Here is a summary of our main activities during the year.

1. Document archiving update
We fell way behind schedule during the pandemic, and the first contract employee was hired to take charge. We had to thank her because she didn't deliver the goods due to lack of availability. Fortunately, the contractor we hired as administrative secretary to help us catch up with our archiving had archival skills and proved to be very competent. We are now more or less up to date and this objective, which was our priority, has been largely achieved, and should be finalized in the first quarter of the next financial year before she leaves.

2. Digital archive update
The Directory of digital files 1977-2023 concerning documents originating on floppy disks, USB sticks, external hard drives and the like is now complete and available in text form. The content is also available in digital form.

3. Classification of our library of books and other publications
Héritage Sutton has accumulated and preserves some 400 books and other historical publications related to Sutton and the Eastern Townships, generally in the form of donations. A contract worker has been hired to classify and catalogue them. Our contract employee hired as administrative secretary completed the work of arranging the books and pruning duplicates, and this objective was also achieved.

4. Image bank
The image bank contains between 20 and 30,000 photos to be catalogued, indexed, captions and themes inserted, etc. A contract employee has been hired to take charge of this project.
The work accomplished met our expectations: configuring the computer and photo manager, eliminating thousands of duplicates, drawing up a procedure and authorization form, backing up photos on iCloud, external hard drive, PC hard drive. The images are now permanent, and access to them on Mac and Windows is also assured.
The work will continue into the next financial year, as the contractor has only used two-thirds of the budget.

5. Oral History Fund
The BAnQ project “Répertoire du Fonds d'histoire orale d'Héritage Sutton” has been completed. Digital audio, video and text data have been uploaded to a cloud-based program called Preservica. A procedure has been prepared and a training session will be offered for users. The document has been printed and distributed to various organizations (ISBN, etc.). The directory has also been integrated into our website.

6. Rosette's tale
The project to complete Vie à la ferme's tale Si Rosette pouvait parler was abandoned when the external resource assigned to the project withdrew. The balance of the planned budget of $1,000 has been reallocated to our general fund.

7. Digitization of Town and Canton minutes
We have analyzed the work to be done and determined that the number of pages to be digitized is in the order of 13,000 pages, and that the cost of the operation by a professional firm is in the order of $1,600. We have submitted a funding request to the Directeur général de la Ville, who has said he is in favor of the project, but is awaiting a reply.

8. Digitization of Mont Sutton's video collection
We have analyzed the work to be done and established the cost of the operation by a professional firm. In the absence of resources to handle the project, we have postponed the operation, which will be resumed in the new fiscal year.

9. Expo-ski project
We prepared an ambitious business plan in collaboration with the École d'Art. The project evolved following changes in priorities at the École d'Art and the withdrawal of the two external promoters. We therefore agreed to prepare a more modest project, subject to Denis Boulanger's commitment to the content of the exhibition, and the possibility of using the result for a virtual exhibition of the same type as our current virtual files and for a special booklet, as well as for the possible creation of an exhibition at the Sutton Museum. Continuation of the project will be subject to authorization by the Board.

10. Sutton History Project
The Board has authorized the project to produce a book on the history of the Township and Town of Sutton over a 3-year period. We have completed a business plan, including a detailed budget, and a summary of requests for subsidies and sponsorships to finance the project. Some of the first planned activities have been carried out or launched, including the recruitment of Harold Berube, Director of the History Department at the Université de Sherbrooke, to accompany us. The Town of Sutton is an essential partner for such a project, and a request for financial and moral support was sent to them. The request has been favorably received and will be presented at a future Town Council meeting.

11. History Sketchbooks
History sketchbooks numbers 40 and 41 were produced as planned during the year. Note that issue 40 was produced in collaboration with the Sutton Weavers' Guild in connection with its fortieth anniversary. Issue 41 will be launched in November.

12. Evaluation of the heritage value of the Calvary church organ
The Town of Sutton commissioned Héritage Sutton to assess the heritage value of the Calvary Church organ this summer. All research work was completed by the end of September. The report is currently being drafted and will be submitted in November.

13. Commemorative heritage inventory
We were asked by the Fédération Histoire Québec to take part in a commemorative heritage inventory for the Québec Ministry of Culture and Communications. We have identified ten or so monuments and plaques that qualify for the inventory, and have been asked to complete a file for them. The file has been entrusted to our contract employee hired as administrative secretary and will be completed by the end of December.

