Report into activities at Azelia Ley Homestead Museum

The City of Cockburn's response to the Cockburn Gazette on 31.8.20 about a report into activities at Azelia Ley Homestead Museum -


Question: Is the Azelia Ley Museum and wagon shed currently open to all members of the public?

Answer: Azelia Ley is currently open to the public on Sundays from 1.30pm – 4.30pm with a stage four COVID safety plan in place.
Prior to COVID, the museum regularly hosted schools and other groups as part of its group tour program.

Question: Has the museum banned any of its members from attending the museum until September 2021? If so, what was the reasoning given and were the affected members given any chance of appeal? Who made the decision, if there were any, to ban members?

Answer: The City recently advised some non–member individuals to stay away from the museum until September 2021 to meet Occupational Health and Safety requirements.
This followed multiple reports over a number of years of intimidating behaviour by the individuals toward Cockburn Historical Society volunteers and staff members.
The City is required by Occupational Health and Safety legislation to provide volunteers and staff with a safe workplace.
 
Question: Can you confirm whether some items which have been loaned to the museum have been thrown away by members of the staff?

Answer: The disposing of artefacts is carried out by historical society members not City staff, however, nothing is disposed of without following the museum’s strict deaccessioning policies. Very few artefacts are disposed of and only if they are unable to be repaired or re-stored.
The museum stopped accepting loaned items in 2011. At this time, anyone who had loaned an item to the museum was contacted and were asked to either collect the item or gift it to the museum.
 
Question: Has the number of volunteers at the museum declined over the past two years?

Answer: No.
 
Question: Can you confirm whether the Manning Park stables have a rat problem and are going un-used?

Answer: The Manning Park stables have had an issue with rats accessing the building through the eaves at the top of the building. This has been addressed and the eaves are now enclosed.
The City has carried out a regular and ongoing rat eradication program across all of the buildings in the Azelia Ley Homestead Museum complex for many years.
The stables are currently used as a storage space for some of the more robust items that are not on display within the museum. The historical society would like to resume use of the stables but there is a lot of work and a lot of expense that would be incurred to enable it to be approved for any future public use. This may be the subject of future grant applications and requests for Council funding.
 
Question: Anything else you’d like to add?

Answer: The Azelia Ley Homestead Museum is run by a very active and dedicated group of volunteers. These volunteers donate 7,000 hours of service per year to keep the museum in superb condition.
In the last 12 months there were over 8,000 visitors to the museum attending events, school holiday programs and Sunday openings.
The museum and Historical Society have won many awards over the years and play a very important role in capturing and displaying the history and heritage of the Cockburn area.