Cairns, 19^th March, 2021 – The Cairns Historical Society is seeking a forward thinking executive officer to guide the organisation’s strategic direction.

Clive Skarott, president of the Cairns Historical Society, said the time had come for the Society, which has continued to grow, to appoint a management professional at the helm. 

“This is a new position and a positive step for Cairns Historical Society, which was founded in 1958,” Mr Skarott said.

The not-for-profit organisation also operates the Cairns Museum, which has grown in popularity and use by both the local community and visitors.

“We have amazing staff and volunteers and they have proved their dedication and commitment to preserving and sharing the history of Cairns and the Far North region, especially with the difficulties presented by the Covid-19 restrictions.”

Mr Skarott said as well as implementing the organisation’s vision, mission and overall strategy, the executive officer would be hands on in guiding and evaluating the work of the society’s different departments and volunteer workforce.

“Another important part of the role will be engaging with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in accordance with cultural protocols.

“A major initiative for Cairns Historical was the formation of an Indigenous Roadmap Committee with the aim of bringing stronger engagement with Indigenous people, “ he said. 

The organisation’s Archives and Research Centre database hold about 39,000 items, including maps, plans, posters, books, bulletins of Cairns, Eacham and Mulgrave shire historical societies, journals and periodicals, early Far North Queensland business ledgers, newspaper clippings and photographs. 

Around 19,000 have been digitised in whole or part and these can be viewed on screen. For further information, or a copy of the job description, please call Leslie on 0403 877 318. The position advertised on Seek will close on Sunday, March 21 at 5pm, however applications will be accepted until March 28, 5pm.

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 Cairns Historical Society

The Organisation

The Cairns Historical Society (CHS) was founded in 1958. It also operates the iconic Cairns Museum

Overview

Reporting to the CHS Management Committee, the Executive Officer (EO) has overall responsibility for implementation and integration of the strategic direction of the organisation. This includes responsibility for all components and departments of the business.

Duties & Responsibilities

• Implement the organisation’s vision, mission, and overall strategy.
• Reporting to, and soliciting advice and guidance from, the CHS Management Committee
• Liaising with Cairns Regional Council for all business management issues
• Engaging with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in accordance with, and understanding of, cultural protocols.
• Representing the organisation in a civic and professional capacity 
• Participating in industry-related events 
• Leading, guiding, directing, and evaluating the work of the CHS sections and volunteer workforce.
• Ensuring a culture of respect underpins work practices.

Education, Experience

It is preferable that the EO is tertiary education and has a proven record of management experience. Experience in one or more of the following areas will be highly regarded:  HR, financial oversight, not-for-profit sector, cultural collections sector, digital literacy and volunteer management.

Skills & Competencies

Interpersonal, Analytical, Leadership, Management, Computer, HR and Marketing skills

To Apply 

Please click on the button below and attach your resume and cover letter. For further information, or a copy of the job description, please call Leslie on 0403 877 318.

Applications close on March 28, 5pm. 

Caring for family heirlooms and collections at home is easy with a little know how and the right advice from Cairns Historical Society and Museum.

Cairns Museum’s Cairns Historical Society Collections Manager, Melanie Sorenson, said free conservation advice clinics were being offered to members of Cairns Historical Society and Cairns Museum on the first Friday of every month from February until November.

“Advice sessions can offer easy tips and tricks on caring for precious items and where to go for specialist treatment if needed,” Ms Sorenson said.

Members are invited to book for a free 15-minute session with Ms Sorenson and bring one item to discuss its care and any concerns. Sessions are limited to two participants and one item per session. People wishing to bring two items must book two time slots.

“General conservation and collection care advice will be offered,” Ms Sorenson said. “No valuation information or treatment will be provided or undertaken during these sessions, although advice may be given on where to find appropriate expertise and where to get an appraisal.”

The conservation clinics begin on February 5 and run from 10am, with the last appointment offered at 3pm. Members may book through the Cairns Museum website at www.cairnsmuseum.org.au  

The sessions are not for donations to the museum collection.

Other organisations, including historical societies seeking advice, may book a separate appointment with Ms Sorenson at collections@cairnsmuseum.org.au

Cairns Historical Society has wrapped up another successful year with continued visitor growth at Cairns Museum, further investment in educational school programs and completion of the Edmonton Collection store just some of the highlights in 2018/19.

