The title of this recording is "MALGRA welcomed to Te Manawa Museum". It is described as: Audio from the welcoming ceremony for the Manawatu Lesbian and Gay Rights Association (MALGRA) to Te Manawa Museum. It was recorded in Te Manawa Museum, 326 Main Street, Palmerston North on the 9th July 2017. This is a recording of an event and features the voices of Andy Lowe and Rachel Hoskin. Their names are spelt correctly, but may appear incorrectly spelt later in the document. The duration of the recording is 5 minutes, but this may not reflect the actual length of the event. A list of correctly spelt content keywords and tags can be found at the end of this document. A brief description of the recording is: Audio from the welcoming ceremony for the Manawatu Lesbian and Gay Rights Association (MALGRA) to Te Manawa Museum. MALGRA is New Zealand's longest running LGBTI rainbow rights and social organisation. It has been running since 1977. The content in the recording covers the decades 1970s through to the 2010s. A brief summary of the recording is: The recording documents a welcoming ceremony of the Manawatu Lesbian and Gay Rights Association (MALGRA) at Te Manawa Museum, Palmerston North, that took place on July 9, 2017. Andy Lowe, the Chief Executive of Te Manawa Museum, addressed the gathering, noting the significance of the event coinciding with the international day of law reform in New Zealand. The ceremony celebrated MALGRA, an organization that has been a pioneering force in advocating for LGBTI rights since 1977. The proceedings reflected on the milestones achieved by MALGRA, acknowledging its crucial contributions during challenging times within a conservative community. The audio captured the transitions and developments within the organization, from its origins to present actions geared towards visibility, community support, and celebration of its history. Rachel Hoskin, the then-president of MALGRA, detailed the organization's emphases on increasing its visibility, providing a hardship fund, and organising more community events. The hardships faced by the organization after closing Club Q - a safe space for the LGBTQI community - was also mentioned. Despite such challenges, the shift to Te Manawa Museum was viewed as a fresh opportunity to focus on community needs. Hoskin emphasized the intense volunteer-led efforts to prepare for MALGRA’s 40th anniversary, highlighting the organization’s resilience and the strong bonds within the community that had enabled its longevity without paid personnel. In addition, the plans to hold anniversary events at Te Manawa Museum and the creation of exhibitions showcasing MALGRA's history were discussed. These exhibitions were intended to support the organization's visibility goals while also educating and engaging the wider community on the organization's extensive contributions over the years. Throughout the speech, there was an expression of gratitude for the support and dedication of individuals, both from the local community of Palmerston North and those who traveled from places like Wellington for the event. The recording served as a testament to the progressive and inclusive intentions of the museum, embracing MALGRA's history and future endeavors. The earnest determination to continue promoting visible, positive change was a key theme reiterated by both speakers. The audio recording ended with a note of thanks from Hoskin to Lowe and Te Manawa Museum for their support in helping to advance MALGRA's goals. The full transcription of the recording begins:  Um it's just a fantastic, fantastic morning, and, um, we're so happy to see you all here. My name is Andy Lo. I'm the chief executive here at I've been here for a few years. Um and, um, today is a really, really important day for us. Um, it's very, very exciting and heartwarming and a whole lot of other things. Um, and, uh, we just wanted to really welcome, um, lesbian Gay Rights Association here, uh, into into the building and into our our, um, our philosophies going forward. Um, it's as you will know it's international, um, day of, um, law reform in New Zealand. And it's the anniversary. That's hugely important for us to do this on. So, um, there's a lot of a lot of background to that, and a lot of thinking that we've put into this and with Mel over the years has been working with us anyway over the last few years on a number of things, and it's so it's not a new thing. Um, Rachel and Andy have recently helped on the, um, National Museums conference that was held in Palmerston North. Um, and the theme was inclusivity. But Andy and Rachel were kind of key to that in terms of what museums could be doing in this country, but also in other countries. So people came from all around New Zealand to to part, you know, to participate in the conference, and, uh, and was really, really integral to that. So thank you so much for all your work you've been doing over the last few years. And for this community, As you all know, it's a fairly, um, conservative community. So we have a lot to do, uh, in terms of, um, you know, working, working in that space, The people who have done that