Highlights

The Museum’s five Organisational Priorities underpin the delivery of its Strategic Plan and have been used to identify highlights for the past year.

Organisational Priorities

Community value: The Museum exists for the benefit of all the people of Western Australia and is accountable to them.

The Dinosaur Discovery exhibition, created by the WA Museum working with Goldie Marketing, has proved exceptionally popular especially with children, with upwards of 3,000 visitors on a single day.

An important initiative has been arranging out-of-hours access for visits by groups of people with special needs or those who might find the daytime crowds intimidating. One such visit was by young cancer sufferers from Princess Margaret Hospital through their Gladiators support group. The response of the children was fantastic and this letter summed up their feelings and reminded us why such opportunities are so important:

I had to email you this evening to say an enormous thank you from all our families from Ward 3B (Oncology) for an amazing evening at the Museum.

Parents have said how special their children were made to feel, how nice it was to feel comfortable being out (many families have not had a family excursion in a very long time due to fear of crowds and germs). The dinosaur puppet was a very special treat and everyone commented on how clean everything was, which takes a lot of stress off our families when they are out.

Tonight they were able to relax in a safe environment and mix with other families who understand one another. Please do pass our thanks on to ALL the wonderfully compassionate staff that volunteered their time this evening. They have made some very special kids, who have been through or are going through some pretty tough times, very happy. Many of us do not know what tomorrow will bring but today we made some wonderful memories that will last a lifetime!

Many, many thanks to you all.

The Gladiators Group

Financial sustainability: The Museum will strive to be financially sustainable.

The Museum worked collaboratively with colleagues at Treasury and the Department of Culture and the Arts (DCA) to secure supplementary funding of $4.4 million for cost escalation of fixed costs, and for the reversal of salary corrective measures imposed in 2012–13 which were maintained in 2013–14. The Museum continues to seek new commercial opportunities and alternative funding sources in an effort to supplement State funding.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander partnerships: The Museum will increase its efforts to ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are central to ownership, governance and program development.

This year the Museum worked with Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company to celebrate the company’s 21st anniversary. The Museum provided curatorial assistance to Yirra Yaakin to develop an exhibition at the Museum highlighting Yirra Yaakin’s 21 years in local and international theatre.

Yirra Yaakin, which means ‘stand tall’ in Noongar language, is WA’s premier Aboriginal theatre company and is the WA Museum’s Company in Residence. This very significant three-year partnership was announced by Culture and the Arts Minister John Day in November 2012, paving the way for three years of artistic and cultural collaboration and, hopefully beyond.

Services delivered WA-wide: The Museum will develop partnerships with regional communities, businesses and industries to share resources, knowledge and expertise.

The WA Museum is developing the interpretive and online components of the National Anzac Centre, which will open in Albany on 1 November 2014, marking the 100th anniversary of the departure of the first Anzac convoys. The Museum is proud to have been asked to provide its expertise and make such an important contribution to commemorate this most significant event in Australia’s history.

Empowerment: The Museum expects its staff to be creative and innovative and encourages initiative, leadership and new ideas from all parts of the organisation.

Good ideas come from everywhere and one of the best was the very popular Dinosaur Discovery exhibition. The exhibition was conceived by our Finance and Business Development Team working with co-investors, Goldie Marketing; expert advice came from our Earth and Planetary Sciences team; our exhibition designers created the gallery sets and ambience; our marketing, communications and online teams made sure everyone knew about it; and our magnificent Visitor Services staff and volunteers managed the huge crowds. It is the Museum’s most popular exhibition to date, with the 100,000th visitor recorded midway through the exhibition term, and final visitor numbers expected to be well in excess of our previous most popular exhibition A Day in Pompeii, which received more than 113,000 visitors in 2010. All of this was achieved through the innovation and commitment of a great range of people.

Awards and honours

  • Museums Australia Publishing and Digital Awards – joint winner of Best Institution Website for a large museum, shared by the WA Museum’s Online Service department and the South Australian Museum.

  • International Council of Museums, Australia award for International Relations was presented to the WA Museum for its ongoing relationship between the Museum, established through the Department of Materials Conservation, and the National Research Institute for Maritime Cultural Heritage in South Korea.

  • Myra Stanbury from the Museum’s Maritime Archaeology team was awarded a Medal of Honour from the French town of Binic, for her contribution to the research of the ships Persévérant (wrecked in 1841 at Shark Bay) and the Abeille, lost as the whaler Lively circa 1808 at the Rowley Shoals.

  • WA Museum research scientist Nerida Wilson received the US Antarctica Service Medal in recognition of her contribution to exploration and scientific research on the frozen continent. The National Science Foundation awarded the medal for Nerida’s work on six expeditions to the Antarctic since 2004, two of them leading as Chief Scientist (2011, 2013).

  • Conservator Ulli Broeze-Hoernemann was awarded the Fremantle Rotary Club’s Pride of Workmanship for her outstanding achievements in the field of conservation. Ulli has worked as a conservator at the Museum for 42 years and has saved thousands of items from accelerated decay and collapse.

  • Dr Ian MacLeod, Executive Director Fremantle Museums and Collections, was awarded a Fellowship of the Royal Society of Chemistry in the United Kingdom.

  • Dr Bill Humphreys from Terrestrial Zoology has been appointed to the Ningaloo Coast World Heritage Committee for a three-year term. The advisory committee provides advice to the Commonwealth and State Environment Ministers on the protection, presentation and management of the World Heritage listed area.