Waikato District Mayor, Allan Sanson, cut the ribbon on Monday morning to officially open the new Raglan Museum. Over 100 people attended the opening including descendants from early settlers, Raglan Museum Society, tangata whenua, the community, councillors, Council staff, designers and Livingston Construction.
Mayor Sanson said that the building would be a great asset for Raglan. Sunna Thompson from Nagti Mahaanga gave a speech that was well received by local iwi and Councillor Baddeley made special mention of the many funders who had made the building possible. Museum President Patrick Day thanked Councillor Baddeley on his work on the project over the last seven years.
The foundation funding for new museum came from the decision led by Raglan Community Board Chairperson, Peter Storey, and Councillor Baddeley, to sell redundant road reserves. This decision by the Community Board provided the $300,000 that allowed the project to become credible and gradually come to fruition. The Museum Society has alway had strong links with the Raglan Council since Mr Harold Orr, then a member of the Raglan Town Council, received approval in 1966 from the then Board Chairman (Mr Bates) to establish the Raglan Museum Society.
The Raglan Museum Society was established in 1966. The first accession was in April 1967, when a wooden kitchen clock (Waterbury) over 100-years-old, was donated by Mrs C Gibbison of Raglan. In 1970 the museum was set up in the small left-hand front room in the Raglan Town Hall.
The Raglan Museum reopened to the public on Saturday 12th November 2011. It is open every day at least from 10am to 3pm. Entry is through the Raglan i-SITE at the right hand end of building.
T’was a shame that the opening was restricted to invitee’s only and the community missed an opportunity to be involved in what could have been a celebration of our history.
Fortunately many people ignored WDC’s quirky approach of ‘invitation only’ and came anyway. Could have easily had another 50 at the opening and that would have been great. It was a struggle to even get WDC to send invites to musuem society members.