Speaking at the recent annual general meeting, Clive Skarott, president of the Cairns Historical Society, said the not-for-profit organisation had ticked off a number of achievements over the last 12 months.  

“A softening in the tourism industry, particularly in the second half of the year, has been noticeably felt.

“That said, our financial performance and visitor numbers, including our efforts to grow the school market remained strong.”

Mr Skarott said the visitor market to Cairns Museum was split with 21 percent local, 43 percent domestic and 36 percent international.

He said the Society’s decision to invest in a dedicated collections manager had also been another important long-term decision.

“Having a dedicated collections manager has ensured best practice care of the Society’s collection, which includes nationally significant books and documents, newspapers, clippings and audio-visual material.

“Melanie Sorenson’s appointment has also allowed us to recruit new volunteers with a diverse range of background and skills, as well as helped us to build the skills of the Society’s existing volunteer base who assist in the care of this collection.”

Mr Skarott said a grant from the Gambling Community Benefit Fund also allowed for the purchase of a ductless fume-hood cabinet and museum vacuum, to assist in this preservation work.

“These items will be integral when we process our mould effected material and deteriorating film and tapes.”

The 2018/19 year also saw the relocation of the Society’s off-site collection to a new purpose built Edmonton store.

“Volunteers transferred over 160 boxes to the new site. This has been a major achievement for the Society, enabling greater capacity to accommodate future acquisitions in the climate controlled storage space at the School of Arts site in the Cairns CBD.   

“Acquisition highlights include the land and deed ledgers from MacDonnells Law and the Les Paul Miniature Furniture Collection among a vast array of donations offered to the Society from the Cairns community,” Mr Skarott added.

Looking ahead, the next year will see major progress on the digitisation program. “Volunteers are being trained in using the new equipment and the first set of materials – fragile journal articles – will be digitised by the end of this financial year.”

Mr Skarott thanked staff and volunteers for the year’s work – the Society currently has 90 volunteers ranging in age from 16 to 80.

“Volunteers clocked up a staggering 22,488 hours, which if paid out at $20 an hour is a significant contribution of $250,000,” he added.

Mr Skarott said 2019/2020 promised to be another busy year as the organisation looked to new initiatives and ways of sharing its collection, which through the generosity of the community, continued to grow.

COACH TOUR OF DOUGLAS SHIRE HERITAGE

It’s on again!

Join the Cairns Historical Society and the FNQ Branch of the National Trust for a Heritage coach tour of our northern neighbours on Sunday 19th May.

The tour will visit sites at Daintree Village, Mossman and Port Douglas, with Jan and Dawn providing social history and heritage commentary. 

Morning Tea will be at Daintree Village, with the Society providing devonshire scones and coffee available for purchase. Lunch will be under the beautiful rain trees  at St David’s church, so BYO as the cafe’s may not be open on a Sunday.

Meet at the Cairns Museum at 8.45 am, for a short walk to the bus departure point at Abbott St. The bus will leave at 9 am. You will be dropped back at Abbott St (outside the regional gallery) at 5pm.

The cost will be $40 per person and pre-payment is required. You can pay in person at the Museum or book online now.

As numbers are limited, please book early to avoid disappointment. For more information contact the Museum

See you on the bus!

It was the most important item at your wedding – apart from your partner of course – but now your beautiful bridal gown is unceremoniously shoved under the bed, hidden away in a wardrobe or even the star of the kids’ dress-up box.

That will all change with Cairns Museum offering former brides an opportunity to resurrect their wedding dresses and correctly store them for a prettier posterity.

The workshops are part of the Museum’s current Dressed to Impressfashion exhibition and aim to give participants techniques to store their dress properly – covering packaging basics and how to keep your garment as perfect as the day you floated down the aisle. 

The workshops are co-hosted by Sorenson Art Conservation, with support from the Regional Arts Development Fund (RADF). 

The expert advice will cover the characteristics and environmental sensitivities of different fabrics and features of wedding gowns and veils such as lace, silk, sequins and beads. 

It will equip attendees with the knowledge needed to safely store their precious and probably pricey wedding gown including where to order a textile box and packing materials.

