Museum wants help to name Queenscliff icons

WHAT do you call a group of lighthouses?

It’s not the start of an old sailor’s joke – it’s the question Queenscliff Maritime Museum has posed to its community to name a collection of local landmarks.

The Bellarine hamlet has six luminous ocean guides along its coast, in a concentration the museum believes could be the largest in Australia.

But no collective noun exists to describe a group of lighthouses, and QMM wants residents to help fix the omission.

The museum is inviting locals, especially children and lighthouse lovers, to pitch their ideas on how to refer to the structures.

The QMM museum will select a winning entry, with help from experts in language and maritime history, which will then become the official moniker in all QMM communications going forward.

Early suggestions online include a guide of lighthouses, a vision of lighthouses, a flash of lighthouses and a lumen of lighthouses.

Residents can enter the competition by posting their submission on a Queenscliff Maritime Museum Facebook post and describe in 50 words or less why their suggestion best captures the role of Queenscliff lighthouses.

Suggestions close Sunday, May 8, at 6pm.