Pine Rivers Museum

I had a very early start this morning - 8:30 am! Not used to being at work that early, and especially in the middle of winter. No matter what some people say, Brisbane does get chilly on June mornings.

The reason I was here at such a time was to help set up the newest temporary exhibition at the Pine Rivers Heritage Museum. It’s Science on the Move, which comes from an even colder part of Australia, Canberra, courtesy of Questacon, the National Science and Technology Centre. I actually visited Questacon around this time six years ago (though it seems like yesterday) and had such a fun time there, so it’s really exciting to have a little piece of it here at my museum.

Science on the Move is a very colourful, very interactive exhibition. Some of these things are really clever - the kind of science that’s interesting, and it’s presented in such an engaging way. It was all I could do not to stop working and start playing with the tornado in a bottle, the thongaphone, or my personal favourite, the food chain featuring little mice, snakes and one mighty eagle.

Science on the Move opens today (June 26, 2008 ) and runs until August 31. It’s on at the Pine Rivers Heritage Museum, Old Petrie Town, Dayboro Road in Kurwongbah, Queensland. Admission is free and opening hours are Wednesday to Friday 10 am - 3 pm, Saturday 10 am - 2 pm, and Sunday 10 am - 3 pm. Tomorrow is also the last day for the Botanical Art of the Inlet exhibition, so make sure not to miss out on that. 

On Friday the 30th of May, the 2008 Hays Inlet Festival started in style with the opening of the Botanical Art of the Inlet exhibition here at the Pine Rivers Heritage Museum. It was a pleasure working with the members of the Botanical Artists’ Society of Queensland (BASQ) who created the beautifully detailed paintings of trees and flowers from around the Hays Inlet area, which is home to over 1100 species of plants. The paintings feature everything from mangroves at the mouth of the Pine River, to rainforest giants of the D’Aguilar Range.

This is the first time the museum has hosted a purely art exhibition, and it is a lovely one. Our new cabinets arrived in time to help create a display that really brightens up the foyer and meeting room gallery. To get an idea of the talent that these artists have brought to the museum, have a look at their website here: http://www.botanicalartqld.com.au/gallery.php

Or better yet, come along to the Pine Rivers Heritage Museum and see the works in person. Many of them are also for sale, as are a wide range of cards, calendars and bookmarks featuring the botanical artworks. Botanical Art of the Inlet is on until June 27 2008 at the Pine Rivers Heritage Museum, Old Petrie Town, Kurwongbah Qld 4500. Opening hours are Wednesday to Friday 10 am to 3 pm; Saturday 10 am to 2 pm, and Sunday 10 am to 3 pm.

With 13 to 19 closing last week, as well as Hamilton Pine Rivers Wheelers finishing up this weekend, it’s time to welcome a new travelling exhibition to the Pine Rivers Heritage Museum.

Life on the  Line comes to us from the Workshops Railway Museum in Ipswich - a campus of the Queensland Museum - and it uses historical photographs to tell the story of the people who worked on the trains and tracks around the state.

The exhibition is presented in two parts: ‘Working on the Railway’ shows railway staff driving locomotives, shunting and other duties on trains, while the second part, ‘Keeping the Trains Running’ illustrates scenes of railway staff engaged in a range of duties from signalmen, to ticket sellers, booking clerks and track workers.

Life on the Line will open on the 1st of May 2008 and run until the 22nd of June. The Pine Rivers Heritage Museum is at Old Petrie Town, Dayboro Road, Kurwongbah Qld 4503, and we’re open Wednesday to Friday,and Sunday 10:00 to 3:00 and Saturday 10:00 to 2:00.

The Pine Rivers Heritage Museum had launched its very first foyer display, and it’s on until Anzac Day. It’s a celebration of the Hamilton Pine Rivers Wheelers Cycling Club, who have reached the hundred-year mark having formed in 1908.

One of the interesting things about this exhibition - apart from the penny farthing and the wooden hobby horse bikes sitting in the museum, of course - is that it’s about a club which has links beyond Pine Rivers. Hamilton is a suburb much closer to Brisbane, in fact only a few kilometres down the Brisbane River from the city, making it around 30 kms from the museum here in Kurwongbah.