Two lucky participants will have their wedding dress professionally packed during the course of the workshop.

Melanie Sorenson, conservator at the Cairns Museum, said wedding dresses were not only a beautiful memory but often an intricate piece of art.

“They are made of exquisite fabrics and embellishments and each part needs special attention to keep the garment pristine. They need to be looked after carefully given they are typically worn once and then packed up.”

“Workshop participants not only get to look and admire their wedding dress again but also appreciate the workmanship and beauty of it and learn how to keep the garment and veil safe and unspoiled.

“Those attending will also be able to order a textile box pack and receive an instruction sheet on DIY packing and storing textiles at home.”

During the course of the workshops, Ms Sorenson said she was hoping to hear some great stories of weddings in the Far North

No cleaning or conservation treatment will be undertaken at the workshop.Attendees are invited to bring one wedding gown and one veil only to the workshop.

Participation costs $40 and there are two sessions: March 28 –  5.30pm to 8.30pm and March 30 – 2pm to 5pm. They will be held at the Cairns Museum. 

For more information contact info@sartconservation.com or to book your place visit https://www.trybooking.com/BBQLK.

A new Cairns Walking Tour steps out tomorrow and back into the past, tracing the evolution of this beautiful tourism city from its beginnings as a humble port built on a mosquito-infested swamp to the international drawcard it is today.

The 90-minute walk begins at the Cairns Cruise Liner Terminal, passes the port, which saw Cairns usurp Port Douglas as the sea link for the hinterland, and takes in historic buildings, natural sights, old Chinatown and special places that are part of the tropical lifestyle and which make Cairns ‘home’.

The two-hour experience culminates at the Cairns Museum, in the refurbished School of Arts building on the corner of Lake and Shields Streets.

Here walkers can relax on the best tropical verandah in town and learn more about the unique and colourful history of the most northerly city on Australia’s East coast.

Clive Skarott, president of Cairns Historical Society, said it hoped the new tour would become a “must do” for locals and their visitors.

“The Cairns Walking Tour is an interesting look into the story that began with land occupied by Traditional Aboriginal Owners, then a frontier town populated by entrepreneurs, adventurers and misfits and now, 142 years later, is a leading tourism destination,” Mr Skarott said.

“We are excited to offer something for our local residents, to give them an insight into how the people who came before us lived, the pride they felt in our place and what they achieved.

“It’s the festive season, a time to be generous. We encourage locals to take up our very generous 50 percent discount offer during December and enjoy two hours or more of quality entertainment and insight, plus a little gentle exercise, and walk in the steps of our city founders – all for $16.50.”

The walk is suitable for people fit enough to walk two kilometres at a moderate pace in hot and humid conditions.

Walkers are advised to take the usual precautions of wearing comfortable shoes, carry some water, wear a hat and sunglasses and cover up or use sunscreen.

Cairns Walking Tours will take place every Saturday at 8am. The usual ticket price is $33 (half-price through December).

For more information or to book your place contact the Cairns Museum on 4051 5582 or visit www.cairnsmuseum.org.au

WE’RE GETTING STRATEGIC!

The Cairns Historical Society is excited to welcome aboard Tanya Snelling and Strategic PR as our Marketing and Sales specialists.

Strategic PR is an established consultancy operated by Tanya, specialising in content creation for advertising and editorial, copy writing, publicity and public relations. Tanya is an experienced communicator with over 20 years working history in the media industry encompassing newspapers, magazines and public relations, which has taken her to the other side of the world and back.

Born in Cairns, Tanya gained a Bachelor of Journalism from James Cook University and major in political science before commencing her career at the Port Douglas & Mossman Gazette. After many years of journalism, including a stint in London, she returned to Cairns to establish her own public relations business, Strategic PR.

Strategic PR specialises in public relations for the business, agriculture and tourism industries. She became the owner/publisher of the Downunder Travel Bulletin in 2013, an international business to business travel trade publication dedicated to Australia’s inbound tourism industry, which has been an institution for three decades. Her network extends far beyond Australian shores, encompassing key tourism markets for Australia including the US, Canada, UK and Europe.

