Sunday 28 September 2008

What's New at the Museum

The exhibition manager, Graham Barkman, has been busy gathering items for the subject of the next display - Holt Park. Holt Park is a natural amphitheatre, carved out by the Otautau Stream. Its natural grandstand hillside provided an impressive backdrop to a lot of big events that have taken place there over the years. For example, Holt Park hosted the A&P Show and the Labour Day Sports competitions. Thousands of people would turn up for these events from miles around. There used to be a swimming pool there which was an after school favourite of many young people. No heating - just plain water and lots of fun.

So Graham has been collecting things from the public - photos, trophies, remembrances from the past and preparing to put them on display for next weekend.

Meanwhile, I've had the flu and that has slowed me down quite a bit. But we've managed to put together a calendar as a fundraiser. Last year, our first calendar featured photos of the early 1900s - and it turned out to be a good source of funding for us. We didn't simply want to raise money but we wanted to bring part of Otautau history into people's homes. So the calendars are one way that the museum is trying to break down its own walls and provide access to the images we preserve.

The 2008 calendar featured the Courthouse because this is its centennial year. It was purpose-built in 1908 to be a courthouse and nothing else. And funnily enough, after about 70 or 80 years when the Justice Department had no use for it, it became a library, an office, a meeting place, an exhibition space, a yoga room, a concert hall, and a museum. So it's an interesting reminder of what buildings and industries are still around in Otautau, and which are not; which of them have changed with the times and which have not.

For the 2009 calendar, we've chosen the topic of homesteads. Some of the homesteads featured are still around while others have long since been torn down. So the calendars provide a kind of snapshot of a town that continues to change.

Your comments are always welcome!

Thursday 18 September 2008

Women's Suffrage Petition

This blog date seems to be a day behind, but today, 19 September, is the 115th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote. The museum has a copy of the Otautau Women's Suffrage Petition of 1893 on display. There are 45 names of local women who dared to say they wanted the right to vote. Come in and check it out.

Your comments are always welcome!

Wednesday 17 September 2008

Flood!

We regularly receive photos from the public to scan for our collection. We then return them once we have made a digital copy. This is a win-win situation because people get to keep their original photos, and we get to use the images for our displays without having to use up valuable storage space. We're always grateful when someone comes forward with something to share.

One of our recent donations involved images of the floods and fires around Main St in the 1930s and '40s. Every picture tells a story but these flood pictures are overflowing with information.
This photo shows the Otautau Stream and would've been taken in the '30s or '40s, long before the stream was radically straightened and the flood banks built. I'm not sure if it's in flood here or just its natural state. It looks like a wetland. The edges of the stream seem almost level with the road. Off to the right is the old flour mill. I had heard that when the mill was demolished in the 1980s, it was used as filler for the flood bank. I don't know if that's true but would like to find out. Just looking at the picture, we see a vastly different landscape than what we have today.
This next picture is the Otautau Stream in flood in 1948. In the distance is the Otautau War Memorial. It's amazing to see all the trees by the water (now there are none!), and the stream is so wide it could be challenging to swim across.
These are just two of the pictures we've received. There are more. Feel free to come by the museum and ask to see them. We are open Wednesdays now as well as Sundays.
Your comments are always welcome!

Thursday 11 September 2008

Introduction

What goes on behind the closed doors of a museum? Boring old objects or Pandora's Box?

With New Zealand's national museum, Te Papa, having regaled (or accosted) the online public with its zealous dissection of a colossal squid -- squid cam and all -- our little museum is not to be outdone.

Ok, no one's given us a colossal squid lately, but as the collections manager, I have the privilege of seeing firsthand the precious donations from the public. Most of them do not go on display right away but end up in line to be labelled, catalogued and stored - though thankfully NOT dissected!

I have long wanted to share with people in a more timely manner the things we acquire, bypassing the redtape that even our tiny, volunteer museum has developed. I hope this little blog will be the right vehicle for that, especially for those who are interested in what we do but don't often get to visit us in person.

As always, your comments are most welcome.