Having well and truly established the Kowie Museum in its new national monument home at the Station, curator Dick Schuurman has made the shock announcement that he and his wife Lynn will be moving to Cape Town in June.

While the Trustees fully understand that the Schuurmans’ move is for medical reasons, they are nevertheless aghast at losing a curator whose innovative thinking and hard work has done so much to get the museum on a sound and more business-like footing.

While museum policy is decided by the elected Board of Trustees, and the day-to-day work of greeting visitors and showing them around falls mainly on the volunteer desk helpers, it is the curator who steers the ship, works on improving and creating displays, updates and categorises the records and archives, keeps up contacts with other museums, makes sure that stocks of books and leaflets are on hand, and sees that the museum is marketed as innovatively as possible, despite the severe lack of ready funds.

“It’s work that is continually interesting,” says Dick.  “You need to be able to think on your feet, be innovative, work well with people (visitors and trustees), work to a plan, and be fascinated by the history of the area.  You also need to treat it as a busy hobby, rather than a job with excellent financial prospects.

The museum opens 9.30 to 12.30 from Tuesday to Saturday, with a small amount of additional hours over the holiday season, in very pleasant working conditions.”

The museum is anxious to find a new curator.  Any enquiries can be directed to the chairperson at  admin(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)kowiemuseum.co.za