Why Telus Spark Science Centre has Lost our Family as Members

Yesterday, we purchased an annual family membership to Edmonton’s science centre. It cost $134.95 (+GST), and came with a slew of benefits, like 50% off IMAX movies. Membership at Calgary’s new Telus Spark science centre with comparable benefits would have cost our 4-person family $320.

We made this choice for both financial and ethical reasons, and despite being long-time members of Calgary Science Centre in the past.

We’re a middle-class family fortunate enough to have $320/year to spend on science enrichment and education for our children. But we need to get good value for that money. For $320, we can buy the Edmonton membership ($135), a Royal Tyrrell membership ($60), visit the new Telus Spark on a day admission ($65.80), and still have money left for family nature classes at Devonian Gardens, tours at Dinosaur Provincial Park, admission to the newly renovated John Janzen nature centre, or Coaldale’s Birds of Prey centre—a place we just discovered this past summer. Or we’ll offer small donations to free places like Calgary’s Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, Lethbridge’s Helen Schuler Nature Centre, or Medicine Hat’s Police Point Park. Or to the Ellis Bird Farm who hosts the Bug Jamboree each August, the University of Alberta who offers ‘Science Sunday for Kids’ each March, or our own Calgary Public Library, where in the past couple weeks our family has taken in a Rock and Fossil show, and a class about bats. We’ve done enriching, hands-on, science-based activities at all these places in Alberta. And all keep prices affordable—in fact, many are free! Yes, there are higher travel costs associated with some of these outings, but several of them are no additional cost to what our family would be doing anyways (my husband sometimes works in Edmonton; we have family to visit in Lethbridge, etc.).

We also want to see our money spent wisely by the institutions we support. We expect them to offer solid, enrichment opportunities—and also to make these opportunities affordable and inclusive, reaching as many of our “future generation of scientists, engineers and innovators” as they can. Reading through science centre annual reports, I’ve learned that in 2010 Edmonton had 27% more visitors than Calgary’s old Science Centre, yet also spent at least $358K less on ‘salaries and compensation’. (It is unclear whether to include the additional $460K in ‘Professional Fees and Contracts’ that Calgary listed under ‘operating costs’ for the old science centre, which would make the total $818K less). So in 2010, Edmonton spent $358K (possibly $818K) less on employees, while accommodating 86,000 more visitors, and while running a larger science centre. Food for thought.

The other factor behind our spending decision is ethical: put simply, my husband and I have little tolerance for “stretching the truth”. I understand Telus Spark needs to attract visitors, and wants to seem as appealing as possible. That’s marketing. But misinformation crosses the line. Spark CEO Jennifer Martin came out swinging in her editorial, claiming folks—including Klaszus and implying me—were stating “inaccuracies”. Since we’re talking about inaccuracies, I’ll address only three, the significance of which I leave you to decide for yourself:

1) CEO Martin stated that the science centre does not receive tax-payer dollars to help fund operating costs. Her words: “…it seems that some members of the community, and Klaszus, are under the impression that our operations are either fully or partially subsidized, which is not the case.” Yet according to their 2010 annual report, Calgary science centre received about $3M in “operating grants”. Just over $1M of that is listed in the annual report as being for the “new science centre”, and just under $2M listed under “operating costs” for the old centre. And the majority of that $3M came from the City of Calgary.

Let’s be clear about what I am upset about here. I am not upset about them receiving grants per se; other science centres, like Edmonton’s, do so as well. And as a friend of mine rightly pointed out, this can help bring tourist dollars into our city, benefitting many Calgarians who work in that field. Edmonton, though, is quite up-front about this, mentioning on page 8 of their annual report “…our unique partnership with the City of Edmonton, our only source of public funding for operations.” They are not denying the fact, nor trying to use that denial to justify high membership prices that keep a science centre less accessible to local families.

