Museums & Galleries of NSW would like to congratulate the successful applicants for our Project Development Grants and the second round of the Volunteer Museum Small Grants for 2020.

As always, we have a wide range of projects this round demonstrating once again the commitment of our volunteer museums to museum best practice as well as their imagination and innovation in caring for their collections and their visitors. In particular, this round we had a large number of projects focused on exhibition development, including exhibition plans, new display equipment and accessible features, as well as many focused on protecting their collection with archival storage solutions.

The successful Project Development Grant applicants were:

Old School Museum
$4,500 – To engage museum consultant Angela George to conduct a Whole of Collection Significance Assessment

Illawarra Museum
$4,872 – To install movement activated sound equipment in seven display rooms, the equipment will deliver a description of the display and can provide tailored narratives for different visitor groups.

Lambing Flat Folk Museum
$3,515 – To create a physical flipbook interpretation of eight family stories to complement the re-interpretation of the exhibition panels of the Gold Room.

New Italy Museum
$7,100 – To develop an exhibition plan for the Italian Pavilion, New Italy, Northern NSW, engaging Leonie Lane/Booyong Design – designer and project co-ordinator.

Sydney Bus Museum
$7,500 – To develop a Statement of Heritage Significance to cover the Sydney Bus Museum’s collection of historic public transport vehicles.

The successful Small Grant applicants were:

Berry Museum
$1,721 – To purchase a camera, and tripod to digitise and catalogue Women’s and Children’s costume collection to the best possible standard including inclusion on Australian Dress Register.

Carcoar Hospital Museum
$1,049 – To scan, print and copy unique documents including a ‘May Gibbs’ Lithograph panel, original Pharmacist’s Certificate and frame to allow permanent display.

Coraki Museum
$1,754 – To purchase archival boxes and mylar inserts.

Evans Head Living Museum
$1,583 – To build display stand for Paddon World Championship boat Edna Mae and upgrade MOSAIC collection program for limited external public access to the Museum’s Collection

Fort Scratchley Historical Site
$1,370 – To create additional story boards for Museum Room 4. Fortress Newcastle and Japanese Submarine Attack on Newcastle.

Golden Memories Museum
$1,818 – To install stage 1 of Closed-circuit television (CCTV) & associated server/monitors for our extensive collection and complex.

Mary Boulton’s Pioneer Cottage and Museum
$2,000 – To purchase two digital scanners – one book-edge OCR capable scanner for newspapers, books,magazines, and one dedicated image scanner for negative slide and photograph scanning.

Narromine Keeping Place
$1,998 – To engage a supplier to build a display case for exhibition development to house a birthing tree that has significant connection to the Aboriginal community as a learning resource.

Nyngan Museum
$2,000 – To install sliding glass panels across the heritage building fireplace to protect the collection displayed and reduce surfaces requiring cleaning following ‘Covid contamination reduction’ requirements.

Rockley Mill Museum
$662 – To purchase conservation supplies to ensure long term preservation of the collection, including costumes, photographs and printed material.

Sir Edgeworth David Memorial Museum
$1,360 – To purchase and install Collections Mosaic as a collection management system for the museum at its new location

Sketchley Cottage
$262 – To purchase a roll of large Mylar film 125 UM.

Thredbo Alpine Museum
$1,690 – To purchase a lockable Mushroom Display Case to store the “Laurie Seaman” portable camera located on the body of Laurie Seaman in August 1928.

Wentworth Pioneer Museum
$1,500 – To purchase three new display cases.

If your volunteer-run museum is interested in applying for any of our grant programs, please contact Emily Cullen, Museum Programs & Collections Coordinator by email at emilyc@mgnsw.org.au or by phone 0407 263 463.

The Volunteer Museum Grant Program is a Create NSW devolved funding program, administered by Museums & Galleries of NSW  on behalf of the NSW Government.