14. Petit salon du livre
As planned, we took part in the Petit salon du livre held on three Saturdays in December. The meetings with citizens raise awareness of Héritage Sutton, and sales at the event reached $202.50.

15. Héritage Sutton re-establishes drop-in open-house service
We have re-established drop-in service at the local office, with the presence of the person hired for archiving from Monday to Thursday. To facilitate access, we have installed a telephone line and a bell at the back.

16. Workforce
To carry out our current projects, we have hired three people: Hannah O'Donnell for the BANQ project, Camille Lizotte for archiving and Sylvie Grégoire for the image bank.

17. Administration
a. To facilitate the management of operations, Gilles Gauthier has drafted a number of procedures which have been compiled in a procedural document to be presented to the Board.
b. As planned, we have set up a model employment contract for employees and contractors.
c. We have set up a new accounting system based on a model provided by our accountant to simplify cash management and improve reporting.
d. We installed an IP telephone at the premises to facilitate access to the premises via reception, and installed a bell at the back door.
e. We issued a Visa business card with a limited credit line to facilitate payment of certain invoices.
f. We added the Brome Lake Museum as a point of sale, and took advantage of the opportunity to draw up a formal consignment sales contract that will be reused over time with our other partners.

18. Finances
We achieved a surplus in the order of $17,000. Our objective was to end the fiscal year with around $10,000 in cash, as we need to advance the funds required for the production of the fall issue and our other activities, while awaiting our operating grant from the City, which is normally deposited in April. The positive variance is largely explained by the $2,500 surplus resulting from the deferral of the payroll of our contract employee hired as administrative secretary to the next fiscal year, $2,000 related to the balance of hours not worked on the image bank, and $1,500 earmarked for the digitization of Mont Sutton's videocassettes. These amounts will therefore be considered as committed in the next fiscal year.

19. Memberships
We had 70 members as at September 30, 2024.

Conclusion
Fiscal 2023-2024 was marked by the departure of Jeanne Morazain as President. The transition was a great challenge. I would like to thank Jeanne for remaining on the Board as a director, and for her support and guidance in helping the new executive take over. Thank you to Thérèse Piette for accepting the position of Vice-President, and to the other members of the Board for their collaboration. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the collaboration of Gilles Gauthier, who supervised our projects and acted as Secretary to the Board.

Our business plan will consist of the production of our two sketcbooks and the continuation of projects already underway, as well as two major projects subject to funding from granting agencies or sponsors. The budget will therefore be based on funding assumptions during the year. On the administrative front, we will be setting up an organization chart with a person in charge of each of our areas of activity, for which Gilles has established a procedure.

Financially, we ended the year with a surplus of $17,000. Our objective was to end the year with a surplus in the order of $10,000 to finance current activities and possible contingencies before the payment of our annual grant from the Town of Sutton. The positive variance is largely explained by the $2,500 surplus resulting from the deferral of the payroll of the contractual employee hired as administrative secretary to the next fiscal year, $2,000 related to the balance of unrealized hours for the image bank, and $1,500 earmarked for the digitization of Mont Sutton's videocassettes. These amounts total $6,000 and will therefore be considered as committed in the budget for fiscal 2024-2025.

Subsidized projects and mandates¹

1. Sutton History Book (2024-2027) - Year 1: $10,000 out of $80,000²
The Sutton History Book project was approved by the Board on July 18, 2024. The business plan has been submitted and a solicitation memorandum produced. The Town's essential support was officially solicited. Our request has been well received, and we are awaiting the response to be submitted to the City Council. As soon as this is received, we will embark on a parallel process of fundraising from other organizations and sponsors, and launching the project. The first steps in this process are to draw up an outline of the content of each chapter, and to identify documentary sources in our archives, our oral history collection, our image bank and our notebooks. We are still looking for authors to complete the work team.

2. Virtual exhibition on the history of skiing in Sutton (2025-2026) - Year 1: $5,000 out of $34,000
The project was submitted to the Board on July 18, 2024. Given the change in management following the withdrawal of the two partners, and our subsequent reflections, the project has been revised to propose a virtual exhibition along the lines of our virtual files, the content of which would be reusable to produce a special booklet and feed an eventual exhibition at the Musée de Sutton, and the budget has been reduced to a more modest dimension and our funding approaches to other organizations. The project will focus on the history of the ski resort, and we have secured Denis Boulanger's commitment to collaborate on it. Given this repositioning, we will first seek financial and moral support from Mont Sutton inc.