2) Telus Spark is under fire for membership fees, and has inaccurate information on their website about how long it takes for membership to “pay for itself”. On their main membership page, they claim memberships pay for themselves “in just 3 to 5 visits”. If you crunch the numbers, you’ll find memberships pay for themselves in 4 to 6 visits. For example, three ‘day admission’ visits for a child costs $38.85 (3x$12.95); a child’s green membership is $42. Three day visits for youth costs $47.85 (membership $48); adult $59.85 (membership $60), and senior $53.85 (membership $54). It takes 4 visits to pay for any of the green memberships. For gold membership, adult and senior do pay for themselves in 5 visits as stated, but child $64.75 ($70 membership), and youth $79.75 ($80 membership) do not. They take 6 visits.

3) Telus Spark on the home page of their website says “Canada’s first new Science Centre in over 25 years”. This phrase has been oft-repeated by the media, and gone unquestioned. Yet Montreal’s science centre opened in 2000, and last I checked Quebec was still part of Canada. I find it particularly amusing that the government of Canada official press release goes along with the “first in 25 years” story, even though they gave funding to both Calgary’s and Montreal’s projects. A simple “first to open in more than a decade” surely would have had a similar impact on the lay public, and been accurate. And for the curious, family memberships in Montreal are $95/year. Edited Nov 23: I have since learned that this claim is even more inaccurate than I thought. I have found at least 7 science centres that have opened in Canada in the past 25 years. For a chart comparing Spark’s membership prices and benefits to those of these 7 centres, and 7 additional major science centres in Canada, see here.

So there you have it. By choosing to spend our money in this way, we are still supporting Spark—they’ll get our $65.80 for a one-day admission. But that is considerably less than we would have given them if memberships were kept in line with every other science centre in Canada (and North America). It’s not just membership money they have lost—we will watch our IMAX movies in Edmonton, buy Christmas and birthday presents for our science-crazy sons at Edmonton’s gift shop, etc. And, in our view, better support Alberta’s many institutions that provide accessible science enrichment for our youth.

Please note: I am only telling my family’s story, with our particular circumstances and values. I in no way disparage you if your family chooses differently—for folks who don’t travel much, or who have preschoolers who will expend energy at the much-improved Creative Kids area this winter, or who value spending locally (in Calgary) more than provincially—buying memberships to Spark makes sense. I fully support your decision. I simply ask you to extend the same courtesy and not disparage our choice. And Spark, if you are listening, why not look at a price structure like Vancouver, where families have more choice—from $140/year for basic membership, to ‘premier’ memberships at $350 – $500, which come with tax receipts, 25 IMAX movie vouchers, and 2-4 guest passes. Surely some Calgary families would jump at this sort of value, and feel good about doing so knowing there were options in place to keep membership affordable (at $140) for far more families in the community.

I honestly do want to see Spark succeed and become a jewel of this city. But I also want value for my family, and value for the money I spend supporting science education and enrichment in Alberta. I will be judging Spark’s success on two grounds: (1) can they make the numbers work? and (2) can they be as accessible as possible to the local Calgary community? Right now, the first remains to be seen—though as a new place, I suspect they will be fine for at least a few years, novelty being a great seller—but they get a failing grade from me on the latter. I hope to see that improve in the coming years.

Bottom line, Spark: we’ve bought memberships in the past, and were planning to again. And we will buy again, if the value for our dollar is there. But between the price jump and the benefit drop, and the many other opportunities to support science education and enrichment in Alberta, we cannot justify it in our family budget.

Risa Kawchuk,

Founder of facebook’s People For an Affordable Calgary Science Centre

Here’s a chart I created using data from the websites of various comparable facilities across Canada. As you can see, Calgary’s Science Centre membership for a family is FAR more costly than that of comparable facilities in Toronto (arguably the best science centre in the country), or Vancouver, as is Calgary’s zoo. (And again, with all due respect to the city in which I live, Toronto’s zoo is clearly the best zoo in Canada, and Vancouver’s Aquarium is at least equivalent as an aquarium (and arguably better) than Calgary’s zoo is a zoo). I included the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa to provide another city comparison (Calgary and Ottawa/Hull are roughly the same size), and it is in fact the most visited museum in the country.

