Coromandel Life Magazine 2015 Winter V3

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The support of the wonderful community
volunteers to keep The Treasury
functioning – some on duty once a month,
others several days a week – is invaluable.
What started as simply keeping an eye on the
collection is now much more complex, with
around 60 different tasks including trustees,
executive committee, indexing, oral histories,
website maintenance, displays, writing and
research work.
Workshops are held regularly to upskill our
volunteers. It has grown a life of its own, much
more complicated than any of us ever foresaw.
Our Trustees and Executive Committee have
been in place since 2003, with few changes.
This very focussed group has a mix of people
with very different skills. Chairman Morrie
Dunwoodie came on board after his wife pointed
out – ahem! – that she had supported his
interests for many years – now it was her turn to
use his support! Hubby Morrie has knowledge
of Council procedures (from his career as
a surveyor), which helped with planning
applications. And this practical knowledge
enabled him to save the Trust money by project
managing the new archive addition.
Our Trustees include retired accountant
Gary Meek who keeps a meticulous hand
on the budget; Trustee Sue Wright, a retired
teacher, contributes an immense knowledge
of procedures and heritage to the melting pot;
others include Marise Morrison, Robyn Revell,
Rodney Poulgrain, and Tracey Spence.
As you come through the door, you are greeted
by our reception volunteers: Trustees Marise,
Robyn, and myself – plus David Wilton, Maggie
Furlong, Carol Saunders, Pam Kruithof, Marilyn
Dodds and Celia Newby. We are open Monday,
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, 11am-3pm.
Two volunteers are on duty each day in the
research room. Manning the research room
are June Robinson, Carol Fielding, Marianne
Scott, Jan Tercel, Graeme Pearce, Roger
Strong, Pauline Stammers, Jo Whitehead,
Carol Cresswell, Barbara Prendergast, Anthony
Hewitt – all now very adept at helping visitors
access the information they seek.
Some community members have donated their
entire history libraries to our book collection.
We have received records from organisations,
scrapbooks from families, business records,
and photos galore. The important work of
fumigating, cleaning and listing all the incoming
records (including tons of newspapers, and
records from Battsons Plumbers and A&G
Price) has been undertaken by a group of
women headed by Trustee and committee
member Marise Morrison.
Secretary Marilyn Dodds, a planner who helped
with the building applications, is a receptionist
and also involved in oral histories and in the
photography group.
Marise, after 13 years indexing at the School
of Mines, also organises the roster and current
indexing group as well as managing the
archive. The Indexing Group scour records
listing every name and places they come across
in a particular record, enter the information
onto a database, which is processed by
Pauline Stammers and sent to Evan Lewis in
America, who loads that information onto our
online searchable data base.* (The data base
is constantly updated so keep checking back.
This project will never end!!)
Evan and his wife Kae also host our much
admired website, which Kae designed and
maintains. The website showcases our work,
the entire collection, and also has many stories
about the people and places of this region. The
War Memorial page has been highly praised!
The photography group led by Miriam Heberley,
catalogues and stores all the original photos
handed in to us. Pam Kruithof and Merv
Cunningham are also involved in this work.
We are seeking funding to buy equipment to
digitally record these.
ORAL HISTORY GROUP
READING &
COMPUTER
ROOM
INDEXING
GROUP
Salute to the
gems OF THe Treasury
THE VOLUNTEERS
Trustee Robyn Revell and Jan Tercel are keen
researchers providing information for people
who cannot visit in person. Ensuring our stories
are not lost, Margaret Nankivell convenes our
Oral History Recorders and also interviews
people, helped by Carol Fielding, Graham
Robinson, Marilyn Dodds, and others.
Intern Nicole Thorburn set up and runs our
Facebook page, to the relief of all us ‘oldies’.
Nicole, having completed her BA in history
has volunteered for a six-month stint to learn
archiving techniques. (See story previous page).
Merv Tilsley does a lot our paperwork, makes
sure a thank you letter goes to every donor,
and has great powers of persuading the public
to part with their money at sales tables. June
Robinson looks after supplies and spends
hours preparing records for the archives.
We do our own research and writing, as well
as helping others with their research. We have
lots of booklets in our sales cabinet, some of
which have been written by Althea Barker, who
also writes ‘Thames NZ: Genealogy & History
Resources’, an online blog and Facebook page,
enthusiastically posting new historic images,
with lengthy descriptions.
Some help prepare standup displays and
signs for our lectures and book readings. Our
commemorative WWI book, From Gold Mine to
Firing Line, was an ambitious project thought
up by Althea, and undertaken with help from
Meghan Hawkes, Kae Lewis, David Wilton,
Roger Strong, and Tracey Spence – many of
whom also write history pages for the website.
Our latest project is to compile a book – True
Tales of Thames – following the idea started by
the Coromandel Town History Research Group.
This is a great way of gathering the little stories
– the ones which won’t make a history book.
This project has gone on to cover the whole of
the TCDC-HDC region, so please send those
stories in. See our home page for info about
how to submit your own tale.
Many of these people perform more than just
these listed jobs, and my apologies to any I
have missed mentioning. Some have been
stalwartly involved since 2000, and many more
joined us since we opened in 2009. They are
the backbone of this interesting and valuable
project and we would be lost without them.
We at The Treasury can’t thank our volunteers
enough.
*Access The Treasury’s database:
by Geraldine Dunwoodie, Trustee
Dedicated people
help make all
things possible.
34 COROMANDEL LIFE 2015 WINTER
Morrie and Geraldine
Dunwoodie of the
Coromandel
Heritage Trust