Charlotte Varcoe
IDEAS for a Mount Gambier based museum have resurfaced following a question posed to Mount Gambier City Council.
During a recent council meeting, Cr Paul Jenner questioned what council’s position was on building and gathering items for a First Nations and Post-European settlement museum.
Council’s general manager for city growth Tim Coote responded to the enquiry stating council was currently working on a collection management plan.
Mr Coote said the plan would outline the Riddoch Art Gallery’s collecting areas, including First Nations materials, and this would have to be done with “considerable consultation” to ensure the “appropriate level of expertise”.
“The City of Mount Gambier does not currently have the capacity to store, research, catalogue or display such items,” Mr Coote told the elected members at the meeting.
“We are in the process of obtaining costing information to undertake a feasibility study for re-housing or providing new storage for the Riddoch collection.”
In 2006 and 2011 a proposal for a Mount Gambier museum was presented to council by local resident and history enthusiast Colin Thompson.
At that time, Mr Thompson presented elected members with a detailed plan on how a co-located museum would operate at the popular Mount Gambier Visitor and Information Centre.
According to the plans, there would be a number of separate rooms for visitors with dedicated themes in each detailing a piece of the city’s history.
Visitors would enter via the main entrance before being able to wander through the museum, observing a number of historical displays including Boandik history, transportation history and more.
Mr Thompson said the history would also provide more modern history including forestry and an inter-changing exhibition.
“People are becoming more and more interested in our early culture and there is no doubt about that,” Mr Thompson told The Border Watch.
“We have a range of things we are able to display and when the plan first came out we had a lot of support, including eight people on the steering committee which put in years worth of work to achieve the plan we submitted to council.”
Mr Thompson said he believed there was interest in a Mount Gambier based museum remaining adamant the information centre would be the best space for it.
“The information centre is right off the highway and close to a lot of the hotels which are within walking distance,” he said.
“If the museum were to be built here it would have been a fantastic opportunity and we could build something that is high quality right off the highway.
“To have a museum here is very important as it tells us who we are and how we got to be as a community and a lot of people are interested in history overall.”
Hoping the concept would gain momentum once again, Mr Thompson said he was open to resubmitting the plan to Council should he receive the opportunity.
“I do think the costs would be out by now but it would be worth it to build world-class facilities here,” he said.
