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Tuesday, August 02, 2016
HMAS Whyalla benefits from special collaboration
A strong bond has been formed between Whyalla City Council and the Australian National Maritime Museum, resulting in exciting opportunities for the local Visitor Information Centre.
Whyalla City Council was successful in attaining a grant from the Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM) for Visitor Information Centre team leader Teresa Court to undertake an internship in April 2016.
Ms Court spent a week in Sydney experiencing and learning about the operations of ANMM, directly resulting in valuable connections being made with experts in the field of ship care and maintenance, education, museum management, retail and volunteering.
A further positive outcome for Whyalla came as ANMM agreed to send two of their ship experts to Whyalla to assess the HMAS Whyalla.
ANMM Fleet manager Damien Allen and team leader steel vessels Jeff Hodgson spent two days aboard the HMAS Whyalla, going over the ship and undertaking minor maintenance where they could.
The pair will now develop a maintenance plan for the council to be able to prioritise care and maintenance of the ship into the future.
Mr Allen said ANMM worked closely with volunteers in relation to museum operations and regular vessel maintenance tasks, and encouraged Whyalla City Council to take on a similar approach.
Whyalla City Council tourism development manager Liz McNeill said the council had developed a similar volunteering program to be structured once the maintenance plan had been received and would be seeking support from the community.
“We have really appreciated having representatives from ANMM in Whyalla, and will be taking on board the suggestions made,” Mrs McNeill said.
“The HMAS Whyalla is a wonderful tourism asset, so it is really important that we take special care of it, and to do that we will require community support by way of volunteers and community assistance.
“We’ve been really grateful to have Damien and Jeff in Whyalla undertaking maintenance on the HMAS Whyalla and look forward to working with them in the future to further enhance the work that we do at the Whyalla Visitor Information Centre.”