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What are we up to now and what was happening then? It is very timely to be writing this blog as we near the end of another month in lockdown. Being the end of the month, I am in the usual process of signing off on our financials and other projects, so it is a great time for reflection. With the Museum closed until further notice we have had to adapt our public offerings and this has meant that we are heavily focusing upon digital content. A few weeks ago, we hosted our first

Greetings to the avid readers of our weekly blog, I hope you are all faring well during this lockdown period (if you’re based in NSW, that is). As promised in last week’s post, retrievable via this link: https://www.museumoffire.net/single-post/working-from-home-lockdown-2021, I am here today to talk to you about the process enlisted to deinstall a set of three gauge-ous gauges during lockdown. As they have now been retired to storage, I will end this blog by showcasing the s

An Update from our CEO Belinda When our team scheduled a CEO update for this week, we were anticipating a mammoth blog filled with information about all the fun activities coming up at the Museum this month. Sadly, that isn’t the case and I find myself trying to work out exactly what to talk about. This sounds really negative however it has given me cause to reflect on everything that is still taking place at the Museum and provides me with a great opportunity to answer the q

For nearly 20 days the Museum of Fire has now been closed to the public. That is 20 days without any income from visitation, our primary form of fundraising activity. When it seemed that lockdown would be just two weeks we remained as positive as we could given the circumstances. The school holidays were to be our busiest ever so being closed for the holidays was soul crushing but where possible we tried to keep on as many staff as was feasible. As we entered week three of lo

As always, I find myself incredibly busy and often overwhelmed when I sit down to write these blogs for our website, but I also have a great sense of accomplishment as I write this particular blog. In the last few months, we have continued to kick a number of goals, from creating new exhibits and engaging with new audiences, to presenting new events and ways for us to promote the Museum to a wider community. One major event that took place at the Museum last month was Fire an

-Story by Bill Rowlings OAM Deputy President, c. 1984 It was all the doing of the first female to take on a senior role in fire brigade management in NSW. In 1982, the NSW Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Peter Anderson, appointed Kristine Klugman BA (History) MA (Community Studies) as the first female to serve on the then 98-year-old Board of Fire Commissioners, and made her Deputy President. At the time, she was also the President of the Australian Museum Trust,

“H ow did you end up working at the Museum?” is one of the most common questions our staff receive. In order to answer that ‘burning’ question, plus any others that you may have, we will be showcasing members of the Museum’s team throughout the year. Most of our team are very shy, so picking who to feature first was a hard task but we decided to start with our latest employee of the quarter – Kris McDonell. Kris was voted the employee of the quarter by the Museum’s senior tea

Today, 18 May 2021, is International Museum Day; an event celebrated annually by the International Council of Museums (ICOM). This special day also coincides with Library and Information Week 2021, which is held from 17 to 23 May in Australia. Last year, as the day rolled around, it was hard to find something to celebrate as we remained in lockdown with no known re-opening date in sight. One cause for positivity though was that on 18 May 2020, our Curator, Laura, was to comme

I write this blog feeling very tired but incredibly proud of the effort put forth by the Museum team over the past few weeks. For the first time, the Museum’s newly formed team attended the Sydney Royal Easter Show. We were invited to attend alongside Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW) and it was an opportunity we could not pass up! Forming part of the FRNSW exhibit, the Museum presented two heritage vehicles (a Dennis ‘Jag’ and an ‘Ace’ ), and had a pop-up shop on site. As this was

Those of you that are avid readers of our blog will have realised by now that this week’s piece is coming to you much later than normal, but we have a very good reason why. As everyone no doubt knows, Penrith; where the Museum is located, faced a flood warning, the likes of which had not been seen in over fifty years. The last time Penrith saw the waters rise like this was in November 1961 when half of the area’s average annual rainfall fell in just two days. Despite the risi