Museum may set entrance charge

Press, 16 May 1979, Page 20

Museum may set entrance charge

The Canterbury Museum .ight become the first in ew Zealand to charge an ttrance fee. “It would be a last resort, but we will have to consider charging if our finances do not improve,” said the chairman of the Museum Trust Board (Mr P. J. R. Skellerup). He was commenting on suggestions by members of the Cheviot County Council that the museum should charge an entrance fee of 50c to help it out of its bleak financial position. This financial year, the trust board will ’have an estimated deficit of $28,000. “The matter of charging has been under discussion, and it will have to be thought about,” said Mr Skellerup. “But the museum is an educational institution — we have 50,000 schoolchildren coming through each year — and we would like to keep it ‘open doors’ if we can.” he said.

Mr Skellerup said that a charge could be made for special exhibitions, and the opening of new displays. The chairman of the cultural committee of the Christchurch City Council (Cr Helen Garrett) said that the Museum Trust

Board should “seriously consider” charging an entrance fee. Because of its high running costs, the board was continually asking for “very large sums” from local bodies, she said. It received about $25,000 from the Christchurch City Council last year. "They should consider charging a fee — either on some days of the week or on every day. At any rate, something more than a donation box is needed,” said Cr Garrett. Under a special Parliamentary act, the museum levies rates which are collected by the Christchurch City Council. Local bodies from the Amuri County in the north to the Ashburton County in the south also contribute to its costs, but only six of these local bodies help to meet the annual deficit. Last month, it was decided to attack the museum’s financial problems by setting up a joint committee of representatives of the trust board and the 20 or 30 local bodies which contribute to it financially. Apart from suggesting that an entrance fee should be charged, the Cheviot County Council suggested that the museum trust board

should restructure its financial system. The council will recommend to a meeting of the board this week that it adopt the Otago Museum Boards system of organising its finances. After attending a meeting of the Canterbury Museum Board outlining its financial difficulty, the County Chairman (Mr R. G. Anderson) asked the Otago Museum Board to explain its system. There. a budgetary committee consisting of a museum board member and representatives of the contributing local authorities consider a yearly budget from the board. If more than half the committee members reject the budget, the board must prepare a new one. Local authority levies are calculated on equalised capital value and distance from the museum.