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FEDERATION OF AUSTRALIAN HISTORICAL SOCIETIES INC

 

e-BULLETIN No. 114 – 31 August 2013

 

Hon Editor, Dr Ruth S. Kerr

 

1) Community Heritage Portal

 

2) Community Heritage Portal launched on 30 July 2013

 

3) $1.4 million Community Heritage Grants program

 

4) Local history - Northern Territory - Tennant Creek

 

5) Social benefits of volunteering

 

6) More newspapers added to Trove

 

 

 

1) Community Heritage Portal

 

 

 

Australia’s Community Heritage – www.communityheritage.net.au

 

The Hon Mark Butler MP, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Water, has officially launched Australia’s Community Heritage. The website provides individuals and heritage organisations with the opportunity of freely sharing their local heritage at a centralised location.

 

Historical societies around Australia are strongly encouraged to create a free account and add information about their organisation and their district’s heritage. The site can also be used to promote heritage-related events.

 

The Federation of Australian Historical Societies has engaged Andrew Bowman to assist historical societies in this endeavour. If your society would like further information, guidance or info added for you, please contact Andrew by e-mail – andrew@carnamah.com.au


(Source: Federation of Australian Historical Societies Council 9 August 2013 and FAHS’s Community Heritage Portal Contractor, Andrew Bowman – 6 August 2013)

 

2) Community Heritage Portal launched on 30 July 2013

 

The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Water, The Hon Mark Butler MP, launched the Community Heritage website on 30 July 2013. The link to the Minister’s media release is below. 

http://www.environment.gov.au/minister/butler/2013/mr20130730a.html

 

It is a new website enables people to add their stories to the collection of national heritage.


Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Water, Mark Butler MP joined Federal Member for Banks Daryl Melham MP at the Hurstville City Museum and Gallery to launch the site.

 

The Minister stated that it will change the way we approach heritage in Australia.

“This is a free, community-focussed site developed to let Australians upload the stories that are important to them and their community,” Mr Butler said.
“You can create a profile of your own community group, create your own page, make announcements, create links and share information. It makes heritage a much more grassroots function of the community, rather than a bureaucratic function of government."
“Once registered, users will be able to upload content including text, photos and video linked from YouTube."
“This is the first national portal dedicated to heritage information and stories, whether it is about important cultural stories, places of natural wonder that make up our local communities, or significant historic sites."

 

Mr Melham said the new website would be a big hit in Banks.
“I know hundreds of people here in Banks will take the opportunity to tell their stories and build a tapestry of knowledge about our community,” Mr Melham said.
“Over time communityheritage.net.au will become a rich source of information for people to discover the unique stories and heritage that make us Australian.”

 

Mr Butler said the Australian Council of National Trusts and the Federation of Australian Historical Societies had already started uploading their stories and there are already over 150 stories on the website.
“I would like to thank the two organizations for their support during the website’s development and I look forward to their continued support.”


The site is located at www.communityheritage.net.au .

 

(Source: Ms Charmaine Hastings, Assistant Director, Heritage Strategies Section, Heritage South Branch, Wildlife, Heritage and Marine Division, Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities – 31 July 2013)

 

 

3) $1.4 million Community Heritage Grants program

 

On 26 August 2013 the Coalition announced that if elected it will recognise the work of hundreds of local historical and heritage groups across Australia with a new $1.4 million Community Heritage Grants program.

Volunteers throughout Australia invest an incredible amount of time and energy in collecting and preserving our local heritage.

Without their tireless work in rescuing historical artefacts and researching local history, our sense of who we are and where we’ve come from would be greatly diminished.

Every community across Australia has a unique and fascinating story to tell. By protecting and preserving our local history and heritage, we are helping enrich our cultural identity.

To support this important heritage work, grants of up to $10,000 would be made available to local historical or heritage groups for the conservation, development and exhibition of our local cultural heritage.

The $1.4 million program would be in addition to existing community heritage funding.

Some examples of projects the grants could fund include:

·        historical memorials;

·        the restoration of a community historical or heritage icon;

·        commemorative plaques;

·        interpretive signs;

·        local history books and other literature;

·        interpretive history trails/walks;

·        exhibitions; and  

·        heritage events and celebrations.

Part of this funding would be set aside to support the important work of the Federation of Australian Historical Societies and the Australian Heritage Council.

