Associate Professor Donald Stuart Garden of Kew, VIC, has been recognised for service to community history & heritage preservation organisations with the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) in the Australia Day 2016 Honours list.

Don is currently president of both the Federation of Australian Historical Societies and the Royal Historical Society of Victoria. His service to history and heritage also includes contributions to the Geographic Place Names Advisory Panel, PHA (VIC), Kew Historical Society, University of Melbourne and Australian Heritage Council.

(Source: RAHS and the FAHS executive)

The Federation of Australian Historical Societies is aware that many societies find it difficult to recruit new members and, in particular, to find people who are willing to take on roles as office bearers.

As a response, we were planning to prepare an online guide on the subject of succession planning. However, we have since found that there are a number of websites containing guides on these matters – a sample is presented below.

We are therefore asking societies to inform us both of the problems they face and any successes they have experienced in recruiting and succession planning. We can use this information to help formulate advice and policies for societies. We may publish your responses – anonymously if requested

We would also appreciate your evaluations of the following links and advice about other sources of which you are aware.

Junction Mine Lookout, Broken Hill, NSW, Photo: Broken Hill Visitor Information Centre

BHP Billiton Limited has donated $5.7 million to the Broken Hill city to enable it to focus on its mining heritage. Broken Hill city is listed on the National Heritage Register under the Environment Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and is Australia's first National Heritage city.

BHP Billiton Ltd’s CEO, Mr Andrew Mackenzie, visited Broken Hill to present the donation. Broken Hill is the birthplace of BHP Billiton Ltd. It closed its last mine in 1939. The presentation coincided with the one-year anniversary of Broken Hill’s inclusion on Australia’s national heritage list. The company intends that its donation be used to highlight the town’s mining history through archive preservation and building new mining-themed parks to celebrate the city’s chemical street nomenclature viz. Bromide, Chloride, Iodide etc. The donation will fund the development of two key components of the Broken Hill City Council’s Living Museum and Perfect Light Project – the Broken Hill archives and the Argent Street intersection. Broken Hill City Council intends to approach other companies who have mined in more recent years for financial support to promote the mining heritage.

(Source: Ruth Kerr, The Australian 29 January 2016 p.18)

‘The People’s Ground’ National Trusts of Australia and Australia ICOMOS joint conference will be held on 5-8 October 2016 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).

At the 2015 ICOMOS Fabric Conference in Adelaide, delegates were challenged to re-evaluate the role of the heritage expert. In 2016 we want to build on these ideas, and the relationships between people, place and practice, theoretically and experientially.

The Melbourne Cricket Ground – popularly ‘The People’s Ground’ – is the inspiration for this conference. This acknowledges that heritage is for and about people and community. Whilst place is central to conceptions of heritage, is it not intangible values – stories, memories, connections, emotions – that reveal and sustain our heritage?

One of our keynote speakers, Frank Vagnone, CEO of the Historic House Trust of New York, recently co-authored the ground-breaking Anarchists Guide to Historic House Museums. His thesis is the need to put the visitor’s experience at the centre. In his keynote, Frank will develop the larger application of his “disruptive” ideas to historic sites, cultural venues and practice.

The People’s Ground asks if a new hierarchy is emerging of how place and practice relate to people?

We are seeking papers by a diverse range of “heritage players” – heritage and GLAM practitioners, historians, social scientists, academics, archaeologists, architects, planners, ecologists, and community advocates – that interrogate and critique the intersections between people, place and practice, reflecting on the past 60 years of heritage practice in Australia, and looking towards the future. Intangible cultural heritage, landscape assessment and management (including the Historic Urban Landscape approach), Aboriginal heritage and the house museum sector are all particularly relevant to the conference theme, and are played out at the MCG, the conference venue.

Australian Heritage Week is an annual national celebration of Australia’s unique heritage. It is an opportunity for all Australians to join together to celebrate our shared and special heritage.

Australian Heritage Week will run from Saturday 16 April until Sunday 24 April.

Preview video:  The Destruction of Memory, copyright Vast Productions USA.

The new feature documentary film ‘The Destruction of Memory: The War against Culture and the Battle to Save It’ is based on the acclaimed book by Robert Bevan of the same name.

Over the past century, cultural destruction has wrought catastrophic results across the globe, but the war against culture is by no means over—if anything, it's been steadily increasing. In Syria and Iraq, the ‘cradle of civilization’, millennia of culture is being destroyed. However, the push to protect, salvage and rebuild has moved in step with the destruction.

Legislation and policy have played a role, but heroic individuals have fought back, risking or losing their lives to protect not just other human beings, but their cultural identity—to save the record of who they are.

Interviewees for the film include the Director-General of UNESCO—as well as diverse and distinguished international experts—whose voices combine to seek to address this urgent issue. A preview screening hosted by GML Heritage has been fully subscribed, but further national screenings will be advertised in future E-Bulletins.

Produced with the support of Henry Luce Foundation, The Rothschild Foundation, World Monuments Fund. Developed with assistance from Screen Australia and Screen NSW. A sponsored project of IFP. The Destruction of Memory was produced by Vast Productions USA in association with TVO.

The theme for the 2016 National Trust Heritage Festival is Discovery and Rediscoveries. The festival dates are 16 April - 29 May 2016

The National Trust invites you to celebrate a fantastic range of events, talks, tours and activities that celebrate our shared heritage. The Festival provides a great opportunity for communities, individuals, local government and organisations to celebrate the places and events that have shaped our heritage.  It is about sharing our stories and we need your help to make it a success.

‘Giving Voice to the Past’ is presented by Oral History NSW and the Royal Australian Historical Society. Come along to hear radio producer and GPS audio app creator Hamish Sewell and the National Film and Sound Archive’s Oral History Program co-ordinator Bronwyn Murphy reflect on their digital oral history practices.

