I note with interest the letter from Ray Norman (2 March 2013) regarding Deputy Mayor Jeremy Ball’s call for increased State Government support for the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery.
I think what Ray is alluding to in an elegant and tactful manner is the proposition that you can’t throw money at a moribund horse and expect it to get up and win a race without some other sort of intervention. As a Launceston ratepayer, I have been concerned for some time at the small dividend that the extensive financial input by the State and the continued funding impost on the ratepayers of Launceston is producing.
We, the ratepayers, (not the Launceston City Council) are the owners of a large and complex organisation with a significant complement of ‘professional’ curators that is a continuing and growing financial impost on us. Where are the outcomes? I don’t see evidence of much scholarship emanating from the place and most of the exhibitions seem to have been sourced from other providers. I stand to be corrected and, indeed, I applaud the recent efforts of the Director in mounting a couple of programs for young people that utilise the resources of the institution.
More money is not the answer. The institution cannot limp along as it is. It is time that it was reviewed thoroughly to define its relevance and purpose. It should then be placed under the control of an independent authority or Board of Trustees to be managed according to plan to ensure that it does provide an appropriate dividend to the community. This can never happened while it has a place in the Council administrative hierarchy that places it on an equal footing with drainage and roads and trustees (the councillors) who have the the time to give the institution only scant attention. Indeed, perhaps it is time to turn the institution over to the State and establish it as an arm of TMAG.
Greg Parkinson
Trevallyn
No comments:
Post a Comment