Thames Museum Te Whare Taonga o te Kauaeranga has joined Museums Aotearoa’s national Keep the Lights On campaign as it is feeling the pinch of recession.

Thames Museum Society management committee chairperson Carolyn McKenzie says it's staffed entirely by volunteers, and like other museums around New Zealand, is experiencing tough financial times with climbing costs, and a Covid-19 “hangover”.

Carolyn says visitor numbers have not reached pre-pandemic levels, and even if they do, the museum will still need a significant increase in visitor numbers to make up for low visitor numbers during the pandemic.

Added to that are the weather events which hit the Coromandel early last year, and a nationwide economic crisis.

“Operational costs are going up and up all the time.”

To help raise funds, Thames Museum introduced a membership scheme, but it currently doesn’t bring in enough money to cover the museum’s fixed costs.

Carolyn recently told the Thames Community Board how much it costs to run the museum, saying that in the past 10 months, door sales and the membership scheme faced a shortfall of $1615 in meeting fixed costs like electricity, insurance, telephone, security, and rates.

The museum also has to find money to protect and enhance its collection.

“No museum should be static or displays left to stagnate.

“We’ve worked extremely hard to improve the museum visitors’ experience.”

The museum has been active in securing contestable grants, including from the community board, and raised an average of $54,000 per year in the past three years, she says.

Thames Museum Te Whare Taonga o te Kauaeranga. Photo / Supplied.

However, those funds are mostly for specific projects, rather than operating costs, says Carolyn.

Thames Museum is encouraging people to become a member.

Memberships cost $20 per adult (there are memberships for families, students and retirees as well) and are available by paying into ANZ 06-0457-0169842-00 or by popping into the museum between 10am and 1pm, Monday to Saturday (503 Cochrane Street).

History of Thames Museum

A steering committee for a Thames Museum was formed in 1967 when the town commemorated the centenary of the opening of the goldfields.

The same year, a fund was opened to provide for a Thames Goldfield Museum.

With subsidies from the council, the fund stood at $13,150 in 1972 and it was suggested a museum could be established in the same building as the old Carnegie library on Queen St.

Once the library shifted into new premises, the museum would have all of the Carnegie building.

However, by 1974 the Thames Historical Museum had moved into the old Methodist church on the corner of Mary and Mackay streets and celebrated its official opening.

Only two years later, the museum had outgrown its premises at the church which was also found to be a fire hazard.

As the battery building at the School of Mines Museum was going to be pulled down, it was suggested that the two attractions combine, and a concrete block shell be built on the site for the Historical Museum.

A paid custodian was meant to be employed to look after both museums.

Thames Museum Te Whare Taonga o te Kauaeranga chairperson Carolyn McKenzie with the model of a fortified pā, created by Hamiltonian Doug Pick in the 1960s, in the Taonga Māori Gallery.

In 1977, the council decided to offer the School of Mines site for sale to the Historic Places Trust, now Heritage New Zealand.

In 1979 the land where Central School had stood was offered to the museum to lease and a museum trust formed.

The new museum was officially opened six years later, on April 24, 1985, nearly 20 years after its first conception.

Since then, the museum has been further developed as funds or grants became available.

Thames Museum now has three major halls and one slightly smaller hall that is used for temporary displays, family history research resources and meetings.

In 2021, it was gifted the name Te Whare Taonga o te Kauaeranga, by Ngāti Maru.

-Hauraki-Coromandel Post.