From the MTG: Volunteers an integral part of the museum team

Volunteers ensure events such as the Nuit Blanche nights run smoothly. Photo / Supplied

Last week was national Volunteers Week – a period to celebrate and acknowledge the massive contribution of the 1.2 million people who give back to the community and support people, sports, arts and many other areas of our lives each year.

Most museums work with large numbers of volunteers who help with all manner of things and the museums cannot, in fact, do half of what they do without the volunteers – we are no exception.

At MTG Hawke's Bay we are seriously missing having visitors along with volunteers in and around the galleries and it certainly seems strange not having them here. So we're really looking forward to reopening the building to the public and welcoming our gallery hosts back on board at the same time.

While we may be closed to the public, work continues "behind the scenes" and includes researching new exhibitions, developing exhibition layouts and designs, acquisitions, loans (in and out), collection care, mount making, etc. So the team of volunteers who assist "back of house" and collections staff continue with their work unabated.

Our talented volunteers do a wide range of work, some work on scanning images and documents from our archives so they can be added to the database, others scan our internal museum records.

Volunteers assist with cataloguing objects, editing collection records and with inventory work. In partnership with Knowledge Bank, we have volunteers who transcribe documents. Other volunteers work on research and updating biographies.

We have volunteers who help with sewing, making cushions to rest objects on and to pad packing units for storage. They also make covers for furniture and hanging garments as well as assisting with placing textiles on display, such as making petticoats so dresses sit properly or padding mannequins to better fit certain garments.

Our volunteers are a very accommodating lot and happily help with all manner of other ideas we come up with including, recently, recycling some of our old banners to make large-scale bunting for the front of the museum as part of celebrating our reopening. Look for it at the reopening on Saturday, July 24.

Aside from the "back of house" work described above, our "front of house" volunteers support the museum and visitors through helping prepare and host exhibition opening events, keeping public spaces clean and tidy, ushering in the theatre and preparing materials for children's activities.

They also host visitors in the galleries providing further detail about exhibitions and enhancing the visitor experience. Many will also be aware we have a group of talented pianists who play live on weekday mornings.

Our volunteers both front and back of house come together to assist us with significant events such as Nuit Blanche, when we know we will have large numbers of people through the museum.

There are other forms and types of volunteers, too. The Hawke's Bay Museums Trust Board oversees governance, development and care of the collection.

The MTG Foundation works on raising funds and managing investments to support new acquisitions. Te Rōpū Kaiāwhina Taonga provides guidance and support around Māori kawa and tikanga.

All our generous volunteers are an integral part of the museum team, they brighten our days, help lift the load and provide a better visitor experience - I would never want to be without them.

• Laura Vodanovich is MTG director.