Tanya will maintain and grow our relationships amongst our important tourism industry partners, as well as develop our communications across both traditional and new media channels. We have a great story to share and we’re looking forward to working with Tanya and Strategic PR to make sure it’s heard far and wide.

DR DAWN MAY – FNQ VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR

The Cairns Historical Society is celebrating Dr Dawn May – Far North Queensland’s long term Volunteer of the Year. The award recognises the enormous contribution Dawn has made to Far North Queensland.

Dawn has been a contributing volunteer – above and beyond the call of duty – for the Cairns Historical Society and the Cairns Museum for the best part of 30 years. Her commitment extends to a number of other heritage bodies who have gained enormously from her generosity and expertise. We at the Society, including the Cairns Museum, have been particular beneficiaries of her knowledge, generosity, organisational skill, eye for detail and willingness to lend a ‘hands-on’ hand – not just tell people how to do things.

Dawn is generous and welcoming to newcomers and willing to share her incredible breadth of knowledge as a former lecturer in history at James Cook University.  In addition to the work she does for the Cairns Historical Society, Dawn has also made an enormous and entirely voluntary contribution to the heritage sector in Far North Queensland: 

• Secretary of the Far Northern Branch of the National since 1992 & Treasurer to the Townsville Branch of the National Trust Qld, before she came to Cairns in 1987.
• 2005 to 2008: Member, National Trust of Queensland Regional Heritage Committee (Northern Region). This committee assessed nominations from North Queensland to the Register of the National Trust.
• 2011-12 Member, Cairns Regional Council/Department of Environment and Heritage Protection –  Heritage Advisory Group
• Member State-wide Heritage Survey Moderation Committee, Far North Queensland region, 2008-2010
• She is/was newsletter editor for Cairns and District Historical Car Club
• Coordinating with Dr Jan Wegner from 2009 onwards annual heritage tours and trips to mark National Heritage Week
• Attending working bees at the Atherton Chinese Temple
• Organising and/or working with National Trust heritage surveys at Ingham, Mossman and parts of Cairns eg Shields St
• Organising and working in photographic surveys of the Cairns CBD every 10 years (we have the photos in the CHS collection – 3 surveys to date);
• Writing numerous nominations of places to the National Trust register or the Qld Heritage Register

It’s exhausting isn’t it!?

There’s more! 

Dawn has been a volunteer with the Cairns Historical Society since the late 1980s and remains an active volunteer in our photographic department.  She was Vice-President of the Cairns Historical Society from 1989-2001, she then took over as Secretary from 2002 and 2014, then has now also taken on the coordination of the Society’s public lecture series, the distribution of bulletins and newsletters, including the stuffing of envelopes.

She was an active contributor to the redevelopment of the Cairns Museum, including fact checking, proof reading and the research and writing of content.

Congratulations Dawn for your genuine, lived commitment to community service and to Far North Queensland. 

BUY A TICKET IN OUR FIRST ANNIVERSARY RAFFLE!

SORRY OUR RAFFLE IS NOW CLOSED – THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO PURCHASED A TICKET AND GOOD LUCK !

Coral Expeditions Cruises has generously donated to the Cairns Historical Society and Cairns Museum a wonderful first anniversary prize.

We’ve been gifted a 3 or 4 night Coral Expeditions Great Barrier Reef Cruise for two people valued at $5,160. This amazing prize includes:

• Accommodation in a Twin Share Stateroom 
• All meals, use of snorkelling equipment masks and fins
• Guided glass bottom boat coral viewing and snorkelling excursions
• Presentations by Marine Biologist
• Access to islands, marine and national parks
• Use of comprehensive range of library and video resources
• An introductory SCUBA skills session for first time divers

Tickets are $5 each or 5 for $20.

The raffle will be drawn at our First Anniversary function – 14th July 2018 – watch this space.

Funds raised will help Cairns Historical Society conserve its unique collection of objects, photographs, books, archives and maps – donated by the people of Cairns for the people of Cairns. Funds raised will also help the Society support the volunteers who help us share this collection with locals and visitors alike.

A huge thanks to Coral Expeditions for their generous support.