The club started off cycling around north Brisbane but moved to the Pine Rivers area around the middle of last century. They’re now based at the Lakeside Raceway circuit - which was featured in another exhibition, Wheelspin, last year about motor racing in Pine Rivers - but also race at Nundah and so keep the Hamilton name.

The exhibition displays historical and more recent photos of club champions, including Olympians and World Title riders, a selection of cycling uniforms over the years, as well as the bicycles themselves. There’s the very old bikes which I already mentioned, but there are also some more recent ones, really built for speed. At the moment, though, they’re going nowhere until the 25th of April, so make sure to come and see them before then.

The Museum is at Old Petrie Town, Dayboro Road in Kurwongbah, Qld. We’re open Wednesday to Sunday from 10 am to 3 pm, except on Saturday when we close at 2 pm.

Some new friends have popped up at the Pine Rivers Heritage Museum!

Nugget and Nellie are a brother and sister from the 19th century, and, with their koala friend Bluey, they’ve come to the museum to help our visitors learn more about the past.

They’re all very cute looking characters and they’ve turned up all around the museum - see if you can find them!

Nugget, Nellie and Bluey will be especially helpful and friendly for our younger visitors, and for schools who come to visit, they’ll help to show you around the museum and do the different activities.

You’ll find our friends from the past at the Pine Rivers Heritage Museum, Old Petrie Town, Dayboro Road, Kurwongbah Qld 4503.

Today is the 15th of March, which means the end of Pine Rivers Shire and a welcome to the new Moreton Bay Regional Council - and a doubling of the population since we’re joining with Caboolture and Redcliffe councils.

 Over the past few weeks, in preparation for the changeover, the museum has been receiving all sorts of old Pine Rivers memoribilia, from signs, posters, plenty of little trinkets, and even a loan of the mayor’s robes.

It’s sad to say goodbye to Pine Rivers Shire - it’s been my home for quite a few years, as well as where I work, but it’s quite exciting to now be connected more closely with Caboolture and Redcliffe. Both are quite nice places and both have lovely seaside areas, which is the one thing that Pine Rivers lacked. So I can now go to Bribie Island and relax by the Pacific Ocean and still be in the same local council area as when I left home.

But rest assured that it won’t mean any particular changes to the museum - apart from the influx of Pine Rivers items that I mentioned above - and we’ll still continue to recollect the history of the Pine region.

 So come and say hello, share your experiences of Pine Rivers and maybe your visions for what the new council will bring, and welcome to our friends from Redcliffe and Caboolture

 Update: please check out the photos from the launch at  http://www.catalystyoutharts.com.au/PRHM_Launch/

As I write this 13 to 19: teenagers then and now  is just receiving its first visitors. It’s early days yet but it looks to be a great success already. I’m sitting at the front desk of the museum and listening to Dissonance warming up in the courtyard of the Tom Petrie Restaurant .. hearing a bit of Green Day drifting across …

This exhibition has to be one of the most enjoyable to have been involved in - it’s just a lot of fun! I fall into the Generation Y category myself but being a few years on the wrong side of 20, I’ve kind of forgotten what it’s like to be a teenager. Many surprises awaited me as I discovered the kinds of music, fashion and other influences that 2008 high schoolers like.

And, I took a delve back into the days when my parents grew up, the hedonistic 1960s and 70s, which is always fun. The best (or worst?) thing about the Baby Boomers has to be their clothes - I’m channelling some hippie spirit right now, trying not to choke on my beads and feeling the back of my tie-dyed scarf floating on my back (it’s being blown by the fan which is keeping me cool - it’s a sweltering 38 degrees outside!)

 And of course the music was fantastic - I’ve had the Beatles and Bob Dylan serenading me for the past couple of weeks. But the good thing about 13 to 19 is that it’s not stuck in one era, so I’ve gotten quite acquainted with Fall Out Boy and the Plain White T’s as well.

