The Gathering Room at Henderson Mennonite Heritage Park is still undergoing final touches, with flooring installation completed just this past week.
“It’s a win-win situation for Heritage Park and Mainstay Communications,” said Mainstay General Manager Jeremiah Duerksen
The Henderson Mennonite Heritage Park’s new Gathering Room will be fully equipped with the latest technology thanks to Mainstay Communications in Henderson.
The Gathering Room building at the Henderson Mennonite Heritage Park is nearing completion. It will be used as a space to hold meetings, events, and accommodate larger groups of visitors to the Park. The 66 x 36-foot building will seat around 115 people.
“When we were working on raising funds for the Gathering Room, we didn’t know if we would have enough money for all the technology we wanted to incorporate into the space,” said Suzanne Ratlzaff, Henderson Heritage & Tourism Committee President.
That all changed after a meeting with Mainstay Communications General Manager Jeremiah Duerksen. She and Duerksen met at the building earlier this year to discuss their “dream plan” for installing state-of-the-art technology in the Gathering Room.
“We wouldn’t have had the funding to do this much technology for the Gathering Room without Mainstay’s help. We are really grateful that they stepped up for us and the community to provide a place that is tech savvy,” said Ratzlaff.
“After that ‘dream’ planning session with Jeremiah, he came back and offered for Mainstay to provide everything we had imagined. It will be completely ‘teched’ out,” said Ratzlaff. It will feature the latest in physical access control, smart video and audio products, and MORE!
Thanks to Mainstay, the Gathering Room will include a projector for audio and video presentations, a video platform for sharing content from cell phones and laptops, automatic lighting and window shade controls, keyless entries, and security cameras. All of these features will significantly enhance the meeting and event space.
Spotty internet coverage has been a problem at Heritage Park. Mainstay is developing a solution to establish a comprehensive Wi-Fi system throughout the entire park, ensuring that every building has access to Wi-Fi. Currently, they only have access to the Internet near the Visitor’s Center. They are also working on securing the Park with a new security system for all the buildings.
According to Duerksen, “It’s a win-win situation for Heritage Park and Mainstay. It’s an opportunity for us to showcase many of our products and services to the public at the Gathering Room. We are excited to get it up and running because it will be a cool tech space.” They plan on utilizing it for their company meetings as well.
Previous to their technology contributions, Mainstay Communications also made a generous donation towards the capital campaign for funding the building of the Gathering Room.
The Gathering Room’s completion is expected to be completed by late this summer and will be available for rental, according to Ratzlaff.
