One of New Zealand's newest Queens Service Medal recipients, Ann Robbie, didn't let last weekends honours announcement slow down her quest to find, preserve and ensure every last Southland memorial was back on public display.

On Sunday (5 June) Robbie and her team were busy hanging their latest rescues, three memorial boards from the Balfour Presbyterian Church, in the Fiordland Military Museum (FMM).

All had been carefully restored and polished at the Robbie's Ryal Bush woodworking workshop.

Ann Robbie QSM and Fiordland Military Museum owner Duncan McGregor. Photo: Tina McGregor Photography

Robbie said the military museum was the right context for the memorials when they didn't have a home elsewhere.

The boards would be on permanent loan, however should their original home get up and running again and the community wanted them back, then they would go back, Robbie said.

In the meantime the museum is a safe place where they would be loved and respected and where members of the public could go and see them, she said.

FMM owner Duncan McGregor said the museum was currently displaying seven memorial boards on a special wall of significance.

"It's all about remembrance and even the vehicles are too, just a different sort of memorial," he said.

Robbie said many local churches, schools and lodges had boards, plaques, commemorative stones and even bells, but as these places closed, were renovated or renamed, their memorials risked being lost to the public.

It was far better to have these community memorials restored and on public display where their importance would not be forgotten, she said.

Robbie said she had now successfully located 424 of Southland's memorials but suspected there was still many more out there.

"When you think about memorials, it's not just about the ones with the plinths on them, or the boards or the granite ones that you actually physically see. What about the Garston's School Pool, what about the avenue of trees at Lumsden or the trees at Winton that have just been cut down. There's just so many different things out there that were memorials," Robbie said.

Can you help?

The search is on to locate a granite plaque that was erected at the Army Drill Hall (now demolished) in Invercargill in memory of Sergeant Marjorie Stout, W.A.A.C.

Stout was killed after colliding with a train in her army truck on 7 April, 1943.

Stout was one of the first young women to volunteer for service in the W.A.A.C. after the outbreak of war.

The plaque reads "Erected by the Area Commander and staff of Area No. 12 in memory of Sergeant Marjorie Stout, W.A.A.C., accidently killed, April 7, 1943."

CLICK HERE to email Ann Robbie if you have any information.