One of the things I love about 13 to 19 is the different ways that visitors can comment on the exhibition. Representing the 1960s, there’s old-fashioned pen and paper. Harking back to the 1970s is a garish orange typewriter. And for the younger visitors (or the otherwise adventurous) a laptop computer has been set up and comments typed there will be added to this blog. So if you’ve been through the 13 to 19, make sure to check back whether your comments are here! If they’re not (or if you took the less technologically advanced option in the exhibition) please feel free to add them.

13 to 19: Teenagers Then and Now is an interactive exhibition developed by the Pine Rivers Heritage Museum, in conjunction with Catalyst Youth Arts Organisation and students from local high schools (Pine Rivers State High School and Bray Park State High School).   The exhibition aims to compare and contrast the lives of Baby Boomer teenagers with contemporary teenagers through examining the teenage culture, influences and behaviours of both generations. On the surface Baby Boomer teenagers and Generation Y teenagers seem very different yet they share many similarities.  13 to 19 sets the stage for the visitor to discover these differences and similarities through a series of informative text panels, film, objects, photographs and hands on displays.  

Visitors to the exhibition will have the opportunity to experience the music, fashion, technology, impacts and lifestyles of these two generations.  Hear the different sounds by playing the 1960s and 1970s records, including hits of The Beatles or play the iPod showcasing the music of local bands.  Become a fashion designer and mix 60s mod, 70s disco and today’s styles or test your skills at interpreting teenage vocabulary from both generations.  Take time out to wander through the bedroom displays or relax in canvas chairs while enjoying a film, exploring the lives of teenagers then and now. 

The exhibition runs from 23 February to the 20 April 2008 at the Pine Rivers Heritage Museum, Old Petrie Town, Dayboro Rd Kurwongbah. 

 Engaging Generation Y

In order to gain an insight into the modern teenager, the Pine Rivers Heritage Museum invited several local high schools to take up the challenge and support them in developing the project.  Bray Park State High and Pine Rivers State High accepted the offer.  Students from both schools visited the museum where they gained an insight into what makes a good exhibition.  Armed with this knowledge they were then asked to undertake a variety of tasks ranging from idea conception through to the research and development stages of the exhibition.  Catalyst, a local youth arts group have also been strongly involved in the project.  A compilation CD titled Spotlight, featuring local youth bands Catalyst support will be featured in the exhibition.   

Opening

13 to 19 opens on Saturday the 23^rd of February.  The launch party will be held in the courtyard of the Tom Petrie’s Restaurant adjacent the Pine Rivers Heritage Museum.  This is a free event and all are welcomed.  The event will feature performances by Dissonance, a local teenage band and Return of Saturn who will perform hits from the 1960s and 1970s.  Festivities will start at 3:00pm and end at 5:00pm. 

The Pine Rivers Heritage Museum is located in the Old Petrie Town, Dayboro Road, Kurwongbah.  The museum is open Wednesday to Friday 10 – 3, Saturday 10 – 2 and Sunday 10 – 3. 

Sounds pretty interesting, I think! So come along to the opening party, dressed in your best hippie/disco/emo clothes (spanning all the generations …) and enjoy the exhibition, the great music, and the chance to interact with people of all different ages

Pioneering the Pine IV & Cow Paddocks to Cartonboard Flyers

I’ve waited a little bit longer than I should have to update the blog and wish everyone a happy new year, but I do have the excuse of only having returned from Europe last week! Apparently France does not believe in internet cafes, and since France is where I spent most of my time, it proved difficult to ever access the blog!

 But here I am, back in Australia now, very happy to be able to go outside without putting on six layers of clothes first. Ahh, the simple pleasures of life …

 And life has gone on at the museum while I was away. The night before I left was the opening of Pioneering the Pine IV, which was a fantastic celebration as members from each of our featured families - the Wyllie, Thomas, Young and McCombe/Petersen families - came from all around Queensland and even interstate to see how we had presented their stories. The feedback we received was excellent and it was such a wonderful thing to see these descendants - especially the younger generations - so interested in their own family history.

