Listen here!

We had a brilliant tour of Shene Estate last Sunday afternoon. Anne and David Kernke gave a wonderful tour of the magnificent gothic stables, the great barn and through their homestead before treating us to afternoon tea. Take a look at the Photos page for a taster or reminder.

Due to the overwhelming response to this activity and the large number of members who missed out, we have secured a second tour of Shene on Sunday 25 May. A notice is being sent to those who missed out on the first tour. Depending on the uptake by those members, a wider notification may be sent.

Artist Donna Ritchie, who works as a Visitor Services Officer at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, is having an exhibition at the SideSpace Gallery of the Salamanca Arts Centre this month, and members are warmly welcomed to pop along for a look.

It is approaching that time of year again when we ask you to renew your membership of the Friends of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. It is hard to believe that it is more than a year since the reopening of TMAG following the first stage of its redevelopment. In that time visitation has grown, as has membership of TMAG.

Your committee has been hard at work implementing a new, very 21^st century membership management system that will, in due course, enable those of you who have the inclination to manage your own subscriptions via a website, as well as access news, information about forthcoming events, make payments and donations and generally stay in touch with the activities of the Friends of TMAG.

We will be using the system from this membership renewal onwards. On this occasion we will be writing to all members and asking you to complete the information a pre-filled form and return it to us by post.

We will also be asking you to provide your preferred method of contact. We know from our survey of a couple of years ago that many of you are keen for contact to be via email and the web, which this new system will soon be providing. Those who are not so keen, never fear; we shall continue to allow you to subscribe, receive news and make payment by post and cheque for as long as the banks keep accepting them.

However, given the increasing costs and workload associated with mailing to our growing membership, we do ask that if you have access to email, that you do seriously consider using that channel; the more money we can save on postage, the more we have to support TMAG and its work.

Your committee is implementing a new computerised cloud-based membership database system to help us stay in touch and better serve our rapidly growing number of Friends. 

This new, very 21^st century membership management system will, in due course, enable those of you who have the inclination to manage your own subscriptions via a website, as well as access news, information about forthcoming events, make payments and donations and generally stay in touch with the activities of the Friends of TMAG. 

The system, from Canadian developers Wild Apricot, offers a range of benefits, including:

• A choice of payment options, including direct debit and online payments while still allowing us to accept postal orders and cheques.
• Managing RSVPs and payments for Friends’ events
• A Friends website, which could include news, a calendar of events and options for members to manage their own membership preferences online
• Communication by either email or traditional post
• It can be managed by any committee member or other authorised person from any location – it doesn’t require someone sitting in a particular office.

We anticipate that it will take a few months for us to transfer all the membership information and the years of corporate knowledge that are held within Jean’s estimable card index system. Members should not notice any change or interruption to services at present, until we reach the point where we can begin email communications for those who have opted for it.