The 1972 Canon EX Auto EE QL. Photo / Jacob Brookie
The 1972 Canon EX Auto EE QL. Photo / Jacob Brookie
Across Foxton volunteers are helping the community. In this occasional series of photo articles, the MAVtech Museum’s photographer Jacob Brookie is using vintage cameras from the museum’s collection to show you a day in the life of our town’s volunteers.
You wouldn’t expect forgotten footage of Nasa’s Apollo programme to be screened in a Foxton museum - but then MAVtech’s collection is full of the unexpected.
From early hand-built televisions, movie machines made by circus magicians, century- old cameras stained with chemicals, and a home-made boom box, the Museum of Audio-Visual Technology is a unique journey into the past. The museum is entirely volunteer-run, and once a month the MAVtech team hosts an open day in the Coronation Town Hall.
Frances Roache with her certificate at Volunteer Central. Photo taken on a 1956 Lipca Rollop Automatic camera. Photo / Jacob Brookie
One long-serving MAVtech volunteer was recently congratulated at the annual Volunteer Central recognition event. Frances Roache has been volunteering with MAVtech for more than 25 years and is the trust board’s treasurer.
There have been many special projects behind the scenes, and Roache can remember the carefully co-ordinated storage of the collection when the museum received its last round of earthquake strengthening.
You don’t have to be an expert to volunteer at MAVtech - all you need is a passion for the collection. Current volunteers have backgrounds in radio repair, camera sales, museum conservation, broadcasting, micro-engineering, as well as being ardent private collectors, and they love to share their knowledge.
A highlight of open days is when a visitor recognises something they once owned, or an unusual machine they had read about.
Gavin loads up the 8mm projector. A trained cinema projectionist used to full size projectors, Gavin must have felt like he was using a scale model. Photo taken with a 1972 Canon EX. Photo / Jacob Brookie
How family movies are made have changed beyond recognition in the last few decades - so MAVtech’s working film projectors are sometimes used by appointment to screen old films - often it is the first time the memories are relived in years.
Last month a visitor had arranged to bring in a very different sort of film made by his father who worked at Nasa.
Both he and the volunteers were surprised to find footage of the Apollo programme shot from the ground. The owner of the treasured film is now having it digitised. The 1950s projector used to screen it was designed for school classrooms - it had never screened anything like this before. It was set up by projectionist Gavin who is usually at the controls of much larger cinema equipment.
Xan in Radio Foxton's main studio, photo taken with a 1972 Canon EX Auto. Photo / Jacob Brookie
The Coronation Hall is also home to Radio Foxton’s studios.
Station Manager Xan spends most of his broadcasting time in ‘studio A’- but for special anniversary shows a second studio is also used, and there is even a simplified broadcasting desk for new announcers.
The station’s equipment ranges from 25-year-old broadcasting desks to 1960s Toshiba equipment used as fully operational back-ups. Intermixed with modern equipment, these ‘working exhibits’ broadcast on 105.4FM and via an online audio stream 24 hours a day. Proving that you never regret buying quality, everything still works perfectly.
Xan said using this equipment is a highlight.
“It’s tempting to single out the Himatangi Radio exhibition as my favourite - I love the history, the gear and the obvious camaraderie that the crews that worked that transmitting station had.
“But I feel that my favourite is another radio installation here at MAVtech that I did. Of course, I am speaking of the Radio Foxton rig, but in a very particular way. There is such a buzz with bring old stuff out of retirement, energising it again and letting it speak in 2024.”
Volunteer Andrew tries out Jacob's Seagull 4A camera outside MAVtech. Photo taken with a 1972 camera. Photo / Jacob Brookie
Radio Foxton’s equipment isn’t the only part of the collection which still works - home projectors, reel-to-reel tape players and the automatic player piano are demonstrated during open days.
Since he started volunteering at MAVtech, Jacob Brookie has also been using the vintage cameras- most recently for this series of articles.
“What makes MAVtech’s collections so enthralling for me is that they are both part of history as well as the recorders of history,” he explains. “The types of cameras people used altered their own visual record of the world, and I have been slowly using as many types of camera as I can!”
One of the cameras used in this article is a 1972 Canon EX Auto EE QL camera. The EX was built as a photographer’s first ‘advanced camera’ with features designed to make life easier such as rapid film loading and an accessory flash unit which automatically adjusted the amount of light it emitted. It wasn’t adaptable enough for professionals- but it was still built to last.
MAVtech’s next open day is on July 27, with another planned for August 31. Admission is $6 per adult, with money raised going towards the care of the collection. To learn more about the open days, and MAVtech’s monthly cinema nights, visit www.mavtech.org.nz. The website also has information about volunteering with MAVtech.
