Antarctic centre seeks funds

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32660, 16 July 1971, Page 10

Antarctic centre seeks funds

The Canterbury Museum Trust Board is to write to the Prime Minister (Sir Keith Holyoake) thanking him for consenting to the use of his name in a brochure seeking both exhibits and financial assistance for the proposed $lOO,OOO National Antarctic Museum Centre.

The centre, of 6000 sq. ft, will be in the 24,000 sq. ft hundredth-anniversary wing of the Canterbury Museum which the board hopes to have built and ready before the 1974 Commonwealth Games. The wing, incorporating the centre, is estimated to cost $500,000. In a letter to the board, the Prime Minister said that the whole question of building subsidies for art galleries and museums had been deferred until a report by the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council—as council for the cultural section of the National Development Council—had been made ts the N.D.C. The Prime Minister said he considered that the Antarctic museum proposed by the board was “essentially a New Zealand project, although it will be of interest to other people beside New Zealanders, therefore my colleagues and I do not consider it would be appropriate for the support of other Governments to be sought. “There is, of course, no reason why your board should not seek the support and assistance of other overseas organisations. The Minister of Internal Affairs (Mr Seath) will write to you further as soon as the section council’s report on subsidies for art galleries and museums is available, and your board’s application for financial assistance can be reconsidered by the Government in the light of that report.” The board yesterday decided to reply to the letter, pursuing its request for the Government to give a $lOO,OOO subsidy for the Antarctic museum.

It was decided to express disappointment that the Government did not consider it appropriate to ask the Governments of “other countries participating in Antarctic activities for financial assistance.” If that ruling could not be reversed, the board hoped that the Government would give an early decision on a subsidy so that it would be a lead in fund-raising for the wing and Antarctic museum. The board decided to write that it was hoped to raise $400,000 for the wing—sloo,ooo from the public of Canterbury, and $300,000 from the board’s reserve building fund and a longterm loan. But that would leave no resources for the Antarctic museum.

The board has in mind an International Antarctic Exhibiation at the museum as its contribution to the occasion

of the Commonwealth Games. It feels that such an exhibition would encourage those countries participating in the Antarctic to contribute not only items towards the exhibition but also money towards the cost of the Antarctic centre “in a country whose Antarctic record in exploration and research is well known and universally popular.”

The director of the museum (Dr R. S. Duff) said that no financial assistance towards the cost of museum buildings had been made since the inception of the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council.

On the motion of Mr H. G. Hay, the board decided to make preliminary inquiries of the building programmer concerning a permit for the proposed new wing.