YES. WE. CAN.
Okay, some jolly nice person has been very kindly putting it about that the Boggo Road Gaol Historical Society doesn’t have the 'commercial experience' to run Boggo Road for twelve months. For now, let’s ignore the fact that this splendid chap runs a small business that stagnated ten years ago and barely makes enough to support even one full-time job, and give him a little history lesson.
Boggo Road was open as a historical site until 2005. The BRGHS ran it under Public Works 2004-05. Back then we had ten members to start with, growing to 25. Here’s what happened during that time:
- The gaol was open every day it was supposed to be.
- We ran several hundred tours and never missed a single one. That’s tens of thousands of visitors.
- We had an average of six volunteer staff turn up on opening days. More than was actually needed.
- We researched, designed, constructed and installed dozens of displays and exhibits both inside and outside the gaol.
- We did the cleaning and minor maintenance tasks
- We re-registered, cleaned and stored thousands of museum artefacts.
- We established the ‘Inside History’ publishing project which has since released nearly 40 titles
- We established a library of historical records
- We established productive working relationships with other community organisations, and we worked very well with government
All that with just a handful of people. Now fast forward seven years. Even though the gaol has been closed all that time, we have grown to over 270 members – over TEN TIMES the size we were.
So can we run it again?
Yes we can.
Can we have something different happening every weekend to keep the crowds coming?
Yes we can.
Can we get more staff than we know what to do with?
Yes we can.
Can we get visitors through the door?
Yes we can.
Can we create a dynamic cultural and community hub that is a credit to the Boggo Road Urban Village?
Yes we can.
Can we give a voice to the former officers and inmates who know the place like nobody else does?
Yes we can.
Can we run tours for schools, Seniors, other adults and the ghost crowd?
Yes we can.
Can we create jobs?
Yes we can.
Can we make brilliant groups like the Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble part of the Boggo Road family?
Yes we can.
Can we make it affordable for all?
Yes we can.
Yes we can.
Can we allow private businesses access?
Yes we can.
All too easy.
We can do all that, and more. We've done it before.
And now (given the chance) we can do it bigger than before, and we can do it better than before.
