Society members will hear the next options for the McDougall Stoney Mission Church historic site on Sept. 29 at the St. David’s United Church, 3303 Capitol Hill Cres. N.W., Calgary.

Government officials and heritage conservation and archaeology experts involved since the church burned to the ground in May 2017 will be making presentations to the society’s membership at the two-hour meeting.

The information received will help its members decide how to move forward, explains society president Brenda McQueen.

McQueen says she isn’t certain what will be presented, but is looking forward to hearing the options available.

“I’m a little nervous about it,” she admits, “but I’m interested in what they have to say and I’m also interested in hearing from the members.”

All members are encouraged to attend and new memberships will be sold at the door for both 2018 and 2019. Memberships cost $20 per year.

This summer Dave Chalmers, of Chalmers Heritage Conservation Ltd. and his crew disassembled the church and placed it in storage. Archaeologist Kendra Kolomyja, of Lifeworks of Canada Ltd., led a dig to determine if any significant historic resources remained on the site.

Interest in the future of the historic site continues to grow. Memberships have more than quadrupled to 62 from 14 and the response to the newly created regular summer events has exceeded their expectations.

Even in the cooler temperatures and intermittent drizzle received on Saturday, about 40 people dropped by for the final of over a dozen events.

“We’ve had over 800 people out here to the site this summer and to me, that’s a huge success.” 

“When we started planning these events we thought if we had six people out to each event we’d be happy and it’s just been taking off. So we’re very, very happy with it.”

McQueen says if the board is returned at the society’s Nov. 3 annual general meeting it plans to immediately start developing next year’s schedule.

She hopes that will include bigger events and noticed the art event featuring a performance by Bradley Bishoff and John Frolek, two members of the Warden, was a great combination.

“The music on the site just added so much more so I think we would try and to expand the events to be a little bit more than just one thing. We also found the hands-on events are a lot better than sitting and having a history lesson. We’ll still have those, but maybe not as many.”

There’s been a flurry of communications with membership since the new board was elected last November and McQueen is looking forward to feedback on the progress made.

“I’m quite excited to see the members and look forward to their feedback and what has happened this year because I think it’s been a huge success. We’ve worked really hard and I’m very excited about keeping the momentum going into next year."