The future of arts and heritage funding has been a hot topic in the election cycle, with questions relating to the costs relating to the museums and galleries around the district.
Last month the Gore District Council voted to allow the incoming council to discuss a reduction of the level of service in the arts and heritage district — a move Mr Geddes said was not fair.
Mr Geddes said what was commonly grouped together as Arts and Heritage is a number of various organisations, committees, and trusts who own parts of the overall scheme.
These include the Eastern Southland Gallery, Gore District Historical Society, Hokonui Moonshine Museum Charitable Trust, Hokonui Heritage Centre Trust, Gore Branch of the NZ Society of Genealogists, and Croydon Aviation Heritage Trust.
Funding for projects has been ongoing since 1998, with $10.1 million raised, $1.6m of which was contributed by the Gore District Council.
The remainder has been provided by the community, with trusts, businesses and individual donors putting in $8.6 million, just for capital projects.
By virtue of a formal memorandum of understanding process, the Gore District Council assumed ownership over the buildings and land while the assets, art pieces, heritage documents, collections, remained under the stewardship of the relevant party.
The gifted buildings were the Eastern Southland Gallery, Hokonui Moonshine Museum and the Win Hamilton Wing of the Gore Historical Museum, which happened in 2022-23.
Mr Geddes said the main expenses relating to the arts and heritage department were for depreciation of assets due to the council owning them now and administration overhead costs, which were operational, to the tune of about $400,000 a year.
Now, after all the community investment, Mr Geddes asked if it was fair for the council to suddenly try pulling the plug and reducing services.
"We've got this extraordinary heritage which is all here and it's complete, by the virtue of the community developing it.
"It was council’s collective initiatives that put all this in place," he said.
Mr Geddes said a reduction of services would anger the hundreds of investors over the past 27 years, who might jump ship and take their patronage elsewhere.
"If they perceive that it's not a stable foundation, but more especially if their input isn’t valued by the community, then we’ll go somewhere else," he said.
Fundraising is still ongoing and Mr Geddes is hard at work getting the last $400,000 for the final phase of the Arts and Heritage project, which was ready to go until Covid.
"It was absolutely devastating, crippling and horrible.
"I guess we bore the brunt for it because we had all our funding in place,"
The Mataura Licensing Trust, Community Trust South and many other donors were a big help during this time, Mr Geddes said, understanding the importance of Arts and Heritage for the region.
Gore was renowned for its arts and heritage, Mr Geddes said.
The history of the district was intertwined with artistry of all kinds, bringing in many donors and patrons over the years who also recognised this aspect of the town.
For the investors, silent or otherwise, and for the Gore District, Mr Geddes wants to see the lights stay on to continue thriving — depreciation be damned.
