MTG volunteers enrich our knowledge: Laura Vodanovich

Volunteer Claudia Gitzel and collection management officer Jason Napthali work on a textile outfit in the collection.

Opinion

Laura Vodanovich is the MTG’s director.

This coming week is the start of National Volunteer Week, and is a time to think about and appreciate all that volunteers do for our community.

Volunteers run charity shops, fundraise for numerous causes, read in schools, check on vulnerable people in the community, provide governance, deliver meals on wheels, and a multitude of things in between.

Volunteering can be long-term and ongoing, short-term, or occasional – all forms of volunteering benefit the community and make Te Matau-a-Māui/Hawke’s Bay a better place.

At MTG Hawke’s Bay Tai Ahuriri, we value the enormous amount of work volunteers do for us. At the leadership table, five generous individuals give their time, expertise and guidance running the Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust.

The trust is kaitiaki of the collection we hold - a repository of Hawke’s Bay stories, national art, people, treasures, and moments in history.

They oversee the strategic development of the collection, policies and procedures around care and access, and work to ensure the long-term preservation of the collection, on behalf of the Te Matau-a-Māui community.

The trust has been a critical party around the development of the new facility being built in Heretaunga/Hastings, providing, after many years, a permanent home for this regionally and nationally important collection.

Individual volunteers can achieve mammoth outputs. A case in point is Kay Morris Matthews, who over a period of three years worked tirelessly on the research that sits behind the Hidden in History: Trailblazing Women of Hawke’s Bay exhibition and accompanying publication.

This rich exhibition has been a highlight for the museum, shining much needed light on some extraordinary women in Te Matau-a-Māui, who deserve to be better known within our communities and acknowledged in our histories.

The museum also benefits from interns who come from museum programmes in both Palmerston North and Wellington, and locally from the Eastern Institute of Technology. Interns work for a fixed period, usually on a defined project.

These can include things such as: collection packing, database work, designing flyers, or undertaking visitor surveys.

A small army of volunteers is always working quietly in the background at MTG, helping add images and information to our collection database, packing items, preparing objects for display, helping with research and supporting the mahi of our team.

Another talented group of volunteers play live music, providing an enriching ambience and a pleasant surprise for visitors. Our volunteers also help with things such as ushering in the theatre, hosting at opening functions, delivering brochures and more.

Volunteers make MTG much richer - they increase our productivity, enrich our knowledge, enhance our exhibitions, improve our hospitality, support our hard-working team, and generally make MTG a better place for staff and visitors alike.

Our volunteers are generous, fun, passionate people, and we are incredibly grateful for all that they do.