Volunteers needed at Bellarine Historical Society

THE Bellarine Historical Society is seeking additional volunteers to help extend the opening hours of their Old Court House Museum in Drysdale.

The local group are hoping to attract enough new volunteers to allow them to open the historical facility every Sunday starting from next weekend.

Since 1977, the Bellarine Historical Society has preserved the history of the Bellarine through a collection of images, maps, rate books, church and school records, old agricultural and farming equipment and old memorabilia.

Dedicated volunteers undertake a range of duties from front of house operations in the museum to more in-depth research work depending on capability and knowledge.

Group member Ann Cullen said people can come along and volunteer even if they are new to town and have little knowledge.

“You don’t need to be familiar with history or the area; in fact, I walked in here knowing nothing… we just need bums on seats, essentially.”

“We are scratching to get two people… I guess because we are oldies,” fellow member Sue Wall added.

“Currently we are going to operate every second Sunday, but ideally in the warmer months we’d like to be open each Sunday and to do that you need at least two people here.

“The oldies love a chat, so sometimes with two people you can get a bit caught up… we’d love to have even three volunteers on at once.”‘

The Bellarine Historical Society are entirely self-funded and raise funds to continue operating through book sales, donations, grants and memberships.

They also host open days, guest speaker events and cooking competitions to help keep the doors open.

Ms Cullen said the group would celebrate its 50th anniversary next year.

“We are very interested in having nice displays of memorabilia up in the museum to celebrate this occasion.

“We’ve got a book launch, a documentary, photobooks, a scone making competition and more in the pipeline for the celebrations.

“Anything people can contribute to the museum, even if it’s just on loan, we would love to hear from them.”

For more information and to start volunteering, head to bellarinehistory.org or to the Bellarine Historical Society Facebook page.