Given in good faith
WHILE visiting Kerang over the weekend, I was disgusted and disappointed to see page four of the Gannawarra Times (February 21, Rare chance to snag vintage items).
Going on to read the museum will have a stall to sell collectable and vintage items in excess of its needs.
As for raising money for a new display centre, how much would a table at a market raise? There was a bequest left to the museum that would cover the new building by a well-known local.
This selling items donated seems wrong, but not a one off.
Last year, a friend noticed a vintage binder being used in a garden display. He found out it was sold off by the museum for $100 after being donated years before, but no-one remembered who by, so it was got rid of.
He made contact with a member and was told, quote: “We ask people who donate items to sign a form to say the item is museum property therefore we can do as we like.”
While many museums and groups do ask for items to be signed over to them, it’s usually so that organisations retain ownership.
Are people being told or does the form state we may sell your item? I think not.
The Kerang Museum was set up in the 1960s to preserve local history and items the original building and land was given by the council (then borough) for the above and as an incorporated body, a registered museum, the items belong to the community or their donors, or museum, not the current committee to undo decades of saving and preserving local history.If nothing else, it is morally bankrupt to sell off what people have given in good faith.
Ian Williams
Deserve to be outraged
IT is frustrating when shooters say that omnivores can’t be opposed to duck shooting.
It is of no consequence as this is an environmental and animal welfare issue, not an animal rights issue.
Every Victorian deserves to be outraged that people are shooting our native waterbirds when prestigious UNSW studies show that they have declined by 90 per cent.
Every Victorian deserves to be outraged that duck shooting has a conservative 25 per cent wounding rate and has been condemned as unacceptably cruel by organisations like the RSPCA and the Australian Veterinary Association.
If an abattoir killed and wounded one in every four animals to suffer and go to waste people would be rightly enraged.
Every Victorian deserves to be outraged that duck shooters kill countless protected species every year.
Imagine if abattoirs accidentally killed koalas.
Every Victorian deserves to be outraged that our fragile wetland ecosystems are left trashed, fouled and disturbed.
Native waterbirds are for us all to enjoy and treasure, and we must fight to protect them from this horrific and unnecessary assault.
Alyssa Wormald,
Bayswater, Victoria
Future threatened
A PLAN to lock up more of our state forests threatens the future of timber harvesting, hunting, prospecting, horse riding, camping and 4WDing in Victoria’s central west.
The Victorian Environmental Assessment Council’s (VEAC) Central West investigation recommended locking up vast areas of Mount Cole, Wombat and Wellsford state forests and in the Pyrenees region.
Bush Users Groups United (BUGU)’s David Bentley is right when he says this will mean “a total loss of access to our traditional recreational and commercial activities”.
The government’s response is due this month.
Daniel Andrews must not cave to green ideology by locking up more of our state forests and throwing away the key.
Public land should be exactly that – for the public – but under Andrews, all Victorians who enjoy recreational activities are being pushed out.
Daniel Andrews must park his plan to lock up more of Victoria’s public land.
Peter Walsh,
Leader of The Nationals
Shadow Minister for Agriculture
