On Wednesday, June 2 from 6:00-9:00PM, you are all invited to the museum and try your hand at a handful of crime-investigating activities, from analyzing blood spatter and bullet evidence to identifying tool marks and foot prints. This event will be adults-only, as some of the material presented will be somewhat graphic.

The Police Museum, of course, is housed in a building that was once Vancouver’s City Morgue and Coroner’s Court; over 15,000 autopsies were performed in this space between 1932 and 1980 and countless pieces of evidence were analyzed downstairs in the City Analyst’s Lab. This place is as close as you can get to CSI:Vancouver.

Photo by Kim Werker

Stay tuned for additional announcements about this event; we’re working hard to line up some great surprises for you all!

If you plan on attending, please RSVP in the comments below or at http://vancouvertweetup.com/; we’d like to get a rough idea of the number of attendees so that we can plan accordingly.

See you soon!

(Also, we’ve posted the next series of our “Forensics for Adults” workshops. You can find info (and tickets) here.)

Image by Matt Hamm. Some rights reserved.

In the past year, we’ve been experimenting with different forms of social media, seeing which of the many tools available best suit our needs. No matter which platform we’ve engaged with you all on (Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, or this blog) we’ve found a welcoming group of enthusiastic supporters willing to help us learn the ropes and spread the word about what we’re up to. Thank you so much for the advice, the support, the introductions and the friendliness you’ve shown us since we started this experiment.We can’t wait to see what’s going to happen next.

We’re really like to pay you all back for your kindness, but as non-profit organization and registered charity, we really can’t afford give you the fancy and expensive gifts you deserve. That said, there are a few things we can do for you:

1) Sins of the City Tour – Heard about it earlier in the summer and meant to check it out? For the last four tours of the season (Sept 23, 25, 26, and 30) we’ll give you and a friend a spot on the tour for just $5 each (regular price is $15!). Just be sure  mention that you read our blog when you book your spot. (Or follow our tweets, or are a fan of us on Facebook). Tour details are here.

2) Event Hosting – Looking for an unconventional venue for an event? How about the city’s former morgue and coroner’s offices? We can’t offer the space up for free (for most events), but it doesn’t hurt to get in touch and ask. At minimum, you can be sure that if you’ve supported us, we’ll support you in return…

3) Gift Shop – 10% off everything in our gift shop for our Twitter followers, Facebook fans and blog readers until October 15th.

In the next few months, we’ve got some cool new things planned with FourSquare, podcasting and geocaching. Since you follow us here, you’ll be the first to know.

Thanks again for your assistance and we hope we can return the favour in our own small way. You guys are awesome, keep it up!

Me and a Tommy. (Image by John Biehler. Some rights reserved.)

This morning, we received an email from a big movie studio, asking if we’d be interested in seeing a sneak preview of an upcoming major summer film. (Update: the movie you might get to see is “Public Emenies” starring Johnny Depp!) As you might imagine, this caught us a little off-guard, since we’ve never received any sneak preview tickets at the Police Museum before. After the shock wore off, we decided to press our luck and see how many tickets we could get. In the end, they gave us 20 (!) pairs of tickets for the screening. (Screening is in the evening of Thursday, June 25th)

We can’t tell you what film this is for yet, but we’re pretty sure you’d enjoy checking this one out before the masses. So, we’ve decided to run a contest or two in the next week to give you a chance to come join us. The first contest, we’re calling… “Me and a Tommy”.

Doesn't everyone need an Anti-Bandit Gun?

As you may know, we’re pretty proud of the eight Thompson Submachine Guns we have in our museum collection. Invented by John T. Thompson in 1919, the Thompson became infamous during the Prohibition era. It was a common sight of the time, being used by both law enforcement officers and criminals. (Vancouver Police bought 42 of them, at $50 a piece!) The Thompson was also known informally as the “Tommy Gun”, the “Trench Broom”, the “Trench Sweeper”, the “Chicago Piano”, the “Chicago Typewriter”, and the “Chopper”. (Thanks for the succinct write-up, Wikipedia!)

To win this contest, you need to take a photograph of yourself with a Tommy; could be a person, an object, a poster, arts-and-crafts, whatever… be creative, as long as it’s clearly a “Tommy’. Once you’ve got the picture, comment on this blog entry with your name and a link to your picture, or post a Twitpic on Twitter with the hashtag “#vpmtommy”. (No photoshops, or digital edits, please!)

To summarize the contest:

1) Take a picture of you and a Tommy
2) Get it online
3) ???
4) PROFIT!!!

All entries must be up before 5pm on Sunday, June 21.

Afterward, our elite panel of judge(s) will pick the most creative, unique or awesome entries and award the selected contributors each a pair of tickets to the screening. We may award as few as one or as many as five sets of tickets for this contest, depending on how much awesomeness we receive. You can submit multiple photos, but you can only win once.

