I wish to reply and provide some balance to a recent media report on the closure of the Katikati Heritage museum.
In terms of the Western Bay of Plenty District Council decision to close down the museum completely, there is a strong feeling among particularly those volunteers at the coal face that the museum should have been left open to run - even at a loss and in need of council support - purely for the benefit of bus tours, school tours and frequent visits by both domestic and overseas tourists.
Sorting and cataloguing of artefacts could have been done in conjunction with the museum being open.
Western Bay Mayor Ross Patterson was quoted as saying that neither he nor his council were in the business of running museums.
Your rate-paying volunteers would be the ones running it Sir - the same ratepayers who voted 200 to 50 to keep the museum open and operating.
The council's decision to close it and hide it all away in boxes has cost far more than any other option and is an ongoing cost, which is nowhere near over yet.
I have no doubt, as do a lot of others, that had the council not chosen to close it down Ken and Nancy Merriman would have got their money back. Of course, the WBOPDC should see them reimbursed in full.
P Martin, Katikati.
Posted: 11:24am Fri 14 Nov, 2014
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COMPETITIONS
5 comments
Comment on Closure
Posted on 21-11-2014 16:22 | By P Double
There are a number of points in P Martin's letter (14th November) regarding the closure of the Katikati Heritage Museum that require further comment. As I understand it the decision to close down the museum was not made by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council. Twice in the letter P Martin refers to 'the council's decision”. As I recall it the decision to close down the museum was one made by the Katikati Heritage Museum Trustees solely.
Comment on Funding
Posted on 21-11-2014 16:25 | By P Double
There may be a strong feeling among the volunteers that the museum should have continued to operate at a loss but I can assure P Martin that many people in the community are not in favour of further subsidising the museum. P Martin quotes the figures of 200 submissions in favour of keeping the museum open as opposed to 50 who did not. A more accurate assessment of the support or otherwise would be the number of people who were actually signatories to the submissions. For example I know of one submission that was not in favour of subsidies that included a petition with over 300 signatures complete with contact details of the signatories. I understand from council that they do take into account the number of signatories and not just the number of submissions.
Comment on Patronage
Posted on 21-11-2014 16:26 | By P Double
With regards to the bus tours, school tours, frequent visits etc; the figures issued by the museum indicated a patronage of considerably less than twenty per day and 90% of these were not local people. No doubt the museum may have some interesting artefacts but it is very unlikely to attract a wider audience. To think that coach loads of tourists from the cruise ships will visit the museum is fanciful. When the museum was set up it seemed to me, and I suggest to many other people, that it was very unlikely that a museum with only limited interest to a local community could be viable in such a small catchment area, and so it has proved.
Comment on Patronage
Posted on 21-11-2014 16:26 | By P Double
With regards to the bus tours, school tours, frequent visits etc; the figures issued by the museum indicated a patronage of considerably less than twenty per day and 90% of these were not local people. No doubt the museum may have some interesting artefacts but it is very unlikely to attract a wider audience. To think that coach loads of tourists from the cruise ships will visit the museum is fanciful. When the museum was set up it seemed to me, and I suggest to many other people, that it was very unlikely that a museum with only limited interest to a local community could be viable in such a small catchment area, and so it has proved.
Comment on Volunteers
Posted on 21-11-2014 16:27 | By P Double
Nobody can deny the enthusiasm and hard work put in by the volunteers but in the final analysis the museum has to be viable in its own right or it will continue to be a burden on the ratepayers. In these times the ratepayers do not need or want the added burdens. Mayor Paterson was quoted as saying 'there is no mandate in the council's 10-year plan for further spending on the museum”. I am not always in agreement with Mayor Paterson but on this subject I am in complete agreement.
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