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FEDERATION OF AUSTRALIAN HISTORICAL SOCIETIES INC

 

e-BULLETIN No. 94 – 11 January 2012

 

Hon Editor, Dr Ruth S. Kerr

 

 

1) Cairns Cultural Precinct

 

2) Regulation of Australian charities & not-for-profit organisations

 

3) John Douglas Kerr Medal of Distinction

 

4) Twisted Stringybark Short Story Award 2012

 

5) Digitisation of newspapers & parliamentary and archival records

 

6) Local history - Tenterfield property and 'The Dancing Man'

 


1) Cairns Cultural Precinct

 

A $154 million Cultural Precinct is to be built in Cairns. A museum is not planned for the centre. The contribution of the Queensland state government is to come from the sale of the old Queensland Supreme and District Courts building on George Street, Brisbane. That block is said to be the 13th largest single-lot land parcel in the Brisbane CBD.

 

(Source: Australian Financial Review 9 December 2011 p.53)

 


2) Regulation of Australian charities & not-for-profit organisations

 

Australia’s $70 billion charity sector does not have a central database for comparison of financial statements and funding structures. The Charities Commission for England and Wales has such a database. From 1 July 2012 the Australian government will fund a regulator, the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission, one of the functions of which will be to provide a point of comparison of charities’ administration costs.

 

(Source: Weekend Financial Review 22-27 December 2011 p.29)

 

 

3) John Douglas Kerr Medal of Distinction

 

Nominations for the prestigious John Douglas Kerr Medal of Distinction, for research and writing of Queensland history have opened for 2012. The award is made jointly by the Royal Historical Society of Queensland and the Professional Historians Association (Queensland). Nominations close on 31 March 2012.  Nomination forms can be downloaded from

 

www.queenslandhistory.org.au/Kerr_Nom.pdf

 

Further information about the award can be found at

 

www.queenslandhistory.org.au/JohnDKerr.html

 

(Source: Royal Historical Society of Queensland & Professional Historians Association (Queensland) websites)

 

 

4) Twisted Stringybark Short Story Award 2012

 

Nothing entertains a reader more than a good short story with a nifty twist at the end.  Stringybark Stories is delighted to invite all writers to enter their best work in the Twisted Stringybark Short Story Award 2012.  The maximum word length of your story is 1500 words; it must have some link to Australia (no matter how tenuous); and it must have a twist in the tail!  There is over AUD$500 in prizes available, cash, plus publication for place-getters and highly commended stories.  There is an entry fee of $9.75 (discounts for multiple entries) Closing date 4 March 2012.  Details: www.stringybarkstories.net

 

On 28 December 2011, the judges announced the winning stories in the Stringybark Australian History Short Story Award 2011.  From bunyips to war and from Ben Hall to boot-eating, the winning entries are now available in a new anthology Marngrook.  The book is named after the winning entry, Marngrook, by Victorian writer, Sean Quentin Lee. The story is about football.

 

Second place went to Footsteps in the Dark by Elsie Johnstone - set at the time of the 'Brown Out Murders' in Melbourne during World War II.

 

The Woman at the Back of the Room, the third-place getting story, by J.B. Rowley examines the passion of the suffragette movement.

 

A full list of winner and place-getters can be found at www.stringybarkstories.net

 

(Source: Stringybark Stories - judges@stringybarkstories.net – 4 January 2012)

 

 

5) Digitisation of newspapers & parliamentary and archival records

 

One of the librarians at the National Library of Australia working in the area of digitisation, Rose Holley, leads the Government 2.0 initiative. Rose is responsible for the digitisation of Australia’s newspaper archives (now over 50 million articles). The general public assist with corrections to the inevitable digitisation errors.

 

The project operates on a small budget and its advertising is really only through the publications of professional groups such as librarians and historians and through the FAHS. The digitisation project facilitates access to a major body of research material on Australia’s history, culture, economy and society.

 

The challenge for other institutions such as National Archives of Australia is to expand their digitisation projects in a major way in policy and administrative files - beyond records relating to citizens’ entitlements and immigration. There is also a huge opportunity in digitisation of parliamentary papers to make them more accessible to the research public.

 

(Source: aliaaglin@lists.alia.org.au - 23 December 2011)

 

 

6) Local history - Tenterfield property and 'The Dancing Man'

 

The widow of Sydney barrister, Frank McLary, has sold their Bolivia station near Tenterfield for $3.5 million. It comprises 2940 hectares, the original homestead (not restored), two cottages, woolshed and 243 megalitre irrigation licence. Frank McLary is renowned as ‘The Dancing Man’, who was immortalised on newsreel – dancing in a Sydney street to mark the end of World War II.

 

(Source: Australian Financial Review 12 December 2011 p.45)