over the years anyway, So there's, you know, it's it's not, um, it's not a new thing, but, um, we just wanted to keep keep working on it, and we've got a lot to do. And we really thank those who have come from Wellington as well today because it's a huge mission. And, uh, we know that some of you have come. Um, Jack, we really acknowledge your recent, um, partners, you know, departure from here. And, uh, know about all those sadnesses that people bring with them. So it's important that we recognise those today, and I just really wanted to welcome you. It's fantastic to see you all here, and we've got so much to do. Hey. And we're not gonna stop. We've just done a few little things, but we're not gonna stop. So, um, I'm gonna hand it over to Rachel, who's the president of now. Thanks, Andy. So, um, as Andy said, I'm Rachel Hoskin, and I'm the president of Mel. Um and so we've got a bit of work to do. So, um, we have moved to, um, to from square, where we were just surviving. So Mel has been in the state of just surviving for a couple of years since we closed club Q. Um, closing of club Q was actually a good thing. So, uh, the the reason why club Q existed was to provide a safe space for LGBT Q I, um if that's not needed, that's a good thing. So, um, so we were OK to let that go. Um, we went into, uh, square, and we just started to just survive. Um, obviously paying rent. And, um, and trying to just see what what needed to be done in the community. had been quite difficult for us. So moving in here with Andy's offer of being able to come to to Manu, uh, was a huge blessing for us, because now we we're able to to concentrate on what needs to happen in our community. Um, and the current committee has, uh, looked at a few things. Um, one is we want to be more visible. Um, we want to provide, uh, a hardship fund for our community and set that up. Um, and we want to provide more events for our community as well. So, um, that kind of goes hand in hand with the visibility, actually, um, but, uh, those are the things that we want to be concentrating on now. So, uh, we're working really, really hard. Um, on those things, Uh, but we also have our 40th anniversary this year. So turns 40 as the longest running gay organisation in the country. Um, and we're really, really proud of that. And it has been solely run over that 40 years on volunteers, never a paid person in in any position. So that's in itself is saying how strong? Um, our community is, um so we're really proud of that fact, um, club Q ran for, um, many, many years solely on volunteers. Um and, um, and all of our committee members are all volunteers, and our community is now banding together to, uh, plan for our 40th anniversary events. That will happen in Labour weekend this year, which, uh, the majority of those if not all of them will happen at. So, um, so we're really looking forward to that. Um, So, um so, Yeah. So we're We're, um We're just working towards our our three goals at the moment of the visibility, uh, events and the hardship fund. Um, and trying to make sure that we reassess the needs of our community as we go along, because that's the most important thing. So that's what we're working on. That's what we're doing. We have a huge history behind us, and we're gonna do some exhibitions over this year, uh, both at square and to show that history. Um and hopefully that will help with our visibility as well. So, uh, thanks, Andy. Thanks for allowing us to come into to Manu and help to move the organisation forward. Um, because I think that's really important. The full transcription of the recording ends. A list of keywords/tags describing the recording follow. These tags contain the correct spellings of names and places which may have been incorrectly spelt earlier in the document. The tags are seperated by a semi-colon: 1970s ; 2010s ; Andrew Clayton ; Andy Lowe ; Aotearoa New Zealand ; Club Q (Palmerston North) ; Events ; Homosexual Law Reform Act (1986) ; Jac Lynch ; LGBT ; Manawatu Lesbian and Gay Rights Association (MALGRA) ; Manawatū ; Melbourne ; Museums Aotearoa ; Museums Aotearoa conference (2017) ; Palmerston North ; People ; Rachel Hoskin ; Space ; Square Edge Arts Centre (Palmerston North) ; Te Manawa Museum ; Toronto ; Virginia Parker-Bowles ; Wellington ; bisexual ; blessing ; building ; civil rights ; community ; conference ; conservative ; exhibition ; gay ; hardship fund ; hell ; history ; homosexual law reform ; hospital ; human rights ; inclusion ; inclusive space ; knowledge ; lesbian ; museums ; other ; queer ; queer rights ; rent ; running ; safe space ; sexual rights ; time ; transgender ; visibility ; volunteer ; work ; yellow. The original recording can be heard at this website https://www.pridenz.com/malgra_welcomed_to_te_manawa_museum.html. The master recording is also archived at the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington, New Zealand.  For more details visit their website https://tiaki.natlib.govt.nz/#details=ecatalogue.1089783. Please note that this document may contain errors or omissions - you should always refer back to the original recording to confirm content.