Tairāwhiti Museum able to meet most of its targets: director Wallace

Tairāwhiti Museum has faced a challenging year but managed to come out the other side in a strong position.

Those were the comments of outgoing museum director Eloise Wallace at Gisborne District Council’s finance and performance meeting on Wednesday, where the museum’s annual report and financials were discussed.

The council provides an annual operating grant to the museum of $735,000 as part of its Long Term Plan 2021-2031, necessitating an annual presentation on how it is tracking.

According to the museum’s annual report, it had met all of its key performance targets, bar two — visitor numbers and satisfaction levels.

The museum saw 35,825 visitors through its doors in the last year, which was up from just over 33,000 in the past year, but fell short of its 45,000-person target.

Visitor satisfaction gauged through a council residents survey remained steady at 85 percent, but fell short of a 90 percent target.

Ms Wallace said the museum was still bouncing back from the impact of Covid, and referenced recent cyclones as having an impact.

“It’s been, like all of our community organisations, a really challenging year for the organisation in many ways, with weather and other things that have been thrown at us.

“But we’ve come through the year in a strong position and we’ve been able to meet most of our targets,” she said.

Highlights for the past year included hosting 19 temporary exhibitions, seeing an increase in museum-generated revenue and securing a $325,000 grant from Manatu Taonga (Ministry of Culture & Heritage) to support a work programme focused on the Taonga Māori collection.

More than 7000 students took part in educational programmes over the course of the year. The museum also met its targets for “supporting significant collections” and “maintaining a high-quality facility”.

In response to a question about the challenge of storage, Ms Wallace said there was a process for receiving and removing items from the collection.

“We have a collection acquisition committee, so we certainly don’t take everything that we’re offered. We’re very cautious about how we build the collection.”

The museum accepted around 10 percent of what it was offered, she said.

At the end of the discussion, Wallace announced she was leaving her position at Tairāwhiti Museum after more than eight years to head-up the new museum in Invercargill.

Mayor Rehette Stoltz thanked her for looking after the community’s taonga, and gave her a hug.

“I think it’s a big loss for us and a great win for Invercargill.”