The Paeroa and District Historical Society Museum is in dire need of a new roof.
The building, constructed in the late 1930s, was the former location of Plunket and the town library.
Now home to Paeroa’s history, it’s filled with tales of the town’s past in the form of artefacts, written histories, photographs, and other taonga.
However, the building is in urgent need of maintenance.
Some items have already been damaged beyond repair from water damage, and the museum’s volunteers fear the worst for the rest of the collection if repair funds cannot be found. “We’ve got a very, very leaky roof,” society president Gaye Cleave said.
“It’s been running down the wall in the museum and of course if there’s photos on the wall they suck it all up. So we’ve had certificates there that are donkey’s years old, that we’ve just had to chuck out because the writing’s all run in them.”
A newer addition to the building has already had its roof replaced, but the section of roof over the older rooms is another story. And to complicate matters, the guttering is concealed under the roofing iron.
“That’s the way it was done back in the day… you don’t see the roof. You don’t know what’s going on up there until it starts leaking,” treasurer Kae Petch said.
Quotes received by the committee have priced the repairs at up to $15,000, or $45,000 to replace the entire roof with a more modern one.
The committee is also worried about the written records room, where buckets laid out along the room’s edges need regular emptying.
“There’s a lot of jubilee books and centennial books and a lot of family history books. There’s a lot of scrapbooks of Papers Past in there,” Kae said.
“But with it being damp all the time, it really compromises the integrity of that written history. This is my family history in there as well. If I don’t look after it, who’s going to?”
The society recently held an event to raise funds for the roof. The wedding memories and high tea fundraiser featured a parade of models in wedding dresses from different eras, beginning in around the 1920s, and was a huge success – all 120 tickets were snapped up and the society raised around $4000.
The committee is also applying for funding, Kae said, and seeking assistance from Hauraki District Council as well.
“It’s very hard to get money from anybody. I don’t believe that [funding groups] see museums as something that’s a funding priority,” Kae said.
“We used to get $6500 [from council] which covered our insurance, but now they’ve cut it to $5000 for this year, and it’s down to $2000 for the following two years.”
But the ladies said new members, and volunteers, would also help the museum’s efforts along.
“We have membership fees and people coming in the door, which did increase last year, so we’re hopeful that it will keep increasing, but we’ve got to try and keep up with things so people are interested in coming to the museum,” they said.
“We’re finding it very hard to get helpers. Because no one wants to come down here and sit for three hours… so we’ve just cut [the hours] back because we just can’t get the help.
“It’s just hopeless.”
DETAILS: Paeroa and District Historical Society Museum, open 11am-2pm, Tuesday to Friday. Contact paeroamuseum@gmail.com to find out more.
