|
Toitu Otago Settlers Museum
Board
19 April 2017
|
|
Reports
Toitu Otago Settlers Museum Activity Report
Department: Toitu Otago Settlers Museum
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1 This
report covers the activities of Toitu Otago Settlers Museum (TOSM) for the
period 1 January – 28 February 2017.
|
RECOMMENDATIONS
That the Board:
a) Notes the
Toitu Otago Settlers Museum Activity Report.
|
BACKGROUND
2 Not
Applicable.
DISCUSSION
Visitation
3 Visitation
at Toitū Otago Settlers Museum (TOSM) has remained
strong moving into the second half of the 2016-2017 financial year. Over
207,000 visitors have been received at the museum which is an overall increase
of 9.4 % year to date. The museum has exceeded its Annual Plan visitation
target for the current financial year.
4 Visitation
to the Dunedin Chinese Garden (DCG) has continued to increase. During the
months of January and February 2017, a total of 20,641 visitors brought the
total visitors for the year to date to 38,187. This is an increase of 15.6% for
the year to date and just short of the annual plan target of 40,000. This
target that will be achieved by the end of March 2017. The high number of
visitors in January 2017 was a result of the Chinese New Year event. The
Chinese New Year was celebrated in the month of February last year. The Chinese
New Year is the new moon occurring between 21 January and 20 February each
year.
Financial
Summary
5 The
financial results below are for the period ended 28 February 2017 and include
the operation of both TOSM and the DCG.
6 The
net result for the eight months to February 2017 was $318K favourable.
7 The
financial result for TOSM was overall in line with
expectations.
8 The variance for the DCG for the period to February 2017 was $22K
unfavourable due to increased seasonal staff costs.
Summary of Activities
Visitor
Experience
Exhibitions and
Displays
9 Work is
underway on the military change out in the Call to Arms and Lost
Generations exhibitions occurring in March 2017. The Material Culture
swap-out is scheduled to change in late July and The Women’s War exhibition
opens in October 2017 in the Special Exhibition Gallery (SPG).
10 SPG planning is in
the final stages for the Sketched in Stone exhibition which opens in
August 2017. Work continues on the schedule of case change-overs.
11 The Otago Access
Radio community case closed this month and the community case has been removed
from the floor.
Curatorial
12 In this period 43
collection offers were considered and of these 20 were received for
accessioning. Highlights of new acquisitions include the family portrait album
of W.H. and R.S. Reynolds and a ceremonial mallet presented to Rachel Reynolds
at the laying of foundation stone for the kindergarten in 1913.
13 Talks have been
presented on The Journey to Lan Yuan film project, one about the Slice
of Life exhibition and one about The Journey of the Otagos film.
14 Two articles have
been submitted for publication for the New Zealand Society of Genealogists
(NZSC) conference.
Public Programmes
15 Gold Trail
and the Relive the 1970s and 1980s activities that were inspired by the Slice
of Life exhibition were the two public programmes offered during the
holiday period including January and resulted in good uptake from local
families.
16 Waitangi Day tours
attracted 36 attendees and proved popular featuring information unique to the
Otago region. This tour was one of nine public programme events during the
month of February.
17 The “Robbie
Rocks” music competition involved thirteen finalists who performed in the
Josephine Foyer. Malcolm Gordon and Andrew Harray won the open section with
their version of Open the Door to Me. The youth section was won by the
duo Ryan Ruins Everything from Logan Park High School (LPHS) and Queen
Abe of the Scots also of LPHS, won the audience favourite prize.
18 The annual Burns
Dinner event attracted 110 people who enjoyed the celebrations for the
Bard’s birthday. Highlights of the night included a translation of the
Address to the Haggis, the performances by the Robbie Rocks winners and the
speeches by Professor Peter Matheson and Lt-Colonel Amanda Brosnan.
Education LEOTC
19 Since
the start of the school year in February, a total of 351 students have
participated in the LEOTC programme with 210 students from the primary and 141
from the secondary sector.
20 The
education team has been busy with primary groups exploring Dunedin ‘Signs
and Symbols of our City’. This is a programme exploring our cultural
identity, history and how these are expressed in the city today.
21 After
a successful trip in term four 2016, Columba College began their year with a
cohort of Year 9 visitors to the Chinese Garden. The period has seen steady
numbers through DCG and TOSM from secondary schools focusing on a range of
subjects including mathematics, history and geography.
Life Long Learning
22 Students
from Kaikorai Valley College international department visited Toitu and enjoyed
dressing up as early settlers. There are several forward bookings from
the Otago Polytechnic and University of Otago especially for Slice of Life.
23 Pioneer
home based care group bought 73 preschool children to educator led programmes
at TOSM and the DCG in February 2017.
Partnerships
and Collaborations
24 From 16-19 January
2017, museum curators hosted the Hands-on History programme at the Museum working
with student leaders and the History Department at the University of Otago.