 

We encourage historical societies to apply for the grants when announced.


(Source: Media Release by The Hon Greg Hunt MP, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage, and 
Senator Simon Birmingham, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray-Darling Basin, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment - 26 August 2013)

 

 

 

4) Local history - Northern Territory - Tennant Creek

 

One of Tennant Creek’s oldest retail outlets closed in mid July 2013. Leonie Watson and Roddy Calvert had operated the Indian and Asian Boutique since 1987. There had been many bonanza years when the mining industry in the area was booming but now online shopping has taken over. The corrugated and pressed tin structure was built in 1937 by B. West for Cecil Armstrong who operated a bakery and café. Len Kittle bought the shop in 1957 and converted it to a general store and dress shop. It was later converted to three shops.


(Source: Tennant and District Times 26 July 2013 p.5 including photograph)

 

 

5) Social benefits of volunteering

 

Volunteering has a meaningful and positive impact on our community. Historical Societies are a vital element in this. It also benefits the individual performing the voluntary work.


Volunteering and social support

 

People with increased social contacts and strong support networks have lower premature death rates and fewer health risk factors. Social networks provide both emotional benefits and actual assistance in times of need. Volunteering helps individuals form interpersonal ties and develop social networks.

 

Volunteering and healthy aging

  • Volunteering among seniors has been linked to improved quality of life, stronger social networks and increased levels of physical activity.

  • Many seniors are at risk of social isolation and decreased social activity. Volunteering can help to counter this.

  • Volunteering activity throughout adult years promotes healthy aging and activity in older age.

  • Volunteerism contributes to successful aging by enhancing one’s life satisfaction and sense of well-being, sense of purpose, self confidence and personal growth.

  • Volunteering enhances health because individuals with many interests tend to have increased well-being.

Volunteering and developing community bonds

  • Cohesion in a community reflects group membership, civic participation, social networks, levels of trust and information sharing inherent in social relations.

  • Community bonds, social interaction and relationships that promote co-operation tend to ease the stresses of daily life.

  • Increases in community participation, such as membership of voluntary organisations, are reflected in increases in community health.

  • Social participation through volunteering is an important element of healthy, integrated and secure communities.

  • Volunteer organisations positively impact upon factors that influence health by encouraging interaction between community members.

Volunteering and self-enhancement

  • Increasing your social integration aids with your ability to cope with stress.

  • Young people can benefit from volunteering in terms of enhanced confidence and self-esteem through skills development.

  • Volunteers often report improving their interpersonal skills as well as gaining better communication, organisational and managerial skills.

(Source: Canadian Health Network (2005) Volunteering as a Vehicle for Social Support and Life Satisfaction http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/vs-sb/pdf/VH_Factsheets_e.pdf)

 

 

 

6) More newspapers added to Trove

 

The National Library of Australia (NLA) has announced that the following issues of newspapers and journals have been newly added to Digitised newspapers on Trove . Many newspapers are currently being added to Trove and further issues will become available shortly.

 

New South Wales:

Queensland:

South Australia:

Victoria:

*Digitisation of these titles has been supported by the State Library of NSW as part of the Digital Excellence Program, funded by the NSW Government.
#Digitisation of these titles, selected by the Australian Newspaper Plan has been funded by the National Library of Australia.
**Digitisation of these titles has been supported by the State Library of Victoria in collaboration with Public Libraries Victoria Network.

 

To ascertain the latest titles which have been added to Trove, researchers may subscribe to one of the National Library of Australia’s Web feeds.

 

Through Trove, the national resource discovery service, there is free online access to over 10 million pages from over 500 Australian newspapers. All of the digitised newspapers are fully text-searchable and users can enrich and enhance the data through subject tagging, text correction and annotations.

 

Titles have been selected by the National Library of Australia in consultation with the state and territory libraries. A number of the titles are being digitised with the generous support and funding from a range of organisations. For those libraries and organisations wishing to digitise a newspaper title, please see the National Library of Australia’s Contributor guidelines. Additional information may be obtained by emailing andp@nla.gov.au.

 

(Source: Email from Dr Hilary Berthon, Australian Newspaper Plan, National Library of Australia, e: hberthon@nla.gov.au; t: +61 02 6262 1642;  www.nla.gov.au/australian-newspaper-plan/  – 14 August 2013)