Former Lawrence Chinese Camp Charitable Trust chairwoman Adrienne Shaw told the Otago Daily Times yesterday she, and other descendants of the camp’s gold rush community, were concerned about the pace of progress restoring the camp.
Mrs Shaw said the trust did not appear to be actively engaged in fundraising, and risked missing its own deadlines for the project restoring historic buildings at the site, including the former Empire Hotel, stables and the Joss House.
She claimed the issues were partly down to poor communication, and called for greater "transparency" from the trust in providing project updates.
"They’re hiding behind their website. Information is there if you hunt for it, but even then it’s in an indigestible format. What’s wrong with a simple quarterly summary placed prominently on the homepage, and distributed to a mailing list of stakeholders?"
She said she worried momentum would be lost if the trust failed to properly engage the community, among which were potential donors and supporters.
"Again, we’ve had the Chinese New Year event, but there’s no evidence or announcement of any further fundraising planned for 2023. How do they plan to start building next year if there’s no money in the pot?
"We’d love to help, but we need to know how."
Current trust chairwoman Denise Ng said the trust welcomed input from camp descendants and the wider stakeholder community.
"As a charitable trust, we rely on funding and donations to help us preserve and develop the camp, so we take every opportunity to spread the word and ask for support.
"We are on to the fifth stage of the restoration project. The final leg is planning that involves doing detailed designs, getting consents from authorities, construction work tendering and getting funding ahead of the building works next year."
About 90% of the $103,400 required for this stage had been raised, Ms Ng said.
A further $80,000 had already been raised and used for "pre-building" stages, funded by grants and donations from the Chinese Poll Tax Heritage Trust, the Lottery Environment and Heritage Fund, the Stout Trust and privately.
Responding to concerns about the pace of the project, Mrs Ng said heritage restoration work took time and detailed planning.
"[R]estoration work has proceeded within an expected timeframe, and we are on track. As anyone who has done heritage restoration would know, the pre-building work is an arduous but vital part of a successful project."
She said further fundraising events this year would be notified through the trust’s social media pages.
