By Angela Gregory
WHANGAREI - In a city where one man's obsession for collecting junk makes news, volunteer workers struggle to generate interest in protecting the local treasures housed in the Whangarei Museum.
The longest serving museum volunteer, Mim Ringer, raises the character of Whangarei when she struggles to come up with
a reason the regional museum fails to attract the support it needs.
"It's a very parochial place. That has something to do with it. And they've knocked down almost all the historic buildings in town."
The city's infamous junk man, Keith Montreal, was this week again in the news, with claims that he has finally contained his collecting habit to a crammed garage.
For Mim Ringer and her small team of volunteers, the sorting and storing of the museum collection have been a 10-year project with no end in sight.
But the 73-year-old can proudly point to the stacked shelves and labelled boxes piled up in the museum's storage rooms.
"It may seem a little disorganised, but we do know where everything is."
Mim Ringer has had a lifelong interest in museums.
As a 13-year-old schoolgirl she regularly entered the Cheeseman Flower Shows, her interest in native plants leading to a botany degree.
While a student at Auckland University she was employed part-time at the Auckland Museum.
Mim Ringer married and shifted to Waiuku, south of Auckland, where she took over and ran the local museum, while raising four children and teaching science at the local high school.
She moved to Whangarei about 20 years ago, expecting to take a break from museum work.
However, a stint on a community work scheme saw her helping to sort out the former Whangarei Museum, then at the Town Basin.
Not long after Northland's first regional museum opened in Whangarei in the mid-80s, word of Mim Ringer's expertise spread. She soon found herself deep in artefacts.
That was 10 years ago, and she still toils away in the bunker-like museum underground two days a week.
The conditions are not appealing, and the cold and cramped workrooms often put other volunteers off.
"But those who can handle it stay a long time."
Mim Ringer recently finished a diploma in museum studies, which probably makes her the best educated museum volunteer in the North.
She concentrates on the research work she finds fascinating, registering every item given to the museum.
One item she does not plan to "retire" is Mim Ringer.
"I don't want to stop working. There's too much to do."