Good luck to you all!

ps. The first person to post a real picture of themselves with Tommy Chong, (no photoshopping!!!) wins automatically!

Many of you have said some very kind things about how we’ve embraced technology here at the Police Museum. Today, we’re happy to tell everyone that we’ve now got a partner to help us do even more innovative things!

Here’s the press release that’s just going out now:

NEWS RELEASE

ZERO ONE DESIGN SELECTS THE “ECLECTIC” VANCOUVER POLICE MUSEUM FOR THEIR POPULAR “SPONSOR A MUSEUM” PROGRAM

After evaluating 31 applications from museums across Canada, Zero One Design of Victoria BC congratulates the Vancouver Police Museum on being selected in the Sponsor a Museum program which will upgrade their online presence, collection management system, and website.

<<June 9, 2009. VICTORIA & VANCOUVER BC, CANADA.>> Zero One Design of Victoria, British Columbia, is pleased to announce the Vancouver Police Museum has been selected in their Sponsor a Museum program for 2009. The museum, dedicated to portraying the history of lawlessness and law enforcement in Vancouver will work with Zero One to expand and renew their online presence and collection management system.

The Vancouver Police Museum is already considered a cutting-edge user of technology with an up-to-date blog (www.vancouverpolicemuseum.ca/weblog/), an informative website (www.vancouverpolicemuseum.ca), and the active use of social marketing tools such as Twitter, Facebook and Flickr. “We’re thrilled to be selected this year,” said Chris Mathieson, Executive Director of the museum. “This sponsorship will let us continue to find new ways to use technology and take advantage of opportunities we could not afford on our own.”

The Sponsor a Museum program offers one Canadian museum the chance to take their museum—whether it be via their website, online gallery, or collection management tools—to the next level with the assistance, skills and grunt work from the self-confessed museum tech “geeks” at Zero One Design. “We have been working exclusively with museums, galleries and cultural institutions for twelve years, and we enjoy sharing what we’ve learned,” explains David Alexander, CEO of Zero One Design. “The Vancouver Police Museum has an incredibly diverse and eclectic collection. We’re keen to find new ways to share it with the public online.”

Thirty-one applications were received from museums across Canada, wanting to take part in Sponsor a Museum. Each application was reviewed by an independent panel of museum advisors. “Our advisors had a hard time deciding. It seems as if most museums have a website now, but everyone wants to spotlight their collections more effectively online,” notes Alexander. (To support this desire, Zero One is launching an online collection management system for museums, galleries and private collections this fall. For details visit www.arbutuspro.com)

Watch for the final results of the Sponsor a Museum program to be unveiled on both www.vancouverpolicemuseum.ca and www.zeroonedesign.ca in 2010.

About Zero One Design
Founded in 1997, Zero One Design has made a name for itself guiding cultural institutions into the world of new media. Composed of three partners, the company has carved out a niche creating experience-rich websites for the culture and educational sectors that focus on telling the compelling stories that these institutions have to offer. Watch for their launch of a new open source online collection management system for museums this fall. For details visit: www.zeroonedesign.com and www.arbutuspro.com.

About the Vancouver Police Museum
The Vancouver Police Museum is a small non-profit museum dedicated to portraying the history of the Vancouver Police Department. Established in 1983 and operated by the Vancouver Police Historical Society, the museum collects, preserves and interprets the history of the Vancouver Police Department and its context within policing in Vancouver, provides a resource for those examining the role of the Vancouver Police Department across time and across cultures, and provides educational opportunities to explore the science of police work. It is located in the former Coroner’s Courtroom at 240 E. Cordova Street in Vancouver (a designated heritage building) and is open to the public. Visit: www.vancouverpolicemuseum.ca

–end—

Contact:
David Alexander
Principal, Zero One Design
Tel: (250) 885-8665
E-mail: david@zeroonedesign.com

Chris Mathieson
Executive Director, Vancouver Police Museum
Tel: (604) 665-2207
E-mail: chris@vancouverpolicemuseum.ca

Next Thursday (June 4) at 6:00 PM, we’ll be hosting a special tour for our twitter friends, digging a little deeper and being a little braver than usual as we show off the newest iteration of our naughty little tour.

There will be an open house from 4:00-6:00 PM at the museum and then we’ll head out on our walk. Everyone is welcome to the open house, but you have to reserve a spot for the walk. (30 spots available for now but I’m going to try and get some of our other guides to come out, then we can take more people.)

To reserve your spot, please comment below with your Twitter ID and whether you’re bringing a guest. (I’ll update this post as additional spots become available, but don’t be shy about adding your name to the list if we’re past 30 already.) We’ll confirm with everyone through email or Twitter early next week.

We look forward to seeing you next week!