October 17, 2014
Chance meetings can sometimes take you down some interesting roads. Early one morning this week, I was at the Torrens Parade Ground waving off 40 very excited former women soldiers with their family and friends as they headed down the Anzac Highway in a convoy of six historic vehicles from the National Military Vehicle Museum. […]
Keep readingOctober 16, 2014
You would think I would see enough museums in the course of my normal work, but I couldn’t resist the draw of the Loxton Village Kids’ Day Out on 8 October during the school holidays and the chance to see the newly installed signs that are helping to interpret key buildings in the Village streetscape. […]
Keep readingOctober 3, 2014
Nine enthusiastic participants attended the Collections MOSAiC training workshops in the Memorial Hall, Torrens Parade Ground, held over three days from 30 September to 2 October. MOSAiC, the Collections management and archiving software for museums, arts and heritage organisations, is produced by the Perth-based family business ISTechnology and is a popular choice by many small […]
Keep readingAugust 19, 2014
History SA/Veterans SA’s travelling exhibition Bravest of the Brave, which tells the moving stories of the eight South Australians awarded the Victoria Cross (VC) in the First World War, is on its way to Port Augusta and then on to the tiny town of Yunta, towards Broken Hill. To date these will be this popular […]
Keep readingAugust 5, 2014
Conservation Volunteers Australia (CVA) would like to commemorate 100 years of the Anzac spirit (1914-18) by creating 100 Living Memorials across Australia through their Living Memorials program. This program will support locally driven activities that engage the community in commemorative events across Australia. The program aims to recognise an individual local hero or community activity […]
Keep readingJuly 29, 2014
What I love about my job is coming into contact with the various community collections around the state and uncovering interesting and often significant items in unlikely places. Costume collections and their care seem to have been an overriding theme recently. During our visit to the South East back in June, we got to see […]
Keep readingJune 26, 2014
The South Australian History Fund (SAHF) is History SA’s annual grant fund supporting community groups to undertake small South Australian history projects. Funding up to $2,000 for projects, $3,000 for publications and $5,000 for research projects is available. In previous years the SAHF has funded oral history, archiving, digitisation, conservation and interpretation projects, along with […]
Keep readingJune 23, 2014
The Telling our Stories Alexandrina digital stories project was launched on 26 May. The enthusiastic crowd of about 150 people settled in to the Strathalbyn Town Hall to view the inaugural screening of ten short films. The films focus on different aspects of local history from the Alexandrina Council region, including stories about the River […]
Keep readingMay 22, 2014
Once Upon a Time: Stories of South Australian childhood is the latest travelling exhibition from History SA. It offers a glimpse into the lives of children living in South Australia over successive generations, in both the happy and more challenging times. It is intended to motivate people to share their community’s own unique stories of what […]
Keep readingMay 8, 2014
History SA jumped into its own About Time History Festival events early this year with a popular workshop on 2 May. The very cold and wet weather couldn’t keep 30 keen women away from the chance to learn and talk about costume and textiles. After an overview of the Australian Dress Register (ADR), Mary-Anne Gooden, […]
Keep readingApril 24, 2014
Recently I was tempted by the aroma of baking biscuits and some culinary history to attend another presentation by Allie Reynolds at Adelaide Farmers’ Market, at the Wayville Showgrounds. Timed perfectly for Anzac Day, it was a follow up to her first fascinating talk at the Market about her search for the first Anzac biscuit recipe […]
Keep readingApril 4, 2014
History SA/Veterans SA’s travelling exhibition Bravest of the Brave, which tells the moving stories of the eight South Australians awarded the Victoria Cross in the First World War, is on the move again. Affectionately known as BoB, the exhibition has already spent the beginning of the year at Semaphore & Port Adelaide RSL, before heading […]
Keep readingApril 4, 2014
History SA/Veterans SA’s new joint travelling exhibition Gallantry, telling the stories of the brave actions of five South Australians awarded the Victoria Cross and George Cross in the Second World War and the Vietnam War, opened on 1 April at Adelaide’s new City Library. Following a welcome speech by the City of Adelaide’s Lord Mayor, […]
Keep readingMarch 28, 2014
A new storeroom was officially opened at Axel Stenross Maritime Museum in Port Lincoln on Wednesday 19 March. A small evening reception was held to celebrate the occasion on the museum’s verandah with a pleasant sea view. Guests included those attending the History SA/Artlab Caring for Collections workshop held over two-days in the Port Lincoln […]
Keep readingMarch 28, 2014
Last week Artlab’s Principal Textile Conservator Kristin Phillips and I headed for the airport. We were on our way to Port Lincoln to run a two-day ‘Caring for Collections’ workshop for community museums and history groups. This skills development program is one that we run every two years or so in different regions but this […]
Keep readingMarch 27, 2014
35 eager participants attended our free one-day Digitisation for Preservation and Access workshop at the Hetzel Lecture Theatre in The Institute Building on North Terrace on Wednesday 12 March. Participants were largely from community museums, historical societies, school and university archives, but there were also representatives from a writers’ festival and a car club. Mainly […]
