October seems like it was a busy month for the heritage centre, with the Labour weekend plant sale and hosting a large group of Dunedin gardeners for morning tea. One of our volunteers also gave a presentation in Dunedin to an audience of heritage enthusiasts.  

Our plant sale was a huge success as usual, even though we had to move everything indoors due to inclement weather. The Devonshire teas in the main bank chamber were a hit as well; it was lovely to see the room full of people sitting chatting over a cup of tea/coffee and enjoying a creamed scone made by Bev. Jan and Sue had three raffles running as well. 

Overall, we raised just under $4500 on the day, which is a great effort. 

This sum was added to the following week, with about 45 keen Dunedin gardeners here for morning tea, so of course we took the opportunity to offer remaining plants from the sale to them. Our thanks go to Gwen Pullar for all her hard work in propagating the majority of the plants. 

We hope to continue being busy in the lead up to Christmas. We have more stock arriving, so call in and see what we have to offer. This includes a number of 2025 calendars and a range of lovely tea towels, ideal for posting to friends and family. In addition, we have lots of new Christmas decorations and other unique gift items.  

 Terry Low will be our featured artist over the summer, his paintings include several local beach scenes at a very reasonable price. In addition, we have several other local artists work on display. A local painting would make a great gift. 

We plan to be open every day in the week prior to Christmas, and there’s plenty of parking here. 

Shirley McKewen 

Treasurer 

WCHC 

We said a sad farewell this month to two stalwarts of the organisation, Bill and Kay Lang, who are heading back to Australia.

Bill and Kay came to Waikouaiti in 2009 and with Bill’s background in museum engineering and design, they quickly became involved with our small museum. 

Bill encouraged the committee of the time to realise that the damp, cold building with no electricity was unsuitable for long term storage of heritage items. There was already damage occurring to books and textiles particularly. 

The momentous decision was made to build a new environmentally suitable heritage centre and to then eventually restore the old building. 

Bill set up a firewood group in 2014 which, until its closure, in 2021 raised $150,000 towards the new build. It was a lot of work for all our volunteers.

During these years, besides helping with fundraising activities, Kay was busy with the heritage collection, which was catalogued in a book. She checked every item she could find against book entries and the entire collection of 15,000 items (at the time) was transferred onto the computer and made available to all volunteers for researching visitor queries.

Bill planned and project managed the new build (to save on costs), and the building was completed in June 2020. We opened during Covid times, which limited opening hours and visitor numbers for a time. 

At the formal opening held in October the following year Bill and Kay were awarded Life Membership and the new Display Hall was named after them. 

We owe them both a great deal for their services not just to the museum, which can never be repaid, but also to the community. 

Bon Voyage Bill and Kay.

Following on from last month’s article, I want to outline in more detail information regarding the Waikouaiti Museum’s community survey, which runs from July 1st to 15th. It is important that we hear from the community as we are only the present-day caretakers of our precious local heritage and need to make decisions now that will affect future communities. The BNZ bank building is a significant asset for the town and helps illustrate an aspect of the importance of this early settled area.

To complete the survey there will be a link on local Facebook pages as well as the Heritage Centre Facebook page and website. In addition, there will be a hard copy version in the following places: the Heritage Centre, library, dairy and Outpost café in Waikouaiti, the Karitane Dairy, and in Waitati the survey will be at the library, Gallery Café and the Dairy. The survey only takes a few minutes to read and complete so make you get involved and have your say. We want as many as possible to complete the survey, including younger family members. I will aim to have the results of the survey ready for the August edition.

The second event I have information about is our AGM on August 24th at 2.30pm at the Heritage Centre. Allan Anderson, a well-known local fisherman, is our guest speaker and will talk about the Matanaka Sea Cave system. He will illustrate his talk with photos of the caves, taken during the years when he showed tourists through them. Many locals are unaware of this amazing cave system which, at 1.5km long, is the largest of its type in the world. So, note the date in your diaries and come along to hear, what I know, will be a fascinating presentation.

Shirley McKewen

Treasurer

(the image shows some of the winter activities we have for sale in our gallery/gift shop)

The days are definitely getting colder; we are so lucky to have underfloor heating to keep our heritage centre (visitors and volunteers)  warm all year round. It’s such a difference from the old bank when volunteers sat over one heater in the winter.

For the next month or so we will feature items that will provide some indoor activities to keep the family occupied on cold days. This includes story books, jigsaws, memory games, board games and marbles etc.

We will also be featuring prints by Mia Gorman as our featured artist, along with many other unique items made by local artisans. 

The project to restore the old bank building has reached an impasse in our discussions with DCC Heritage and HeritageNZ and we intend to ask the local community to assist us in making a decision to guide us. By next month a survey will be available online and in a hard copy format and we hope as many people as possible will take the opportunity to complete it. We particularly want to hear from the younger generation in the area.

Mark your calendars as our AGM is coming up at the end of August, where we will have a well-known local identity speaking on a topic of significant local interest. We’ll let you know more about this soon.

