Laura Vodanovich - from the MTG

There has been plenty to capture children's interest at the MTG during the school holidays.

Last weekend we had our open day for Anzac and I hope some of you managed to come in.

We were delighted with the overall number of people who visited the museum.

Particularly pleasing was seeing the diverse range of the community and the large number of families who decided to take this opportunity to visit or revisit the museum.

There were people who'd come last year and enjoyed it so much they came back again - which is a lovely testament to all the work staff have put into creating compelling displays and a fabulous atmosphere for visitors.

And it's lovely to meet visitors who haven't been before, or not for a number of years, who are pleasantly surprised by how much the museum has changed and the rich experiences now on offer.

The drop-in zone created for the school holidays was well used on Anzac Day and is open until the close of day tomorrow.

This was a popular new element added for the holidays and we'd love to hear from parents and children who used it, so we know what worked and any suggestions for improvement.

With this being the last weekend of the school holidays, you may want to come along and enjoy these activities with your children or grandchildren.

We really appreciated those of you who gave us feedback on the day and always value hearing directly from people who have freshly experienced the museum.

Your feedback is seriously discussed among staff and can lead to changes in how we create exhibitions, interact with visitors and how we manage the institution overall.

Earlier community and visitor feedback led to moving the front desk, adding tables and chairs on the forecourt, and increasing the number of objects on display.

While we cannot action every individual piece of feedback (and sometimes feedback from different individuals can be direct opposites) we look for patterns and recurring feedback.

One of the key pieces of information we gained from this open day was that the building was too confusing to navigate and therefore we will give priority to improving signage throughout the museum to help visitors find their way around.

Tomorrow is the last chance to see the exhibition, From the Uttermost Ends of the Earth: Hawke's Bay At War 1914-1918, so if you haven't seen it yet and wish to, you need to come in this weekend.

The exhibition will close with a small private ceremony on Monday morning, when the Last Post will be played to mark the occasion.

It'll be sad to see this exhibition come down as it is such an important and significant subject.

It was an honour to be able to acknowledge in some small way the complex subject of New Zealand at war and all the emotions this involves; pride, sorrow, anger, fear, etc.

We hope the exhibition did justice to the people of Hawke's Bay and all those whose lives were touched by World War I.

This was also the first exhibition installed during my time at the museum (opening from memory a month after I started) and so there's another layer of emotion for me seeing this exhibition come to an end.

We did get lots of feedback about the exhibition in terms of how the display worked and especially needing to have a larger font size on our labels so we plan to implement this feedback as we develop the next exhibition in this gallery.

Your opinions really do matter and we thank you for sharing them.

* Drop-in Zone: Come in and enjoy craft activities, reading space and the existing Art Deco inspired colouring wall. Last day tomorrow..

* Play It Again, Jan!: Jan Preston is back banging out her trademark boogie-woogie. Trio Jan Preston, Mike Pullman and Nigel Masters, today, , 7.30pm, Century Theatre. Tickets available through Ticketek.

* Laura Vodanovich is the director of the Museum Theatre Gallery (MTG) Hawke's Bay