Note that larger families are particularly affected by Calgary’s “no Family Pass” policy, as at all other facilities at least 2 adults, 4 kids can be included on a Family Pass. I know that there are costs in building the new Science Centre, but I cannot see the facility being TWICE (or more!) the value for money as the Toronto Centre, for example. The cheapest way my family of 4 (2 adults, 2 kids) can obtain a ONE YEAR membership at the Calgary facility—which does not include free parking or many other perks—is a mere $11 shy of a TWO YEAR membership at the Toronto facility. And for a family of 6 (2 adults, 4 kids), the cheapest ONE year membership is $73 more than the TWO year membership elsewhere! Add $30 more to that if you want at least one adult pass with parking included. And if the entire family of 6 wanted the “Gold” membership, with free parking, priority registration for camps and workshops, discounts on those camps, et al plus food—well, they’d be looking at a cost of $460 / year. Which becomes $920 over two years. Again, compare that to the two year memberships in Toronto or Vancouver—we’re talking around $700 more!

And the kicker in all this? The Calgary Science Centre membership, like most across North America, includes free admission to several hundred similar facilities in other cities. Which means folks from Toronto or Vancouver visiting Calgary can take in our new Science Centre for free with their far more affordable science centre membership. It’s the folks who actually live here and over the long run will be the core market for the Science Centre who will disproportionately bear the costs.

Just a short post tonight as I have a lot on my mind. I am realizing that I am at a crossroads of sorts, that what has been so helpful in the past no longer is—I have moved on, grown, changed. I want (and need!) to make room for new things in my life: new experiences, people, work (like homeschool facilitating next year!). Some of the people and groups I have found so supportive and helpful in the past I find myself drifting away from; I am interested in different conversations, topics, idea. Time for some mental / emotional spring cleaning, I guess. What’s that expression about friendship? That friends are friends for “a reason, a season, or a lifetime”. It is becoming clear that some of my reasons and seasons have changed, and that those lifetime friends are so very elusive, and precious.

This morning I wrote this out on our whiteboard so the boys could have an idea of our new rhythm, and we could discuss:

I’m sure this will be adjusted as time goes on, and it’s seldom a day will be quite like this: tomorrow afternoon we are headed to a magic show, for example, and Wednesday morning we’re meeting up with some school friends (who are on spring break) for bowling. But our family seems to do better with a rough rhythm for the day. My day extends outside what you see here, BTW—I was up at 6:00 and got my workout in, got dressed, and sat under the “happy light” (SAD light) for 20 minutes checking my email before getting the boys up at 7:30. The morning went well, they tidied their rooms without too much squawking (and Daegan even did some vacuuming in the kitchen too) before we sat down at the table just after 9am. My focus in the mornings is on math and literacy, with gym (or ‘recess’) in between as a break. Today we did workbook stuff (Math U See, Word Families) and we read some books, both me to them and Gareth aloud to me—from Bob books, Level 2. But other days we play games, do ‘math art’ or puzzles or ‘problem of the day’, watch DVDs, or write and illustrate a story, or send grandma a card (birthday, Easter, thank you cards, etc.). It’s quite flexible. And for gym today we played on the XBox Kinect, but other days we’ll throw a ball / frisbee around at the park, or take a walk / scooter / bike ride around the neighbourhood, or go for a nature walk in a nearby ravine, or go tobogganing, etc. We typically decide on the day what we feel like doing.

