What an enjoyable start to our dinner meetings in 2025.
Although we were down on numbers the members on the night were treated to a very enjoyable and engaging presentation by Lexie Palmer-Gapper General Manager for the Howick Historical Village.
Lexie started with a comprehensive Power Point presentation outlining their Mission Statement, trends in visitor numbers, financial information, Live Days, activities and events, educational programmes and volunteers. Whilst post Covid visitor numbers and revenue had increased significantly the key challenge for their sustainability is the current level of grants and income earned not covering the operational costs. Lexie also showed a comparison of local government support for 2 other museums which showed the huge disparity between funding per visitor for the Auckland War memorial Museum and Motat versus the HHV. Despite these challenges Lexie is enthusiastic about the Village’s future and it is good to know that that a person with lots of energy and optimism is in charge of this wonderful local heritage asset.
Having concluded her PP presentation updating us on the Village Lexie then got the members competitive juices going with a quiz to test our knowledge of our own and Village related history. Probably not surprisingly with an ex-President of the Society and current Board member on the same team first place went, after some discussion on scoring, to the top table. Prizes for the win were a small jar of Village Artisan Honey and a free entry pass. Malcolm and I would never have lived it down if our table did not get most of the questions right!
Current Society Board member Malcolm did a great job of hosting Lexie with a comprehensive introduction and a big warm thank you for her engaging presentation.
The Raffle Winners on the night after Garry Donoghue very generously donated back his first prize in the Have A Go raffle were:
Have A Go - 1st Gavin Green, 2nd Alison Kearney
New World – Garry Donoghue (meant to be) and David Teape.
Malcolm reminded us to put the 16th March into our diaries for the Howick Fun Walk & Run project and Steve Lines thanked club members for their generous donations to Team Tercel for the Half Moon Bay Rotary’s Bangers to Bluff fundraiser.
Our next guest speaker is Michelle Godsiff and the title of her presentation is “Whispering Hope” in which she will explain the incredible work that she and her colleagues do with equine assisted therapy (particularly with children). Definitely a partners invited evening probably with tissues!
Take Care and Stay Well,
Rob Mouncey
President
Steve Lines brought Bangers to Bluff Team Tercel car to Howick Club to show members.