CAIRNS MUSEUM REDEVELOPMENT BEST IN STATE

2017 GAMAA Awards Ceremony. L-R Museum Manager Suzanne Gibson, Curator and Queensland Museum MDO Dr Joanna Wills, CHS and Museum Historian Dr Dawn May, Museums and Galleries Qld Executive Director Rebekah Butler

The Cairns Historical Society has been awarded “Best Museum and Gallery Project” in Queensland for its redevelopment of the Cairns Museum.

The Gallery and Museum Achievement Awards (GAMAAs) are an annual award that recognises excellence in the Museum and Gallery sector across Queensland.

The Historical Society entered the Cairns Museum in the 2017 GAMAAs as the end result of a 7-year process of rethinking and reimagining a Museum for Cairns. The GAMAA judges noted that the reimagining of the Cairns Museum represented an enormous undertaking for a volunteer-run Society, supported by funding from Cairns Regional Council.

Society President Clive Skarott said the Society was honoured to receive the Best Project GAMAA.

‘This award is recognition for everyone who gave their heart and soul to realise the Cairns Museum – our volunteer curatorial, research and photographic teams, the community groups and families who assisted, the Traditional Owners who came on board, our members, our supporters in Cairns Regional Council, our internal management team and our professional consultant team’, he said.

‘The Museum is the end result of a huge creative and community effort, all in the name of Cairns.’

Museums and Galleries Queensland (M&G QLD) Executive Director Rebekah Butler praised the planning undertaken by the Society

‘The Society’s process for the ‘reimagining’ included investigating the role of a Museum in a regional city, Cairns’ existing cultural infrastructure and the significance of the existing CHS collection. It created a contemporary thematic framework ‘Living in the Tropics’ that became the foundation for delivering a Museum about the past and the present of Cairns as a tropical city, rather than a more generic Museum about the olden days.’

Museum Manager Suzanne Gibson said the Museum was worth the effort

‘Museums matter. If we don’t tell our stories here in Cairns, no-one else is going to’, she said.

‘We have to thank the Council for recognising this and for backing the Society to create something special’.

COUNTDOWN TO THE CAIRNS MUSEUM

Three years after we closed the doors for the final time, building work is set to commence on the $1.6 million redevelopment of the Cairns Museum.

The renewed Museum will be the feature attraction of the renovated Cairns School of Arts. The Museum will contain four permanent and one temporary gallery, showcasing displays and storylines of the unqiue history of Cairns, created by a team of professional curators and designers, backed by local volunteers.

Getting up close and personal with a preserved saltie; learning about Cairns’ Traditional Owners; pilfering a tropical Christmas recipe; singing the warfies lament; having a yarn with a local guide and dreaming about fluorescent souvenir coral are just some of the things visitors might expect to do at the new Cairns Museum.

The countdown to the new Museum commenced this month with the Society announcing the contract for the construction of the Museum had been awarded to the Cairns office of Hutchinson Builders. The project is funded by the Cairns Regional Council.

Society President Clive Skarott says the signing of the contract is great news for Cairns.

“This signing will mean work is going to commence immediately on building displays for the refurbished Museum,” said Mr Skarott.

“The story of Cairns has been the missing piece of the Cairns cultural offering for the last three years and we are very excited to be once again sharing our story with locals, tourists and schools through the Cairns Museum,” he said.

The Cairns Historical Society will continue to operate the Museum and the Society’s Research Centre, including books, photographs, maps and journals will also be available to the public at the School of Arts.

See how the Cairns Post covered our announcement

2016 S.E. STEPHENS AWARD WINNER IS PAULINE O’KEEFFE

The Cairns Historical Society is delighted to announce that Pauline O’Keeffe is the Society’s S.E. Stephens Award winner for 2016.

Society President Clive Skarott presented the award to Pauline at the Society’s AGM, after reading an exhausting account of Pauline’s work researching and presenting Far North Queensland history, with a recent focus on the history of WW1 in FNQ.

Attached below is the full nomination and list of Pauline’s accomplishments and we are confident all members will agree that she is a worthy winner.

The S.E. Stephens Award is an annual award offered by the Cairns Historical Society. It recognises a historian, writer or researcher who has made a significant contribution over a number of years to the research, collection and dissemination of Far North Queensland history.