After lunch we all—even Jim, who is now working from home fulltime—did a chore or two: switching up laundry, scrubbing a toilet and sink, vacuuming the entryway. This seems a good time to get these necessary tasks (short! a little each day!) out of the way before heading back into afternoon work. The other things you see written at that time on the whiteboard are “floss” (flossing at this time of day may not be ideal from a dental hygiene point of view, but unlike at bedtime we’re never “too tired” or "forget”—and I’ve decided to not “let the perfect be the enemy of the good!” And “eye drops” as Gareth’s allergies always flare at this time of year. Jim headed back to his office as the boys and I headed downstairs to watch a couple DVDs I have out from the library, one CG (Canadian Geographic) Kids, and one on wetlands and biodiversity. We finished just before 2:00 and the boys then had some computer time while I attended to various household chores. I also made a batch of muffins and about 4:00 we all had a quick snack, and as the sun had come out for the time in almost a week (no joke! we’ve had day after day of this crazy foggy snow!) the boys headed outside to play while I got dinner started. After dinner everyone chipped in doing tidy-up (Gareth and I did kitchen detail (a million pots and pans!) while Jim and Daegs gathered garbages and recycling and put them to the curb for pick-up tomorrow, and also picked up the basement.) The boys and I then played a game of Sorry! (the classic board game), had some carrot cake, and they’re now upstairs having their playtime. I’ll head up in a bit—my aim is to get to sleep about 10pm most nights.

So anyways, that’s a glimpse into one “typical” day of a homeschool family. There’s lots of variation here, of course—some days are more structured than others, sometimes we get on jags on a certain topic (say, medieval history) and let science slide for a bit, at other times it’s science, science and more science! I find having lots of resources available (books, games, computers, DVDs, art supplies, balls and sports equipment, etc.) that the boys have free access to makes our days generally quite pleasant, as does having both routines (e.g. every Wednesday is drama, every Monday Sportball) and breaks-from-routine (let’s scrap everything and go to the zoo all day with a friend next Thursday!).

What I’ve found works for us came from asking what others did and then using ourselves as guinea pigs—we’ve found what works (and it changes, seasonally, and as the boys get older) by trial and error. So by all means look to what we do as a source of ideas and inspiration, but don’t compare or feel that what I have written is prescriptive! And know that I too have those worried feelings when I see what some other families do. Ack! My boys have not done piano lessons, or Ukrainian dance, or been skiing, or been in Cub Scouts, or studied a second language like French or Spanish…all of which some of our friends do. You can’t do it all, do NOT compare yourself to others in that way. For that was madness lies. As long as everyone is happy and learning and curious, all is well.

So anyone out there brave enough to share their family’s routine / rhythm / schedule?

The boys have also had a few firsts recently. Yesterday, Daegan blew his first reasonable-sized bubblegum bubble (i.e., not a teeny pea-sized pocket with a bit of air in), and was right proud of himself:

And I found this drawing in Gareth’s room. As far as I know, this is his first understandable-to-others printed sentence (I have oodles of pages of loops and scratches ‘pretend writing’, as well as sentences made of random combinations of letters). This is a new stage of Gareth’s literacy skill development:

The sentence, for those not fluent in Gareth, is “My dinosaur is powerful T rex.”

Oh, and the sun shone pretty much all day, the temps climbed above freezing, and I heard my first chickadee “fee bee / spring’s here” call. February days don’t get much better than this!

I thought I’d kick off the new year of blogging with some of the highlights of our break, like the lunar eclipse on the winter solstice. It was cold but fairly clear here:

:

We put up our tree on the solstice, and the kids did a great job decorating. Was the first year the ornaments were fairly evenly distributed, rather than clustered on the lower branches where the kids could reach:

We had a visit from what Gareth was sure was one of Santa’s reindeer, on Christmas Eve day:

And on Christmas Eve, we went over to a friend’s for an amazing 12-course traditional Ukrainian dinner (veganized), where we got a nice (and rare!) pic of all 4 of us:

For Christmas this year, Santa brought the boys simple digital cameras (Canon Powershot 3100), and the kids have been taking all kinds of pics, including trying to create their own stop-motion film:

We also got an Xbox Kinect in lieu of Jim and I exchanging gifts. It has been absolutely awesome! I love how the game is active (you cannot play it sitting down), one heck of a fun way exercise, and you play with friends and family—no anti-social loner spending hours sitting and staring at a screen, with only the thumbs getting a workout! We’ve played hours and hours already, and everyone loves it. Here’s the boys jumping in the middle of the river rafting game:

In the new year we had a visit from a fair-sized flock (200-ish) of Bohemian waxwings, which came to eat berries off the juniper bushes. Such handsome birds, and ones that only those of us in Northern climes get to see:

And our break ended this past weekend with a Gareth’s 6th birthday party. He invited 6 friends (plus Daegan) and we had a dino-riffic time!