Finally, we would love to hear from someone with skills in videoing/filming as we would like to keep a digital record of the restoration project. It would require being available at irregular intervals over the next few years. For further details please contact our Treasurer, Shirley McKewan on Ts.mckewen@gmail.com

Another month seems to have rapidly disappeared and colder days are ahead. To be honest, it doesn’t feel as though we have really had our quota of summer days.

Here at the Waikouaiti Coast Heritage Centre, we have had a quieter month but we did see quite a number of people take up the option of free entry to the old bank building on Easter Saturday. It was great to see so many interested locals on the day, many of whom said they had been intending to visit but had never got around to it. Everyone was full of praise with what we have achieved and our plans for restoration. It was lovely to get such positive feedback and we encourage those of you who think you must come and have a look, but haven’t yet made it, to do so.

It will be Mother’s Day on Sunday 12 May and we have some great gifts for all the mothers out there. Lovely soaps, scented candles, perfume, scarves, a range of Hogarth Chocolates, cards and much more. Come and see what we have, all at a range of prices that will suit everyone.

Our featured local artist at present is Sue Lean, who has some amazing landscapes, followed by Mia Gorman from 27 May. Mia is a talented young lady from Karitane. All our artists have beautiful work on display and well worth considering if you have a spare wall. 

The photo is of some of our Mother’s Day gifts on offer.

We have had a quieter couple of weeks although several visitors have come in especially to see Jenny Longstaff’s paintings. Jenny is our current featured artist until April 15th, when Sue Lean will be featuring her work. We are so lucky to have such talented people in the area. 

I hope that by the time this is printed that a number of you have taken advantage of the free entry offer to view the old bank building on Easter Saturday. 

I have recently received stock of several different children’s games, which are available for sale. These will help keep younger ones occupied over the winter (and off their devices for a while). I also have new items from the local Men’s Shed and work from a couple of new local artisans. It is always worth calling in from time to time as there are new items frequently being added to our stock, and our volunteers enjoy meeting visitors. 

One of our volunteers has taken over managing our Facebook and website pages and will make sure they are kept up to date. We will include items of interest in relation to our Heritage Centre and the progress of our Bank Restoration Project. 

Here at the WCHC we are settling into another year of visitors, building restoration and a probable change of long-term volunteers. In 2023 we saw 1,500 visitors come through our doors, a first for us, but not unexpected as each year since opening the new building we have  seen a steady increase in numbers. We have particularly enjoyed having groups coming to Waikouaiti to visit the heritage centre and to see and learn about the district. Our recent group was from the Taieri, who were most effusive in their praise of both our premises, wishing they’d had more time to spend with us.

Work continues behind the scenes on the restoration of the old bank building. We recently had an expert in heritage tiling come to appraise our roof as well as a builder to examine our roof timbers and give an estimation on the verandah renovation (or not). There has also been a suggestion for a regular monthly day for cleaning the interior of the building. If this interests you (a couple of hours only) then please contact us or call in to the Heritage Centre. We are also extending an invitation to all locals to undertake a FREE guided tour of the building on Easter Saturday (10am – 3pm). An opportunity for a before and after restoration experience.

Finally, our probable change of long-term volunteers relates to Bill and Kay Lang, who have been hugely influential in our achievements over the past twelve years. All going well, they plan to return to Australia later this year to be closer to family. John Scott has kindly agreed to take over the role of Collections Manager, John is well known for his facebook page illustrating the history of the East Otago area. Other volunteer members of our group have taken on roles that either Kay or Bill have had responsibility for. As always, we would like to encourage more local people to join our group it is a good way to  learn about the area’s history and to meet the interesting people who come to the Heritage Centre. Just get in touch to find out more.

It has been an interesting start to the new year with physical work finally beginning on the old bank building; it feels as though we have talked about this forever. Mike Jackson, who lives in the Catlins, is an expert in plaster and heritage buildings - there is nothing he doesn’t know about the topic. He was here for a week immediately after the new year and made short work removing the old stucco from the front wall to expose the original stonework and to then place a poultice over it to help with the healing of the wall ie remove any remaining water and minerals. The poultice stays in place for about a year before he will return to complete the work. Hopefully we can successfully access more funding to complete work on all the other walls in the meantime. The Alexander McMillan Trust covered the cost for this first part of the work. 

In addition to having Mike undertake his work, the Heritage Centre was busy through December, and we saw over 200 visitors, before closing for the Christmas/New year break. Sales were brisk and our bank balance is looking healthier as a result, something we are pleased about.

A lot of new stock has arrived to replace what was sold prior to Christmas, including the amazing Hogarth chocolates from Nelson and their interesting flavours, such as; kumara, orange & sarsaparilla and much more.  We  hope you will consider paying us a visit sometime over the summer and look at what we have in store.

The Heritage Centre has also received a lot of items from locals for consideration of our curator as to their suitability for adding to our heritage collection. Space for storing items is always a difficulty, so we need to be circumspect as to what we can include. There is no sense in having several of the same item ie a specific book or farm implement for example. But it is aways interesting.

If you have an interest in meeting people and/or history, then maybe you will consider becoming a volunteer. We are happy to meet with you and provide an overview of our activities and answer any queries you may have. Call into the Centre during opening hours and mention your interest.