Dedicated volunteers to maintain museum’s vintage machinery

More than 80 people attended the official opening of the blacksmith at the Bathurst Agricultural Museum last Friday.

Local residents turned up in their numbers to support the opening, which was the culmination of a long-held dream to have a working smithy at the museum.

The smithy features many tractors and vintage farm machinery kept in working order by a team of dedicated volunteers.

The shed housing the blacksmith forge includes a mechanical wheel and an animal power section.

“It took us 15 years to officially open the blacksmith,” museum chairperson Alan Pike said, thanking a number of people who had made this possible and contributed to the success of the event.

“Hobson and Co Smithy helped us a lot with the substantial amount of money they donated to us. Our former mayor, Sipho Tandani, also helped us with the municipal plan, as that was also something that stopped us from building,” he said.

“But we are grateful to everyone who chipped in to help us make today possible.

“We don’t have government funding. People volunteer to do the work for us in their free time – they work tirelessly to help us at the museum and we really appreciate that,” Pike said.

“We rely on admission fees, memberships, and sponsorships for everything in the museum and we sometimes do a lot of fundraising.

“We are happy about today. We are trying to build a farmyard and we are proud that our museum over the years has grown into six different halls or sheds,” Pike said.

After the opening, people proceeded to Pike’s Post for some good food, and cheese and wine, set up beautifully by the Ploughman Pub.