In 2020 the museum was successful in obtaining a grant from State Library to have a museum specialist visit and carry out a Collection Significance Report on what the museum holds as community heritage.

Melanie Piddocke, from Queensland Museum, visited in June, 2021 and spent a week going through all collections with the Curator to log and assess the various collections. Many of these collections were outlined in our newsletter of Spring 2018. Melanie has sent us the draft report, for us to check and comment on; and soon the final report will be presented. This will be a valuable document to use to access other grants to carry out restoration and conservation of objects.

“The collection very strongly demonstrates historic significance at an  international, regional, and local level. As a whole the collection represents many of the crucial developments in the island’s history, and its wider place in the Pacific. Key events and figures are  well represented. Items which particularly exemplify this criterion are those relating to the first settlement  period of the island,  items connected with subsequent settlers who constituted the first permanent residents, and crucial industries such as the Kentia palm seed trade and tourism.”