The award is named after Stephen Ernest (Ernie) Stephens, a founder of the Cairns Historical Society and its first President, in 1958. S.E. (Ernie) Stephens was an avid local historian, naturalist and collector, as well as an advocate of local history and the importance of preserving and communicating it for future generations.

The award is open to anyone in Australia and can be awarded to an individual or a group. Nominations open in February and the winner is announced at the Society’s AGM. Nominees do not have to be members of the Society.

Those who know Pauline will know she is a woman of few words, but she did manage to thank the President and the Society for the honour. 

Congratulations Pauline!

NURSE MONICA O’CALLAGHAN

Pauline, manager of CHS imaging department has a particular interest in Far North Queensland during World War One.  She has written an article on local WW 1 nurse Monica O’Callaghan as a Guest blogger.

2016 JOHN OXLEY LIBRARY COMMUNITY HERITAGE AWARD

The Cairns Historical Society has won the prestigious John Oxley Library Community History Award for 2016.

The award recognises excellence and innovation in the preservation, recording and sharing of Queensland history by community organisations. It is open to any community-based organisation in Queensland and it is the first time it has been awarded to a North Queensland organisation.

Judges noted that despite the closure of the Society’s premises, the Society had maintained its commitment to bringing the stories of Cairns and its region to life, through its Museum programs, Library and archive, photographic collection, Society publications and newly developed web portal.

The award is focussed on organisations that work effectively to communicate local history in a range of platforms and formats.

The judges also commended the support of Cairns Regional Council and the Society’s members in enabling the Society to grow and strengthen its role in caring for, and providing access to, significant resources and collections relevant to far north Queensland.

Society President Clive Skarott says the award as a recognition for the work of the Society’s volunteers over the organisation’s 60 years of history in Cairns.

Pauline O’Keeffe and Dr Dawn May travelled to Brisbane to accept the award on the Society’s behalf.

Ms O’Keeffe told the audience that the Society was built on solid foundations, with 60 years of volunteer physical and intellectual effort in collecting, conserving and presenting the history and heritage of Cairns and the region.

But she said the Society is also looking to the future

“We are now planning for the next era with the move back into the School of Arts building, a brand new museum and greatly improved facilities and premises, made possible by our partnership with Cairns Regional Council. Watch this space!”

The Society thanks the John Oxley Library for the honour of the 2016 award and for its recognition of the valuable contribution volunteer organisations make to the preservation of Queensland history and heritage.

Find out more about the JOL Awards here:

http://www.slq.qld.gov.au/whats-on/awards/qmawards/jchaward

YOU’RE INVITED TO THE SOCIETY’S APRIL LECTURE SERIES.

The Cairns Historical Society will be hosting it’s quarterly lecture series on Sunday 17th April from 2-4 pm in the Cairns City Library Meeting Room, in Abbott St. Entry is free and non-members are welcome to attend.

The series will have a medical theme, with Dr Graham Cossins presenting on general practice in Cairns in the second half of the 20th Century, Dr Nicky Horsfall speaking about her father’s experience as a Quarantine officer in the 1950s and Pauline O’Keeffe presenting on the involvement of Cairns’ nurses in WW1. Speakers will take questions from the floor.

Come along and hear a little of Cairns’ local history.

Posted by: Museum Manager, Suzanne Gibson

There are plenty of challenges in developing new exhibitions for the Cairns Museum.

It’s an amazing and wonderful task and we are all lucky to have the opportunity. But it is a project that also carries a sense of local responsibility and accountability. In telling the story of Cairns as a tropical city, we are very conscious of the many different versions of what really matters in the Cairns story. There are lots of perspectives on Cairns’ history and we can’t possibly capture them all.

Consequently we have endless debates and anxiety about what’s in and what’s out. About the stories we simply can’t fit or don’t have an object for or which fall outside our key themes and storylines. Or the important stories we can’t tell because there’s no relationship with a person or community to enable us to get the story right.

Then there’s the dilemma of the fantastic story and the underwhelming but very significant object. The real life tale of Dr Thomatis and Caravonica cotton is a case in point.

Dr David Thomatis came to Australia from Italy in 1875. He was a man with a scientific mind and an entrepreneurial spirit, who was soon lured to north by the potential of the tropics. He dreamed of European-style farming communities right across northern Australia, using its abundant water, sunshine and land.