25 The
LEOTC Educator has been invited to participate in the steering committee for
the Department of Conservation initiative ‘Kids Green the Town
Belt’. The committee will support and coordinate local schools to develop
student led projects which enhance, enrich, and conserve the town belt
environment.
26 The Otago Settlers
Association History Prize intern Tom Rawcliffe researched and wrote for the Disappearing
Dunedin exhibition.
27 Preparations are
being made for the Otago Polytechnic Film and Television students visiting next
month along with Art History students from the University of Otago.
28 The TOSM Kāi
Tahu Liaison Group met on 27 February for the first time this year and funding
proposals are being developed to complete the remaining elements of the
Kāi Tahu exhibition.
29 TOSM are currently
hosting three interns from Germany for ten weeks. Christine Schmid, Lisa
Klausner and Annika Reichenbach are studying local government administration in
Ludwigsburg. Their studies include completing three internships in different
areas of local government. Annika and Lisa have been working with the
collections team, mostly in the archives, but also in the costume and art
stores. All three interns have contributed to the cataloguing of the
photographic portraits in the collection system.
30 The collections team
visited Maurice Hayward to develop a relationship enabling us to digitise the
film collection.
31 The collections team
continued giving professional advice to the Middlemarch Museum, advising them
on collections care and helping them with museums studies papers.
Collections
Management
32 Photography,
conservation and records management for the lithographs need for the upcoming
exhibition Sketched in Stone is almost complete.
33 The
Art store has a set of new large collection shelves, racks and plan drawers.
This increases the flat storage for materials by 30 square metres.
34 Digital
storage needs are ongoing and discussed with various culture sector colleagues
to analyse the best way forward. Discussions have also begun with the wider DCC
libraries and BIS to see what can be done to store and deliver digital content
in the best manner. Costs for this are still to be confirmed.
35 The
Fire Brigade Restoration Society (FBRS) relationship has been re-established
and this is progressing well. The current focus is the Waipori Land Rover and
legacy issues.
36 Cataloguing,
condition reporting and object support work for the large gallery changes to
the Military area and Material culture is progressing well.
Conservation
37 Thirty eight
collection items have been conserved, 24 incoming loans and 14 donation
condition reports have been processed for the period.
38 Standard Operating
Procedures for hazardous materials in the collections and stores are under
development.
39 Research into the
conservation plan for large objects and working collections to assist with the
loan application from the FBRS have been undertaken.
Archives
40 Improvements have
been made to the environmental conditions in Archives through remedial works
including insulation and new lighting. The new de-humidifier is being monitored
and so far the stability of the relative humidity and temperature are
remarkably improved.
41 A funding request
for $3,000 was submitted to the OSA for a collections intern and this has been
approved. This work will be focussed on the portrait collection in archives.
42 The photographic
portraits continue to be catalogued by volunteers and interns then records are
edited and photographs attached to the record by the archivist. The diary and
bible collection cataloguing continues in between orders, visitors, exhibition
and education support, donation and enquiries work.
Research Centre
enquiries
43 The research
information desk continues to receive a large volume of enquiries with the
total of general enquiries at 3,491 for the January and February 2017 period.
Research enquiries are increasingly popular, at 1,183 for the same period.
Research enquiries include archive users.
Commercial
Activity
Functions and Events
44 The summer period is
traditionally a quieter period for venue hire. Four functions were held
including a National Services conservation workshop, a Starship Foundation
presentation and the OSTAS theatre awards.
Retail
45 January and February
were both successful months in the museum shop. January was up $3,519 on the
previous year. February increased by a slightly smaller margin to $1,014.
The annual shop sale provided good returns.
46 The cruise ship
trade has made a noticeable difference in sales this financial year and
products have been purchased with this target market in mind.
47 Other revenue for
the café lease and car parking remain steady.
Archives services
48 Photo orders and
reproduction fees collected revenue of $650 plus five agreements to receive
copy publications. Entry fee revenue is $156.
Promotion
and Marketing
Venue Hire:
49 The print and online
version of the Otago Daily Times (ODT) Weddings featured advertisements
for TOSM venue hire. Another venue advertisement was booked for the bridal
magazine With This Ring to be published throughout the South Island in
March 2017.
Marketing
50 The
Slice of Life exhibition has been extended due to popular demand and all
advertisements updated and rescheduled in print, online and radio.
51 One
curatorial article was submitted to the ODT Cool and Collected series.
52
Advertisements and editorial were booked and featured in the Southern Holiday
Destinations, published in Christchurch.
53 Promotional
activities ran throughout February for the Museum Shop sale and included
highlighting the up to 50 per cent off summer sale on the big screen of the
TOSM website ad-boxes, event-finder loading and imagery. Additional advertising
for this sale went to ODT print and online; as well as radio and Facebook
boosts and posts.