Keep readingFebruary 3, 2014
On a hot evening right at the end of January I headed out to the Old Highercombe Hotel Museum at Tea Tree Gully, where I had the honour of officially opening the Museum’s latest exhibitionVines to Wines. The exhibition looks at the history of grape growing and wine and spirits production in the Tea Tree […]
Keep readingJanuary 30, 2014
Recently I assisted the South Australian Bhutanese Community to install their Forum exhibition in the community gallery at the Migration Museum. There are some lovely objects – various vessels made from copper and brass and some beautiful handmade jewellery. There are also some perhaps unexpected items – soccer balls made from plastic bags and models of […]
Keep readingDecember 20, 2013
This week Amanda and I played Santa for a number of museums in our Community Museums Program (CMP) when we handed out free cabinets from the South Australian Museum (and mince pies!) Earlier in the year we were pleased to be able to offer a number of free shallow-drawer wooden storage cabinets to members of […]
Keep readingDecember 3, 2013
Fifty years ago a team of public servants endured freezing night time temperatures and water rations to accurately survey the southern Simpson Desert. An exhibition on at the Mortlock Library commemorates their journey. In July 1963 an eleven man survey team from the South Australian Department of Lands left Adelaide to undertake the first comprehensive […]
Keep readingNovember 11, 2013
The 2013 Community Heritage Grants have been announced and South Australian organisations have done very well, picking up almost $61,000 of the $425,684 allocated this year. The Community Heritage Grant program is administered through the National Library of Australia and provides grants to assist with the preservation of locally owned, but nationally significant collections that […]
Keep readingNovember 6, 2013
My first stop was Moonta National Trust museum where I met up with Linda, Ursula and Stephen to hear about some projects they’re thinking of and to see the new storage building. Created within a new large shed, so far a smaller shed has been built within it, lined and insulated, to provide a fairly […]
Keep readingOctober 25, 2013
You may wonder what this blog post is all about. But both dental floss and pool noodles are relatively cheap materials possibly lying around your house that could prove very useful when you’re caring for your collections. That’s what I learnt last week when I was in the Clare Valley with Artlab Australia conservators Anne […]
Keep readingOctober 16, 2013
21 community groups and individual authors and researchers have been granted funding through History SA’s annual South Australian History Fund (SAHF). Each year the SAHF supports a wide range of projects on a great diversity of historical topics. Topics included in grants this year include Aboriginal history in Campbelltown, politician Tom Price, mapping tuberculosis mortality […]
Keep readingOctober 9, 2013
History SA/Veterans SA’s travelling exhibition Bravest of the Brave, which tells the moving stories of the eight South Australians awarded the Victoria Cross in the First World War, is now on the Yorke Peninsula for the first time. Trevor and Lyn Clerke from the Port Vincent RSL collected the display, affectionately known as BoB from […]
Keep readingOctober 9, 2013
City of Charles Sturt’s upgraded Pennington Gardens Reserve was officially launched yesterday (8 October). The park is dedicated to the thousands of migrants who passed through the Finsbury/Pennington Migrant Hostel which occupied 40 acres of land along Grand Junction Road, including this site, for nearly four decades until 1985. Former hostel residents, staff, and their […]
Keep readingOctober 3, 2013
South Australia is ready to get involved with the Australian Dress Register (ADR) following a workshop held at Ayers House Museum. On Friday 20 September an enthusiastic group of people met at Ayers House to find out about the ADR and how to include items from their collections on it. The Powerhouse Museum’s Lindie Ward […]
Keep readingSeptember 20, 2013
The voyage has just begun of the world’s only surviving purpose-built sailing ship and the oldest clipper ship to bring migrants from Europe to Australia, the City of Adelaide. It will end an extraordinary 14-year-campaign by the City of Adelaide Preservation Trust, a committed group of engineers, maritime historians, ship enthusiasts, descendants of the ship’s […]
Keep readingAugust 27, 2013
Recently I headed for the village of Prospect Hill in the Adelaide Hills, for a special plaque unveiling ceremony commemorating a unique historical event, near to the hearts of this small, close-knit community. Sunday 25 August marked the 170th anniversary of the discovery of the remains of young Scottish migrant Sarah McHarg in the dense […]
Keep readingAugust 23, 2013
History SA/Veterans SA’s travelling exhibition Bravest of the Brave, which tells the moving stories of the eight South Australians awarded the Victoria Cross in the First World War, is now at Renmark Paringa Community & Civic Centre in the Riverland until 17 September. It is hosted by Renmark RSL and displayed in the Exhibition Room […]
Keep readingAugust 16, 2013
Last weekend, over a coffee and some welcome winter sun at the historic North Adelaide Lion Hotel, I took part in an informal repatriation of some of the earliest photographic images of named indigenous Australians. Copies of two photographs that have been in a UK collection for well over a century, depicting James Wanganeen, formerly […]
Keep readingJuly 31, 2013
I took a break from enquiries in the last week of the South Australian History Fund grant round and headed up to Port Pirie and Whyalla to visit three museums registered in the Community Museums Program. It’s been a few years since I last visited Port Pirie National Trust Museum in their lovely old railway […]
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