Teviot District Museum receives $80K towards the purchase of Roxburgh’s Masonic Lodge on the town’s main street. The lodge is to be purchased and repurposed into a much needed larger and more prominent museum for the district, to add to the current early settler museum.

Teviot District Museum secretary, Barbara Fraser said the chairman, John Rowley and the committee were delighted when they learned of the news.

“The museum’s current location is tucked away on Abbotsford Street. The small stone cottage is full to overflowing, and has no running water or bathroom facilities. Expanding the current site would be double the cost of purchasing the Freemason’s lodge to repurpose. It is also in a more prominent location, which will attract more visitors,” she says. “We are just working through agreements with the Freemasons now, and once we have all the funding lined up, the purchase will go through. Thanks to CLT we are a good way there.”

Environment and heritage is a key sector for Trust funding, Trust chief executive Susan Finlay says.

“The Trust supports projects and organisations that preserve and promote the physical and cultural heritage of our region and that protect and enhance the environment in which we live. “This funding round highlights the work our community is doing to preserve our heritage and environment.”

Another to receive funding was Otago Goldfield Heritage Trust receiving $62,500 towards the purchase of the old Methodist Church, a registered heritage building in Cromwell. The Heritage Trust’s offices are based out of the building, as well as the local movie theatre. “Securing the purchase of the building means we can look to preserve and restore it for our future generations and the community’s use,” says Odette Hopgood Bride, Heritage Trust treasurer.

“We have now secured 50% of the funding required for purchase. While the church is protected by the district plan and The Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act 2014 we have applied to Heritage New Zealand for the church to become a category listed building,” she says.

The purchase of 4,000 more predator traps is that much closer with funding going to the Southern Lakes Sanctuary Trust’s predator trapping programme. Southern Lakes Sanctuary (SLS) is a group of six predator control groups which have come together to scale up operations over 660,000 hectares in the Upper Clutha and Wakatipu basins.

Greg Lind chair of Southern Lakes Sanctuary Trust says, “The funding allows SLS and our partners, the predator trapping expansion to operate at a landscape scale - the goal of the project".

Two pilot programmes in our education/youth sectors also receive Trust funding. CO REAP’s counsellor in schools and Whaioa Putea’s education pilot programme to facilitate learning towards sustainable development in our local community.

In total over $4.7 million was approved for the first meeting of the Trust’s financial year, being approximately 40% of the Trust’s record grants budget of $12 million, with $3.6 million in multi-year grants.

“The Trust started granting on a multi-year basis several years ago to make it less onerous for groups applying for funding, and provide security of income. For those we have a strong working relationship and operate in the social service sector, we can fund for successive years. These grants are processed in the first meeting of the financial year and this year make up 30% of our $12 million grants budget, grants manager, Mat Begg says.

GRANTS APPROVED – MAY 2022

Values shown for multiyear grants are for the 2022/2023 year only.

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