This year the North Stradbroke Island Historical Museum (NSIHM) decided to enter the ABC Radio
National 2009 Regional Museums Award.
This was the second year of the Award and as a small Museum run almost entirely by volunteers, we were asked to tell our story. There were over eighty museums who accepted this challenge from every Australian state. We were thrilled to find we were judged the overall winner. When it was announced, this feeling seemed to spill over into the general community, accepting they were part of the Museum as well.
NSIHM Committee members Elisabeth Gondwe and Petrina Walker and volunteer Talisah Edwards were in Newcastle attending the National Museums Conference when the overall winner was announced. Petrina Walker accepted the award on behalf of the Museum from Hon Peter Garrett Federal Minister for the Arts.
The following summary appeared on Radio National’s website.
“North Stradbroke Island Historical Society Museum tells the island’s story to a permanent community of 3,000 residents.
The Museum was judged to have the best overall performance across the range of criteria. It has a range of permanent displays, well supplemented by temporary exhibitions. Its members are active in regional development issues and in developing heritage projects of interest to the community, visitors and schools. It actively collects objects, photographs, video and oral histories, which have been used in publications and is developing a website around its Heritage Trail.
The Museum is also the location for many local events, and has a thoughtful volunteer recruitment program. Among its treasures it holds a stretcher from the Australian Hospital Ship Centaur, which was torpedoed by the Japanese Navy near the Island in 1943, and the Oodgeroo Collection, which was deposited in 2008 by the family of the late Oodgeroo of the tribe Noonuccal.”
ABC Radio National’s Life Matters program visited the Museum to celebrate our winning the Award. Visit https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/lifematters/life-matters-at-the-north-stradbroke-island/3111338 to listen to the special program online.
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