Canterbury Museum defends its employee numbers during five-year closure

Thursday, 6 June 2024

Canterbury Museum is closed for a $205m five-year rebuild and has retained most of its staff.

Canterbury Museum is closed and undergoing a $205m revamp, yet it is still employing the same number of staff it had when it was open.

It is also seeking a 5.4% increase in its annual grant from the four councils that fund it.

The museum is fiercely defending its staff numbers, saying all 73 full-time equivalents (FTEs) are fully engaged in work and specific projects.

“We are still running three central city attractions, carrying out an inventory of a collection of 2.3 million objects and researching, designing and building the expanded visitor experience for the new museum,” director Anthony Wright said.

The museum on Rolleston Ave closed in April last year after moving all its objects to a warehouse in Hornby.

It is expected to reopen in 2028, but in the meantime Wright said he expected to employ around the same number of staff, which this year will cost $6.3m.

About 73 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff, including seven on fixed-term agreements, are employed at the museum, about the same number as in June 2022. In addition, the museum has 17 casual workers on its books, which dropped from 28 in 2022.

Canterbury Museum cataloguing technician Jane Comeau is cataloguing items that featured in the Christchurch St exhibition at the temporary Hornby facility.

Wright said the museum team was often asked what they were doing while the Rolleston Ave buildings were being redeveloped.

It has created a pop up museum at Centre of Contemporary Art Toi Moroki (CoCA) in Gloucester St and was also operating the Quake City exhibition in Durham St and the Ravenscar House Museum in Rolleston Ave.

Staff were also working on a long-term inventory project to digitise its entire collection of more than 2.3 million objects.

The collection, which dates back to 1867, has never been fully digitised and some of the older records were not complete, Wright said.

The lack of an adequate modern inventory severely affected the museum’s earthquake insurance claim process, he said.

Canterbury Museum director Anthony Wright, left, and natural history senior curator Dr Paul Scofield in the temporary warehouse in Hornby.

The project started in 2018 and was put on hold while staff focused on the move but has since ramped up again.

Wright expected the project to take another 15 years or more to complete, based on completing 100,000 objects a year.

About 37 staff work in the collections and research team, which is involved in the inventory work.

Museum staff were also working on developing almost 60 new exhibitions, displays and stories that will feature in the new museum.

Wright said these range from single objects and smaller displays of around 35 square metres to a new Antarctic Gallery, new Discovery Centre for children, suspending the blue whale skeleton from the ceiling of the atrium and recreating the Christchurch St and Paua Shell House.

“This is a monumental task, researching, creating stories, designing, building and installing 6500sqm of exhibition and display space - 50% more than the old museum.”

About 2.3 million items including Sir Edmund Hillary’s tractor had to be removed from the Canterbury Museum to make way for a $205m redevelopment.

Wright said virtually all the back of house team would be working on the new visitor experience over the coming years.

“We need to be ready to install the new exhibitions and displays starting in 2027.”

At the same time there is still day-to-day, business-as-usual work to complete, Wright said.

This included loaning objects for research and display to other institutions, providing digital and in-person access to the collection, caring for and conserving collection objects, carrying out research and creating touring exhibitions for display around Canterbury.

Atrium of the redeveloped Canterbury Museum with the blue whale skeleton suspended from the ceiling.

Staff were also involved in installing new temporary exhibitions at CoCA, presenting public programmes and delivering lessons at schools around Canterbury.

About 40 people work in the public engagement team, including exhibitions, public programmes, marketing and communications and front of house.

Another 15 people work in operations on building management, security, finance, information technology, learning and development.

The museum receives about 85% of its annual operational funding from Christchurch City Council, and Waimakariri, Selwyn and Hurunui district councils.

In the year ended June 2023, the city council granted $8.3m, Selwyn $701,571, Waimakariri $631,986 and Hurunui $85,472 - a total of $9.7m.

This year it was due to receive $10.1m in funding from the four councils and has asked for a 5.4% increase, to lift the total grant to $10.7m.

Wright said the additional money was to cover the new visitor experiences and the cost of leasing two buildings - its temporary Hornby base and the CoCA building.

The museum also still needs to raise $45m to cover the $205m redevelopment. It has $160m, which will finance the construction through to 2026. In the meantime, the museum hoped to raise the remaining amount needed for the build and the $30m for new exhibitions and displays.

Wright said funding would be sourced through grants, philanthropic giving and community fundraising.