Opening this week

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 1, Issue 7, 19 July 1983, Page 13

Opening this week

The Prime Minister, the Right Honourable R.D. Muldoon, will formally open a new extension to the Queen Elizabeth II Army Memorial Museum. The opening ceremony will take place at the Museum on Saturday morning, 23 July 1983. Privately-funded, the $536,000 extension will increase the Museum's exhibition area by nearly twothirds. In addition the 840 ^fiuare metres extension ^B)vides extra space for workshop, office and storage requirements. Army engineers from the Papakura-based 1st Field Squadron started work on the project last October and finished the building late last month. None of the construction materials used were a cost against the taxpayer. $48,000 was raised by lottery; special fund-raising golf tournaments are being sponsored by Army Camps and RSA Clubs throughout the country and donations are being gratefully received by the Museum's Trust Board.

In addition, many New Zealand commercial organizations have donated, or provided at cost-price, a variety of building materials for the new extension. To mark the occasion, the Museum will be mounting a unique exhibition of the late Sir Cecil Beaton's photographs taken during World War II. The exhibition has been provided by the British Imperial War Museum and this will be the first time it has been shown outside the United Kingdom. The Army Museum's highly praised historical audio-visual show has been given a face-lift. All 960 slides, shown by 12 projectors onto six screens, have been replaced. From 23 July the new- visual display will be screened ten times daily. Since the Museum's opening by Sir Keith Holyoake in October 1978, the 12 projectors have made a massive 15 million slide changes, each projector averaging about 1.3 million changes.