{"id":556280,"date":"2026-08-02T15:11:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T15:11:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/556280\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T15:11:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T15:11:26","slug":"how-a-small-community-museum-is-preserving-the-past-for-the-next-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/556280\/","title":{"rendered":"How a small community museum is preserving the past for the next generation"},"content":{"rendered":"

A treasure trove of historical artefacts is being preserved by the local community.<\/p>\n

Young and old gathered recently at the Otago Peninsula Museum to share stories and restore historic machinery.<\/p>\n

As children from the Portobello Kindergarten visited to enjoy a locally inspired tale, a group of mostly retired volunteers worked nearby to maintain vintage engines.<\/p>\n

Head teacher Nathan Pollock read pupils The Christmas Caravan, written by Jennifer Beck, within a small pink trailer that inspired artist Robyn Belton\u2019s illustrations for the book.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"A little pink caravan inside Portobello Museum was the inspiration for illustrations by artist Robyn Belton in the children’s book, ‘The Christmas Caravan’ written by Jennifer Beck. Photo: Sam Henderson <\/p>\n

The excursion to the museum was an opportunity to showcase local assets.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is one thing we are trying to highlight with the kindergarten is the local resources that we have.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re quite in a unique position to have our own little museum here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rabbit-warren layout houses a wide variety of both domestic and commercial items.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a huge part of history,\u201d Mr Pollock said.<\/p>\n

Started by community members in 1974 as a small room in the Portobello Coronation Hall, the museum opened in its present site in 1986.<\/p>\n

Otago Peninsula Museum president Richard Shepard said every Tuesday a volunteer group came in to fix and preserve the collection.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are all pretty much retired.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all just come in and we are consolidating all the work that was started 40 years ago really,\u201d Mr Shepard said.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust trying to maintain everything we have got here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The collection includes items such as engines for farming equipment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s old shearing engines, some of them were used in milking plants.<\/p>\n

\u201cPretty much anywhere where they wanted a power supply.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"Showing a recently refurbished hot bulb engine are volunteer Keith Munro (left) and museum president Richard Shepard. Photo: Sam Henderson <\/p>\n

Mr Shepard said many artefacts were gifted by locals and had served a useful function\u00a0at some point on the peninsula.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of like preserving everybody\u2019s memories, if you know what I mean,\u201d Mr Shepard said.<\/p>\n

The museum had 280 visitors last year but relied on 49 life members and 23 current members.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all getting old and dying,\u201d Mr Shepard joked.<\/p>\n

Those interested in joining could search online for the Otago Peninsula Museum for more information.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d love volunteers to help us out with open days when we\u2019re open because if we had more people then we\u2019d possibly open on more days.\u201d<\/p>\n

sam.henderson@thestar.co.nz<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"A 1938 Vauxhall DX Sedan was donated to the museum by volunteer Michael Whitehead. Photo: Sam Henderson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A treasure trove of historical artefacts is being preserved by the local community. Young and old gathered recently…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-556280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}