Museums add glitz and glamour to award-winning fundraiser

Museums add glitz and glamour to award-winning fundraiser

Proceeds from the Costume Ball will be used by the two national museums to acquire important artifacts that would otherwise be lost to our national heritage.

Wearing period costumes and accessories, guests at the History Costume Ball will travel back to the Age of Style and enjoy a memorable night, in magnificent surroundings, reliving the glitz and glamour of the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s — back when music had a melody, dance steps had names, and hepcats were the bee’s knees.

Guests will also be among the first to taste the exceptional culinary creations of George Laurier, the Museums’ newly-appointed Executive Chef. Mr. Laurier, who is responsible for the Café du Musée, food services and catering at the Museum of Civilization and the War Museum, will introduce his new menu this fall.

The co-chairs of the 2007 History Costume Ball: The Age of Style are Jim Orban, Publisher of the Ottawa Citizen, and Louise Poirier, Gatineau City Councillor.

“This is one of the premiere social events in the National Capital Region,” said Dr. Victor Rabinovitch, President and CEO of the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation. “The History Costume Ball will be an incredible evening of big-band music, great dancing, and fine dining. It will also be a unique opportunity to experience a time in history, while contributing to its preservation.”

Last year’s gala Civilization Costume Ball was honoured as the best event in its category at the Canadian Event Industry Awards. It also received a prestigious Award of Excellence from the Canadian Public Relations Society and won the Excel Awards in Communications Programs and Special Events from the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) – Ottawa Chapter.

Last year’s guest list included the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson, then Governor-General; Gail Asper, Managing Director of The Asper Foundation and President of the CanWest Global Foundation; the Honourable Jim Watson, MPP Ottawa West-Nepean and Minister of Health Promotion; Gatineau Mayor Marc Bureau; and several parliamentarians and ambassadors.

Major sponsors to date are The Ottawa Citizen and Le Droit, and it is hoped they will inspire other organizations to follow their lead. Topping the list of sponsors so far this year are TELUS, CanWest Global Communications Corp. and Le Casino du Lac Leamy. The Museum has every intention of adding to that list.

Money raised through the costume balls goes to the National Collection Fund, which was established in 2006 to support artifact purchases by the Canadian War Museum and the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Although both museums are publicly funded, they often lack sufficient resources to acquire valuable artifacts — pieces of our national heritage — that come on the open market. Many of those objects end up in private collections in foreign countries. With he