Radio
54 The Breeze Radio
Station interviewed Seán Brosnahan on the subject of The Journey to
Lan Yuan film documentary.
Online
55 Issue four of the
TOSM online newsletter has been published with a range of museum related topics
covered. There is a new conservation blog on the TOSM website.
GeoZone
56 Over the last 90
days there have been 1,344 profile page views of TOSM by visiting tourists to
Dunedin using the GeoZone travel application. Within the museum GeoZone
recorded 20,117 users during this period. Over the last 30 days the language
spoken by those tourists has been largely English (58.88%), followed by German
(24.06%) and French (6.02%).
Lan Yuan Launch
57 In partnership with
the Visitor Experience Manager, marketing organised a photographer and loaded
images onto DCC media library.
iD Fashion
58 The Material Culture
collection was highlighted in the ODT iD Fashion supplement with a ‘More
than little black dresses’ advertisement to tie in with iD Fashion
Week. TOSM had a very “fashionable” postcard inserted into the
‘goodie’ bags presented to guests at the iD Fashion Show. iD
Fashion events were advertised in the regular ODT advertisements.
Facebook
59 The marketing team
ran a promotional campaign during January to grow the TOSM Facebook audience.
This was highly effective and as at 1 March 2017 there were a total of 6,750
likes on the page (up 934 since 23 January 2017). Popular posts during
February included two summer shop clearance sale posts that reached 7,100 and
6,400 people respectively. The collection item, Miss
Isabella Buchanan in the Smith Gallery reached 3,543 people. The Journey
to Lan Yuan radio audio interview with Sean Brosnahan reached 5,815 people.
The Fencing Club demonstrations by Salle Angello reached 1,100 people.
Trip Advisor (as at 1 March 2017)
60 Toitu
Otago Settlers Museum remains at number one position of 104 things to do in
Dunedin (previously 91 things to do).
There were a total of 1,317 reviews.
Excellent
968 (up 58)
Very
Good
264 (up 14)
Average
19 (no change)
Poor
7 (no change)
Terrible
2 (no change)
Dunedin
Chinese Garden
61 The focus for
January 2017 was Chinese New Year, which was a successful evening that exposed
the Garden to an estimated 10,000 people. In February 2017 there were three
events and venue hires which included an evening viewing to conclude Chinese
New Year. One other of the events being a public lecture in the tower room by
Dr James Beattie, and Natural History New Zealand filming portions of the
‘ZooMoo’ children’s television series. Dr Beattie is the
visiting fellow at University of Otago.
Coming
Up
62 Events in March will
be based on the annual iD Fashion week and community launch of The Journey
to Lan Yuan documentary.
OPTIONS
63 Not applicable.
NEXT STEPS
64 Not applicable.
Signatories
|
Author:
|
Jennifer Evans - Otago Settlers Museum Director
|
|
Authoriser:
|
Bernie Hawke - Group Manager Arts and Culture
Simon Pickford - General Manager Community Services
|
Attachments
There are no attachments for
this report.
|
SUMMARY OF CONSIDERATIONS
|
|
Fit with purpose
of Local Government
This report relates to providing a public service and it
is considered good-quality and cost-effective.
|
|
Fit with strategic
framework
|
|
Contributes
|
Detracts
|
Not applicable
|
|
Social Wellbeing Strategy
|
☒
|
☐
|
☐
|
|
Economic Development Strategy
|
☒
|
☐
|
☐
|
|
Environment Strategy
|
☐
|
☐
|
☒
|
|
Arts and Culture Strategy
|
☒
|
☐
|
☐
|
|
3 Waters Strategy
|
☐
|
☐
|
☒
|
|
Spatial Plan
|
☐
|
☐
|
☒
|
|
Integrated Transport Strategy
|
☐
|
☐
|
☒
|
|
Parks and Recreation Strategy
|
☐
|
☐
|
☒
|
|
Other strategic projects/policies/plans
|
☒
|
☐
|
☐
|
The activities included in this report support the Arts
and Culture, Economic Development and Social Wellbeing Strategies.
|
|
Māori Impact
Statement
There are no known impacts for tangata whenua. The Museum
consults with and works closely with Kai Tahu through its Kai Tahu Advisory
Group.
|
|
Sustainability
There are no implications for sustainability.
|
|
LTP/Annual Plan /
Financial Strategy /Infrastructure Strategy
This report is for noting purposes only.
|
|
Financial
considerations
This report is for noting purposes only.
|
|
Significance
In terms of the Council’s Significance and
Engagement Policy, the matters in this report are deemed to be of low
significance.
|
|
Engagement –
external
This report is for noting purposes only.
|
|
Engagement -
internal
This report is for noting purposes only.
|
|
Risks: Legal /
Health and Safety etc.
There are no legal or health & safety risks related to
the matters in this report.
|
|
Conflict of
Interest
There is no known conflict of interest.
|
|
Community Boards
There are no known implications for Community Boards.
|
