‘Comforted’ Toitu to retain director post
TOITU Otago Settlers Museum is to retain its own director post and a new director is expected to be appointed next year.
However, visitor hosts and arrangements for conferences will in the future be coordinated jointly by the museum and the Dunedin Public Art Gallery.
Dunedin City Council ara toi (arts and culture) group manager Nick Dixon said the Otago Settlers Association favoured retaining a dedicated museum director at the city councilowned facility.
The council had a ‘‘great relationship’’ with the association, was aware of its important role in the museum’s development, and the director post would be retained, he said.
Association past president Phil Dowsett, who chairs the museum board, said the association was ‘‘comforted’’ that another director would be appointed next year.
Directors were ultimately needed for both the museum and gallery, because they had different cultures and interacted with different organisations and groups, both nationally and internationally, he said.
Former museum director Jennifer Evans went on leave in early May, and in her absence art gallery director Cam McCracken has directed the museum and Chinese Garden as well as the gallery.
Council community services general manager Simon Pickford said in August Ms Evans had taken voluntary redundancy because the museum’s sole director role was to be disestablished.
The focus was now on cataloguing and processing the several thousand items in temporary storage, Mr Pickford said.
Asked about resignations at Toitu, Mr Dowsett said he was not aware of all staff movements and referred the matter to the council for comment.
Asked about some staff funding being temporarily reallocated to the processing backlog, he said the council had to run the museum. But if some posts were not filled through funding reallocation, work pressure on other staff would rise, he said.
Mr Dixon said the staff resignations had included collections manager Greg Cairns, who left in August, and, more recently, business manager Jared Fowler.
Museum visitor experience manager Kirsty Glengarry had been on secondment elsewhere at the council and took on a new post at the council about two months ago.
The business manager’s post had already been readvertised.
Funding for other posts would be retained, but in some cases, including for the collections post, this could be reallocated in the short term, such as to employ some shortterm data entry staff, to help catch up with collection processing, he said.
The senior staff had left for their own individual reasons, and had ‘‘most definitely’’ not been forced out, Mr Dixon said.