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Michelle Maddison, today's guest speaker, has a distinguished career in curating. She has worked for the Maritime Museum being onboard historian for the replica ship Endeavour and since working at the Museum of the Riverina as curator, has presented a number of historic works including the Anzac Stories; Barbed Wire to Boundary Fences, soldier settlers in Tarcutta and Wantabadgery.
The main theme of Michelle's address was the changes and upgrade of the Museum of the Riverina located on Willans Hill. In May 2017 The Minister for Arts Don Harwin presented a sum of $1.88 million to upgrade the Museum. The successful grant came about after a detailed submission was made by Michelle to "Create Infrastructure NSW". The museum was also granted $200,000 by Wagga citizens via Wagga City Council.
The Willans Hill site was opened in the late 1960's by the Wagga Wagga Historical Society and was taken over by Wagga City Council in 1999.
Much of the infrastructure has deteriorated over the years and an upgrade was desperately needed to preserve the thousands of exhibits contained there.
During reconstruction, the exhibits have to be moved off site. This is a mammoth task. Every item has to be listed and sent to one of several offsite storage facilities. Many of the exhibits are very fragile and have to be handled with extreme care, for example a Murray Cod Head, stuffed Parrots, a one hundred year old wedding cake in a glass case. This long process will not be completed until November.
The architects were commissioned to provide double the storage amount, a staff room and a community meeting place, as well as the exhibition area and at the same time, meet a fixed budget. Construction will commence next year and it is hoped will be completed by the end of 2020.
In responding to a question Michelle said that the optimal location for a museum would be the riverside precinct, however there would still be need for the storage of many items at the Willans Hill site e.g. the many outdoor items such as farm machinery and the thousands of items kept in storage but not on display.
On behalf of those present, Michael Knight thanked Michelle for her informative address and presented her with a gift noting that they had a mutual birthplace: Newcastle. He also suggested that he could offer a site for the museum in the Riverside Precinct.