Today, we started back into homeschooling and our usual routines, and oy…I’m just thankful that tomorrow is another day! It’s not all sunshine and lollipops around here, believe me! It was so bad at one point that Jim joked that tomorrow’s writing / printing activity could be to have the boys fill out their own public school enrolment forms. Repeat after me: tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow is another day…

In the meantime, I’d like to thank you all for reading about our HSing and family adventures, and say again how much I appreciate your feedback and comments. Our family wishes you a very Merry Christmas / Happy Hanukah / Season’s Greetings, and a wonderful new year. I’ll be back to my usual Monday to Friday blogging schedule January 10th after my posts tomorrow and Friday. 

And this was our family then, just me, Jim and 15-month old Daegan (no Gareth), with our pooch Orwell and budgie Quinn, neither of whom are with us any more:

I was glad we went back, as we discovered the boys’ bee houses had been left behind, attached to the back fence. When we moved out at the end of summer, the houses were still completely covered by the leaves of the nanking cherry bushes, but today with the bare trees and snow, I spotted them while I was having one last look at the backyard. The boys waded through the snow to get them. They are so neat, as almost every hole in each is filled with a hibernating solitary bee, likely a mason bee. They are important pollinators, but do not sting:

You can find a page about how to make your own bee houses here, or locals can head to the Bug Jamboree, a free event held each August at the Ellis Bird Farm, just NE of Red Deer. Here’s a pic of the boys making their bee houses, at the Bug Jamboree back in the summer of 2008:

Hope you enjoyed this brief stroll down memory lane. It’s reminded me of all I have to be thankful for, and to enjoy each day / stage / phase as it comes. And a Happy Thanksgiving to my American (and living in America) friends!

White-faced ibis, one of the rarest birds in Alberta:

Barn Swallow:

And what I think is my best shot, photographically-speaking. It’s a better pic than in my field guide! A Killdeer:

Have a great week!

But it’s Daegan, who is going on 8, that I am most surprised by. As a younger child Daegan was extremely resistant to change or trying new things—something I can sympathize with, actually, as my “wiring” leans in a similar direction. But something changed about a year ago. The child who didn’t want to try drama classes (which he ended up loving), and who I thought at one point during his toddler years was going to live on nothing but noodles, is suddenly wanting to try new things. A lot. Practically ALL THE TIME. He wants to learn to play different instruments, try new classes, travel all over the world, and even EAT NEW FOODS. At the one grocery store we go to which carries a wide variety of produce, Daegan has picked a new fruit to try almost every week. This week it was the pummelo, the ancestor of the grapefruit.

We weren’t sure how to eat it, so I ended up cutting it like I do a pink grapefruit, which Daegan also enjoys. He thought it was quite good, and found it to be “like a cross between a grapefruit and a lemon.”

So there’s some proof for those of you dealing with younger kids that some things are simply developmental. We kept offering new foods and experiences, and even pushed once or twice (I pushed with drama as I very strongly believed it would suit his high energy, wiggly, playful, non-competitive personality….and I was right), and did our best to model being open to new things ourselves. And when Daegan was ready and felt safe to choose new things, he did so. Let’s hope his younger brother, firmly mired in the “Ick! That’s new! I won’t like it!” stage follows suit.

Oh, and it should go without saying, when one of my kids finds a new healthy food in the store and says “Can we buy this and try one?”, I don’t even look at the price. I just pop it into the cart. And later turn it into a homeschool activity—Shall we look up where it grows? Let’s find that on the map. And I wonder what it’s related to? And how you cook or serve it…