRC Calls to Action, as well as frameworks for anti-racism initiatives. 

Prior to her current role, Audrey worked with the City of Toronto as a Business Analyst where she provided critical evaluations to inform programming and measure success, secured Indigenous partnerships to advance the city’s commitment to reconciliation, and produced a report that addressed the spiritual care of ancestral objects in collections management. Audrey also worked at the University of Toronto as an Indigenous Partnerships and Relations Specialist at Woodsworth College, where she advanced partnerships that facilitated the reciprocal exchange of knowledge. Audrey’s passion for Indigenous relations was cultivated through her roles in the Indigenous community as the Senior Development Officer with Indspire, an Indigenous-led registered charity that invests in the education of Indigenous people, and with imagineNATIVE, the largest Indigenous film festival in the world. She currently sits on several committees in different sectors committed to reconciliation work. She is the daughter of a residential school survivor.

Audrey holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Political Science, Aboriginal Studies and Religion, and a Master of Arts with research focused on decolonizing museums, as well as Indigenous voices, language and ceremonies in museums, both from the University of Toronto.

“After leadership positions in the state museum association of New Mexico, I am interested in connecting with the pressing issues in the Ontario heritage sector. I have experiences elsewhere which might be helpful, while open to the unique important issues here in Ontario. There are so many changes through and post-COVID that we can only resolve together. I am particularly interested in working toward alternative financial models … Rebuilding institutional budgets are key to this work, and that of seeking more diverse community connections, such as paid internships and co-directorships. I am also interested in regional collections management. There are so many similar collections in our province that it would be worthwhile to encourage the development of living history collections that spark more community connections and plan this work across regions. This will create space for new collections and new exhibit initiatives for community members as leadership diversifies. Finally, I am interested in sustaining and supporting the valuable work OMA already does to create collaborative training spaces for museum sector workers. This is more important post COVID during which we saw such a significant restructuring of employment in our sector.’