Last Friday along with Cr. Tang I had the pleasure of visiting the new premises of the Glen Eira Historical Society in Glenhuntly.
Previously housed in a single room in buildings in East Boundary rd ,where the new sports and aquatic centre (gesac) is being built ,the society now has a far more suitable location . John and Felicity from the society gave us a tour of the premises as well as explaining the valuable work being conducted there - all by volunteers at present.
There is a wealth of information and artifacts stored there relating to the early history of our municipality that can be accessed by the public. One of the challenges has been to catalogue and digitise all that has been collected over the years.
At the next council meeting this Tuesday 2nd Feb in Item 9.7 council will consider funding options that will enable the society to further improve and assist in the work it performs.This is in response to a recent review initiated by council that recommended important priorities to be acted on.
Explanations and details can be viewed at
http://www.gleneira.vic.gov.au/Files/Feb02-AGENDA.pdf
The society is located at 965 Glenhuntly rd Glenhuntly- visitors and volunteers most welcome!
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I was a bit shocked that Council, I understand has committed Option C, which does commit Council to an ongoing expense costing thousands of dollars a year.
ReplyDeleteAnd it is one more expense on top of others, so additional rates will result to fund 1.5 staff estimated at perhaps $115K per annum.
Then there is the housing of this collection! I was wondering if Council could consider one of the two properties currently nestling on Packer Park. An aged house would certainly give character to the collection.
Alternatively couldn't one section of the Art Gallery within the Town Hall be used to display the collection and reduce costs with additional insurance etc etc.
A figure of $2 million towards collection managment was mentioned but I can't recall how that came about as $7K is only for the tools of trade.
While history has its place, should this have been placed above the priority of funding additional kindergarten spaces or paying off the GESAC debt a little quicker avoiding unnecessary interest?
Mary - I feel option C which committs $115K funding per annum is a reasonable cost to protect,
ReplyDeletedigitise and catalogue our valuable heritage. The $2mill figure was the cost associated with
Option D - that incl a cultural heritage centre as Stonnington and was not endorsed by council.
As was mentioned in the chamber the bulk of work done so far has been done by volunteers.
I think this amount of funding can be justified while balancing all other council priorities.