In 1884 he took up 1000 acres near the Barron River in Cairns and began experimenting with silkworms, bananas, ginger, rice, cocoa, nutmeg, sugar and coffee. Around 1900 he tried cotton. In 1903 he bred a strain that he named Caravonica, after his home town in Italy. Caravonica cotton was robust and high yielding, and Dr Thomatis believed it could become the dominant cotton in the world and the economic driver for North Queensland.

He was almost right. For a time Caravonica did become a major cotton strain in colonial India, Africa and Latin America. But here, under the “White Australia” policies of 1901, the opportunity of Australia was reserved for the white man. Yet Dr Thomatis couldn’t get Europeans willing to grow cotton in the heat, humidity and isolation of the tropics. Defeated in his adopted country, in 1909 Dr Thomatis sold the rights to Caravonica and travelled the world helping other countries to grow his Australian strain of cotton.

Great story isn’t it? Did you know there was cotton grown in tropical Cairns?

The good news is that we have a really significant object to accompany this story. We have an actual cotton boll of Caravonica Cotton. The real thing. One of only two known samples in Australia, well provenanced and in good condition.

What’s the problem? Well maybe it’s me but …. how interesting is a boll of cotton to look at? What do you think?

Can a strong story carry an object that doesn’t have a lot of presence? Do we drop Dr Thomatis’ story in favour of one with a better looking or more intriguing object? What would you do?

What did we do? Well … come and visit the Cairns Museum in 2017 and find out!

Posted by: Museum Manager, Suzanne Gibson

In 2013 our incredible collections team packed up the entire Cairns Museum. Every object on display and all those in the collection store. In all the team wrapped, boxed, labelled and shifted over 5000 individual items to our temporary premises, awaiting the renovation of the Cairns School of Arts and our new gallery spaces.

We’ve kept everything in boxes since then. We don’t have room to unpack and we will have to shift them all back into the School of Arts before too long, so the less we unpack; the less we will have to repack.

Consequently, in reviewing and selecting objects for new displays in the Cairns Museum, our curators have really been guided by the catalogue and our collective knowledge of the collection. We’ve opened plenty of boxes but not all of them. There simply isn’t the time to randomly rifle through every box in the hope of finding something special.

As a result, large parts of the collection have receded from memory as we narrow our focus to objects that are going into new Cairns Museum exhibitions and ignore the ones that are not. This is especially the case for smaller objects. They’re still packed in their moving boxes. We work amongst them every day but have no visual reminder to trigger a memory or an idea. They’re sleepers.

But over the last 12 months one person has been quietly looking through pretty much every box. Druce is a photographer who comes every week and sets up his amazing camera gear – lights, lenses, camera – and patiently takes a pic or two of every object he encounters. As a volunteer.

When Druce came on board, we were hoping he could take a consistent reference image for each object. We had imagined it as a pretty functional sort of task, not as a particularly creative project. What we hadn’t grasped was how skilled he was, and how carefully he could light an object to capture its colour, materials and detail. By the time the curatorial team caught up with his work he had photographed a couple of hundred objects.

Suddenly, on screen, there were our forgotten objects. The small items that didn’t fit the storylines, the space or the focus of our new exhibitions. Things like the collection of Rotary dolls, the endless kitchen stuff, the medals and lights and handbags. All captured so beautifully that we were immediately reminded of the potential of every object to arouse our curiosity, tell a story or recall a place or a time.

Big nod to Druce.

The curators have now grabbed quite a few “forgotten” objects that they discovered through Druce’s wonderful photographs. We’re also thinking of wallpapering the entire Cairns Museum entry with them, accession numbers and all. It’s another way of sharing the collection and celebrating a great piece of work by a talented photographer who chose to donate his expertise to the Cairns Museum.

JEAN WARREN’S DOLL COLLECTION

A collection of 54 ‘International’ dolls’ belonging to the late Jean Merle Warren. The dolls were often used by Rotary/Inner Wheel at various functions. The dolls were purchased/obtained in the country of origin. Included is a South Vietnamese doll bought back for her by her brother William Roy Tutty who was in the R.A.A.F. The Museum Collection already includes Jean’s “Cairns Centenary” hostess gown.