In the month or so since the exhibition opened, too, there’s been a huge number of people coming through the doors to see Pioneering the Pine IV. I find it amazing how something like a museum exhibition has the power to bring people together - at the opening, I noticed it was like a reunion for the Wyllie family members, some of whom hadn’t seen each other for quite a long time, and some who hadn’t met at all.

 And on December the 8th, a second temporary exhibition opened - Cow Paddocks to Cartonboard - in our new exhibition space. Since I missed out completely on seeing how it was set up, I enjoyed visiting like a tourist the day I returned to work! Cow Paddocks to Cartonboard explores the history of the APM/Amcor Paper Mill in Petrie (which is the next suburb from the museum in Kurwongbah) and was a project of the Pine Rivers Historical Society.

It is a fascinating exhibition and particularly interesting for me is how the Paper Mill influenced the growth of Petrie. I grew up there, and as anyone else who’s lived there would agree, the Mill certainly is a defining feature of the suburb! 

 If you would like to come and see either Pioneering the Pine or Cow Paddocks to Cartonboard, or any of our other exhibits, please stop by. We’re at Old Petrie Town, Dayboro Road in Kurwongbah, Queensland. Cow Paddocks runs until February 10, and Pioneering the Pine until February 17, so there’s still a couple of weeks to have a look.

 And of course, the fun doesn’t stop once these two exhibitions are finished. Coming up at the end of February will be 13 to 19, a very exciting exhibition featuring two of our local high schools, whose students have been working with the museum to investigate how their lives are different - or the same? - from the lives of teenagers during the ‘baby boom’ period of the 1960s and 70s. I can’t wait to see how it’ll all turn out!

Click here to have a look at the poster for our upcoming exhibition: Pioneering the Pine IV Information 

We’re all very busy at the Pine Rivers Heritage Museum right now because our next exhibition, Pioneering the Pine IV, is opening in just two weeks! It’s is the fourth in a series of exhibitions exploring the stories of Pine Rivers’ early pioneering families.  This instalment features five families  –  Wyllie, Young, Thomas, McCombe and Petersen, all of whom arrived in the area around the 1860s. 

Each family had a very different experience of coming to Pine Rivers. The Wyllies, for example, left Scotland because of disease on their farm, while the Petersen brothers, from Sweden, were sailors who jumped ship in Brisbane. For the Thomas brothers, the move from an aristocratic life in England to timber-getting and school teaching on Mt Mee was the fulfilment of a dream of starting afresh.  

Pine Rivers in the 19th Century was very different from the place that we know today. The families lived in slab huts – a far cry from the grand farmhouses they were used to in Europe – and travelled by horse, wagon, or on foot. Pioneering the Pine IV seeks to explore how these five families left the life that they knew to settle in a new and unknown land.  

It also looks at the contributions they made to the emerging Pine Rivers community. Some of these pioneers, such as Alexander Wyllie and John Young, went on to illustrious careers in local government. Others, like Richard Thomas and Daniel McCombe, played instrumental roles in establishing schools. And then there was Peter and Christian Petersen, who all but disappeared from official records once they settled around Samford.  

Pioneering the Pine IV highlights the fact that each migrant story is different, and the dream of a life in a new land does not always turn out as expected. The five families presented in this exhibition came from different parts of Europe, arrived in Pine Rivers with varying aspirations, and took different paths once they were here, yet each family has made an indelible impression on the landscape and helped to build the fledgling Pine Rivers district. 

Pioneering the Pine IV opens at the Pine Rivers Heritage Museum (Old Petrie, Dayboro Road, Kurwongbah) on the 1st of December 2007 and runs until the 17th of February 2008. The museum is open Wednesday - Friday 10 am – 3 pm, Saturday 10 am – 2 pm, and Sunday 9 am – 2 pm.

If you’re in the area, please drop in and say hello! If you’re reading this from somewhere else in the world, check back here for links to other information about the exhibition, including photos.

For me, this has been an interesting process because I’ve done the research for the Wyllie & Thomas families (the first time I’ve been involved in researching an exhibition, which is exciting!) and it’s so fascinating to see how the process moves from the grain of an idea to being a full-blown display.  Any questions? Please ask!