Jarrod shows his fellow Launching Place Primary School students Jaxon, Zoe and Jayden how it’s done.
By Mara Pattison-Sowden
WHILE students stepped back in time during History Week, the Upper Yarra Historical Museum has had a face lift and received further funding to assess its collection.
Students from across the valley went back in time at the Yarra Junction museum to discover how gold was panned, the dangers and hardships of the timber industry and fun games such as apple bobbing and sack racing.
Upper Yarra Valley Historical Society volunteer Rhonda O’Meara said it was great to see so many school children come through the museum during history week.
“They have discovered what’s up here so they can come in any time when they’re doing assignments relating to any of the history we have,” she said.
The museum, however, has had a face lift with the completion of its restumping work.
The past month has seen a frantic push to carefully relocate the museum collection from the historic station building so contractors could restump, while also uncovering the rooms’ original fire places.
The restumping project was part of the Yarra Ranges Council’s two-year $40,000 investment in the museum and was completed with days to spare for History Week.
Mrs O’Meara said the next requirement was to restore the three rooms in the building.
The society is looking for funding to paint, sand and curtain the rooms.
Almost $4000 in Federal funding has helped to purchase digital photo frames and computer equipment to digitise the collection, while a VicForests grant has helped sign various parts of the collection including the timber history, blacksmithing and gold mining areas.
Last week the museum received $4000 from the National Library of Australia for a Significance Assessment of the collection, which volunteers collected after a three-day intensive preservation and collection management workshop held in Canberra.
Mrs O’Meara said she was feeling “a bit humble at the moment”.
“It means we can have an expert come in, look at the exhibition and tell us the most important bits and how to care for them,” she said.
