Millthorpe museum gets a boost

Cadia Valley Operations has continued its support for the Millthorpe Golden Memories Museum with a $10,000 donation towards the extension of the popular facility.

The museum plans to expand its current facility, with the help of a State Government Community Building Partnership grant, to allow for additional farming equipment and machinery to be displayed for the community.

Blayney Shire Council has also come to the party with $3,000 from its community financial assistance program towards the building.

CVO General Manager, Tony McPaul, said CVO was only "too happy to support the museum", which has more than 160 volunteers who work tirelessly throughout the year to preserve and record the history of the Millthorpe region.

"Millthorpe Golden Memories Museum is an excellent educational facility and destination for primary and secondary schools and the general community across the central west," Mr McPaul said.

"The museum focuses on the history of agriculture and farm machinery in the area and also includes a display dedicated to recording the evolution of the mining industry in the Cadia district.

"The Golden Memories Museum does a great job of preserving our collective memory as farmers and miners, and reinforcing our identity as a community of innovative and prosperous entrepreneurs," he said.

CVO has a long standing relationship with the museum.

In 2004, CVO donated $40,000 to the Museum to build an additional display building which now proudly houses 'Cadia Corner' - a dedicated area focusing on how mining and agriculture formed the Cadia District more than 160 years ago.

The Millthorpe museum is one of the many charities and community organisations which has benefited from the CVO Community Partnership Program in the 2012-2013 financial year.

The museum's treasurer Rosemarie Amos said the CVO donation and the State Government's grant would allow the museum to be completed.

"It will complete the museum's building development. We'll constantly change exhibitions, but the new building will connect the whole complex," she said.

The new building will be towards the rear of the museum's site and allow it to display a lot more machinery.

It will also contain office space and storage space and is expected to be open by next year.

There will also be a veranda and better access for people with disabilities.

It will be of corrugated iron construction in keeping with the rest of the museum's building, Mrs Amos said.

The new building will be named the Trevor Pascoe Pavilion in honour of a past president who died about a year ago at the age of 60.

Mrs Amos said: "Trevor was just a wonderful president, a great man. He was single and a retired school teacher and had the gift of public speaking.

"He devoted a lot of his life to the history of Millthorpe and this district and has left a very big gap.

"He'd written a book about his family and the Forest Reefs' area."

"It will be published and we're hoping to have the launch co-incide with the new building at the museum," she said.