Anne Chafe has been appointed as the interim Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of The Rooms Corporation of Newfoundland and Labrador effective immediately. Ms. Chafe replaces Dean Brinton who had served in the role since 2005.
Ms. Chafe has been with The Rooms since 2007 and most recently served as the Executive Director of Museums and Galleries. A complete biography for Ms. Chafe can be found in the backgrounder below.
The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Board of Directors of The Rooms Corporation thank Mr. Brinton for his years of service and wish him well in his future endeavours.
The permanent CEO role will be filled through the merit-based Independent Appointments Commission process.
The Rooms is Newfoundland and Labrador’s largest public cultural space and contains the province’s most extensive collection of artifacts, art and historical records. Since it opened in 2005, The Rooms has presented hundreds of exhibitions and more than 1,000 education and public programs and has received more than 1,000,000 visitors.
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Media contact
Chrysta Collins
Human Resource Secretariat
709-729-4839, 730-1568
chrystacollins@gov.nl.ca
Backgrounder
Biography of Anne Chafe
Anne Chafe is currently the Executive Director of Museums and Galleries of The Rooms having first started at the corporation as the Director of the Provincial Museum Division in 2007. Prior to her return to her native St. John’s, Ms. Chafe worked for 23 years in the museum and cultural field in Ontario.
Ms. Chafe began her museum career at the former Newfoundland Museum in 1983. Following her completion of a Masters of Museum Studies degree from the University of Toronto in 1986, Ms. Chafe remained in Ontario where she worked at municipal museums in Oakville and Windsor before settling in the Region of Waterloo. Here she held the positions of the Assistant Curator of the Joseph Schneider Haus Museum and Curator of the Seagram Museum before assuming the position of Manager of Heritage Resources for the City of Waterloo, which she held for nine years prior to returning to St. John’s.
In Ontario Ms. Chafe was involved in provincial professional organizations and served as the President of the Ontario Museum Association and as a Museums Committee member of the Ontario Historical Society. At the local level, she sat on numerous heritage and cultural organization boards and was a founding member of several community initiatives such as Doors Open Waterloo Region. More recently, Ms. Chafe served as the President of the Alliance of Natural History Museums of Canada, as a juror for the Governor General of Canada’s History Alive awards and the Canadian Museums Association’s Awards Program and sat on the editorial board of the Canadian Museums Association’s publication, MUSE. She is currently a member of the Virtual Museum of Canada’s Advisory Committee and of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) Canada’s Board of Directors.
Ms. Chafe’s work has been recognized by the Governor General of Canada’s History Alive program, the Canadian Museums Association, the Ontario Museum Association, the Museum Association of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Historic Sites Association of NL. She is also a recipient of the Sally Thorsen Award for Professional Excellence from the Waterloo Regional Heritage Foundation.