3. Digitization of 1960-2006 Township and Town of Sutton minutes - $1,500
The project will be carried out if the Town's management responds favorably to the request for funding that has been submitted and for which a response is still pending.

4. Mandate to evaluate the heritage value of the Calvary Church organ - $1,500
The mandate was given by the Town of Sutton in the summer. All research work was completed during the previous fiscal year. The report is currently being drafted and will be submitted in November.

5. Mémoires en Fête - $3,000
The Mémoires en Fête event held at the École d'Art in 2022 was a great success. The formula of presenting historical photos to citizens and visitors, and asking them to help identify them and the characters, brought together citizens from several generations, in line with our mission of disseminating culture. The cost was around $3,000. We could organize a new event based on the same principle, choosing another theme such as Sutton's 150th anniversary and the more recent period from the 50s to the early 60s. The project idea is approved, but a grant and sponsorship application will be required for funding.

Other projects financed with the budget surplus

1. Document archiving - $2,500
The document archiving catch-up will be completed with the cataloguing of the assessment rolls filed by Winston Bresee by our contract employee hired as administrative secretary before the end of her contract at the end of the quarter. Now that we are up to date, we estimate that this activity, carried out on a regular basis, should require an annual budget in the order of $6,000. We anticipate an amount of $3,500 by the end of the fiscal year, which we will commit if we have a surplus during the year, or which will be the subject of a grant application incorporating this amount in the next fiscal year.

2. Image bank - $2,000
Most of the contractor's work has been completed, and the catalog and photo bank are already available for consultation. Approximately one third of the budget remains to complete the work.
However, the work has revealed that there are still a large number of duplicates and errors in the bank. We have taken the short-term decision to correct the bank as and when we receive requests for images from citizens or researchers, as this would require too many resources. It is difficult to estimate the number of hours required to complete the work, and a budget similar to the one currently allocated ($6,000) may have to be considered or entrusted to a volunteer to complete the work.

3. Digitization and cataloguing of Mont Sutton Fonds videocassettes - Amount to be determined
Last year's project involved digitization only. However, cataloguing would have to be added, at an estimated cost of $2,000. After discussion by the Board, it was decided to extend the project to include all the other video documents in our archives, including 8mm and 16mm films, in order to perpetuate and protect their content, and make them usable for our other projects. Such a project becomes fundable by the BANQ and will be the subject of a grant application during the year. The $1,500 budgeted last year has been freed up for other projects.

Other activities with direct costs

1. Production of cahiers 42 and 43 - $4,000
Anne and Jeanne are already hard at work recruiting authors for our next two issues. The cost of their production and distribution is in the order of $4,000, with sales revenues of $3,000, and about half of their membership revenues going to pay for the two booklets that are part of their membership, i.e. about $1,500. All in all, then, the external costs of the operation are self-financing, if we include the costs of distributing the booklets and collecting the product from points of sale.

2. Participation in the Petit Salon du Livre
We plan to take part in the Petit Salon as usual. This event is important for networking and promoting the company to the many citizens who visit our kiosk. Sales of notebooks are variable, and were around $200 last year.

3. Participation in the Sustainable Tourism project
The Ville piloté par la Ville project proposes a thematic trail where Héritage Sutton will be involved in the production of historical panels, among other things. We have no idea when the project will be completed, as there are still many stages to go, and a priori, as the project is subsidized, our costs should be billable.

Administrative activities
1. Now that the archiving catch-up from the surplus accumulated during the pandemic has been completed, we will no longer have a resource on a regular basis at the local office. We will therefore be reverting to a Thursday morning opening to accommodate visitors. To this end, we'll be setting up a schedule in which a member of the Board or a volunteer will be present.

2. To make it easier for board members, volunteers and contract workers to manage and carry out our activities, Gilles Gauthier will complete his procedure to cover all our activities, document our work tools and databases, and produce a compendium that will be submitted to the board.

3. We also plan to provide training for board members and volunteers interested in all our administrative processes and activities, and to share responsibility among them.

1. Non-subsidized projects will be postponed or spread over time if a lower amount than planned is obtained.

2. All amounts are external costs, and exclude the time of board members and volunteers.