Digital technology is changing how oral and public historians are creating, interpreting and presenting oral histories in the public domain. This seminar will explore how digital technology is impacting how Hamish Sewell and Bronwyn Murphy work with oral history material. They will reflect on the opportunities, challenges, and new methodological approaches that the use of digital technology has brought to their work.

Please join The Royal Historical Society of Victoria and the Friends State Library of Victoria as we combine to celebrate the 50th anniversary of a book that changed the face of Australian historical writing: ‘The Land Boomers’.

Best-selling author, publisher, researcher, journalist, editor and historian Michael Cannon has for half a century contributed to our understanding of Victorian and Australian history. The RHSV and the Friends State Library of Victoria now wish to pay tribute to the author and his lifetime’s work. Best-selling author, publisher, researcher, journalist, editor and historian Michael Cannon has for half a century contributed to our understanding of Victorian and Australian history.

The RHSV and the Friends State Library of Victoria now wish to pay tribute to the author and his lifetime’s work. Emeritus Professor Richard Broome, Vice President RHSV, and the family and friends of Michael Cannon invite you to this Special Lunch Time Event. Plus the official launch of special issue of The La Trobe Journal

The event will allow for the official launch by editor Assoc. Prof. John Arnold (National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash University) of a special issue of The La Trobe Journal (no.97, March 2016), the flagship publication of the Friends of the State Library. The journal features ‘Researching by day, Writing by night – my fifty years as author and publisher’ – a long extract from Michael Cannon’s unpublished memoir.

Thursday 17 March - 12 noon – 2pm
Drill Hall (ground level), 239 A Beckett Street, Melbourne

The Cultural Grants Program is an Arts NSW devolved funding program administered by the Royal Australian Historical Society on behalf of the NSW Government.  This Cultural Grants program assists historical research and publication of local, community and regional history projects.

In 2016 there will be $51,200 available to support projects that contribute to our understanding of NSW history, its people and places.

Applications will open 19 April 2016 and close 21 June 2016.
Journals with original research on the history of a local area or special interest group will be considered for grant funding. Societies that are interested in funding projects that preserve, digitise or increase the accessibility of records that support local and community history should consider making an application.

The Holsworth Local Heritage Trust invites applications for grants from not for-profit organisations such as historical societies, clubs, schools and museums in regional and rural Victoria. The Trust is interested in supporting enthusiastic community groups and organisations with a true interest in heritage preservation and appreciation, and in the enhancement of community life.

Grants of up to $2,000 are available for the publication of any specific or general local history or natural history in rural and regional Victoria. The grant is intended for small organisations with an interest in publishing works of historical value, even where the organisation has little or no experience in publishing. Joint projects encompassing several groups or annual/ special edited journals incorporating submitted historical articles from a wider community are encouraged.

The Australian War Memorial is proud to announce the third biennial Bryan Gandevia Prize to foster and promote research into Australian military history, military-medical history, and military-social history.

A prize of $5,000 will be awarded to an outstanding honours, masters, or doctoral thesis on a significant subject on military, social, or medical aspects of Australian wartime history. The prize is intended to assist scholars in the early stages of their research careers and may be used to assist with publication of their work or to further their research interests.

The Placemaking grants program provides the opportunity for communities (in the Mornington Penninsula Shire) to present their ideas and inspirations for projects that will transform local townships. 

Placemaking is an integrated approach to improving local facilities and connecting them to people as well as enriching places through arts and culture.  Projects may also focus on building the community’s capacity through learning new skills or establishing social connections that create a sense of belonging.

Grants of up to $5,000 per community group are being offered for projects from a funding pool of $110,000. Mornington Peninsula Shire Mayor Councillor Graham Pittock said ‘community groups contributing to projects through joint funding or in-kind volunteer support that have significant community benefit/s are ideal applicants’. ‘Last year’s placemaking grants were an enormous success with 27 grants provided to community groups,’ he said.

Projects funded last year had a range of outcomes that included building local community infrastructure such as picnic tables and seats, a BBQ, a community room, ModBOX planters, a half basketball court as well as several community gardens.  A number of projects established murals in key township areas and revived local reserves with environmentally enriched artwork.  Rosebud’s Buskfest brought hundreds of people together for fun and entertainment with the Southern Peninsula Community Arts Centre’s ‘A Woman’s Place’ event embracing the arts through local stories.

The Royal Historical Society of Victoria is Victoria’s principal history and heritage society and the umbrella body for about 340 historical societies and museums.

The RHSV are seeking an appropriately qualified person with good interpersonal skills as Collections Manager and Volunteer Coordinator. The four main duties are to manage our extensive collection, coordinate our volunteer workers, manage the Society’s IT functions and liaise with our affiliated societies.

The Collections Manager Volunteer Coordinator will work 28 hours per week on an annual salary of $46,664.80 (plus superannuation), EFT $66,664 (plus superannuation)

Qualifications and experience in collection management and information technology essential.

To help provide support for Australian Historical Societies the Federation is undertaking a survey 2016.

The Federation of Australian Historical Societies represents about 1000 community history and heritage societies and museums and their 100,000 members across Australia. These volunteers do enormous amounts of work to collect, preserve, publish and promote our history and heritage.

While we know much about your activities, it is difficult to establish the full range, how you work, the size of your collections, the level of local and state government support and the problems you face, etc.

The FAHS survey 2016 is aimed at commencing a process of information gathering. The first FAHS survey will be distributed by end of February 2016. This information will assist the FAHS in its work of promoting society needs and interests, and of seeking recognition and support from government and the community. Other bodies with similar purposes (for example, heritage societies and museums) are encouraged to complete the survey.