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A treasure trove of historical artefacts is being preserved by the local community.
Young and old gathered recently at the Otago Peninsula Museum to share stories and restore historic machinery.
As children from the Portobello Kindergarten visited to enjoy a locally inspired tale, a group of mostly retired volunteers worked nearby to maintain vintage engines.
Head teacher Nathan Pollock read pupils The Christmas Caravan, written by Jennifer Beck, within a small pink trailer that inspired artist Robyn Belton’s illustrations for the book.
The excursion to the museum was an opportunity to showcase local assets.
“It is one thing we are trying to highlight with the kindergarten is the local resources that we have.
“We’re quite in a unique position to have our own little museum here.”
The rabbit-warren layout houses a wide variety of both domestic and commercial items.
“It is a huge part of history,” Mr Pollock said.
Started by community members in 1974 as a small room in the Portobello Coronation Hall, the museum opened in its present site in 1986.
Otago Peninsula Museum president Richard Shepard said every Tuesday a volunteer group came in to fix and preserve the collection.
“We are all pretty much retired.
“We all just come in and we are consolidating all the work that was started 40 years ago really,” Mr Shepard said.
“Just trying to maintain everything we have got here.”
The collection includes items such as engines for farming equipment.
“There’s old shearing engines, some of them were used in milking plants.
“Pretty much anywhere where they wanted a power supply.”
Mr Shepard said many artefacts were gifted by locals and had served a useful function at some point on the peninsula.
“It’s kind of like preserving everybody’s memories, if you know what I mean,” Mr Shepard said.
The museum had 280 visitors last year but relied on 49 life members and 23 current members.
“We’re all getting old and dying,” Mr Shepard joked.
Those interested in joining could search online for the Otago Peninsula Museum for more information.
“We’d love volunteers to help us out with open days when we’re open because if we had more people then we’d possibly open on more days.”
sam.henderson@thestar.co.nz
