Clarke's Marsh Newsletter
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Clarke’s Marsh Newsletter BACCHUS MARSH AND DISTRICT HISTORICAL SOCIETY President’s Report OnceQuarterly again greetings publication to ofall the members Bacchus andMarsh families & District of the Historical Society, Society I hope Inc. you, 215 are Main all well St Bacchus and coping Marsh with 3340 the changes brought on by winter. It is ideal weather for sittingth near a warm heater and reading our second Established 4 October 1968 newsletter for 2019. No 5 Autumn 2020 ISSN ONLINE: 2652-1210 ISSN PRINT: 2652 -1202 Editor Katrina Lyle President’s Report Inside this Issue Hello Everyone, Information Technology (IT) Upgrade Project: Page 2 Due to the Coronavirus restrictions and the declaration of the state of emergency in Victoria, our committee made the decision to close the Archives for the immediate An Interview with John Spain: Page 4-5 future. The safety of our members and community is paramount. As soon as we had made the decision, the Moorabool Council decided to close the Lerderderg Library and Darley Camp – Call for your Memories, many events that were to be held in our area were postponed, such as our talk with Fred Photos and Memorabilia: Page 5 Cahir on our shared history with the Aboriginals, the Truck and Trade Show and the BM&DHS Executive, Life Members: Page 5 National Trust Heritage Festival, just to name a few. We will be conducting business through email and there will not be committee meetings or events for the time being. These Were Once Landmarks: In the last newsletter I mentioned the RHSV Grant, however I was wrong. The Grant to 1 The Coimadai Lime Kilns: Pages 6-8 put the Bacchus Marsh Express newspapers 1919 to 1945 onto Trove was received from 2 Anderson’s Border Store: Pages 8-10 the PRoV Grant. We are still waiting to have the NLA ask the SLV for the microfilm so they can digitise the film and place them onto the Trove website. 3 The First Mechanics Institute: Page 11-12 Our collection is growing with an oil painting of the Coimadai Hotel (Foresters Arms 4 The Railway Station Pepper Tree: Page 12 Hotel) donated to the Society, as has a 1880’s diary from the Ballark Homestead. Our Information Technology group have been busy acquiring the new computers and The Archives software. Some items have been placed in the archives, however we are waiting on a few Join the friendly crew at the Archives more items and …. now that the Library building is closed we will not have our I.T. up and running until we can access the room. This is a great shame as Bruce, Barb, John Address: 215 Main St, Bacchus Marsh and Marg have been working so hard on this project. But it will give us all something to (Ask the library staff for directions.) look forward to when the room opens again. 2020 Archives Opening Hours: Normally Welcome to new Member Claire Sutherland. Claire jumped in boots and all. She has Monday and Friday 1-4pm. undertaken the ongoing project of indexing the Bacchus Marsh Primary School records. However, due to community safety Although not a member of our Society, many will know the name of Dennis Spielvogel measures , the Archives and the library through his connection with the Central Highlands Historical Association and the are closed at present. Members will be Heritage Advisory Committee. Sadly, Dennis passed away in February. notified of any change to this status. On a happier note our beautiful Bacchus Marsh Avenue of Honour has been shortlisted Archives Phone Number: for the National Trust’s Tree of the Year. Voting opens on April 14th until May 10th and 03 53679336 the winner will be announced on May 19th. Voting for the Victorian Tree of the Year is Enquiries: [email protected]/ open to everyone on the National Trust of Australia (Victoria) Facebook page, so please everyone make time to vote. Facebook: Bacchus Marsh & District Historical Society Inc. I’d like to send big thank you to all our active members. The Society’s success relies on your ongoing work of entering data, indexing, researching and archiving. Other Mail: PO Box 223 Bacchus Marsh 3340 important activities are pricing and gathering I.T; keeping the accounts and banking; Members Meetings 2020 (To be and contributing to the newsletter. The roles you take on - including being a Monitor advised) and the job of Secretary with the processing and archiving of all correspondence - are Venue: The James Young Room at the also vital. You all help make the Society a great and interesting place to work. Lerderderg Library While we are all facing some tough times right now, it has never been more important to be kind to each other, reach out to those around you and embrace our collective Dates and Times: Members will be humanity. Please look after each other. advised when we resume meetings. Regards Chris 1 Information Technology (IT) Upgrade Project: Society Makes its own History! From this… …to this! by Bruce Carboon You may recall that the key aim of IT upgrade was to has proven its ongoing commitment in supporting local transform the existing IT infrastructure of computers, heritage by investing in this software, scanners, data storage and printers currently important Society project. This housed in the Archive at the Lerderderg library. This in turn makes a noteworthy total of would then vastly assist the Society in meeting its primary $8,200 that the Bacchus Marsh objectives and significantly improve the IT infrastructure Community Bank has donated supporting the ongoing activities of its members. to the Society over the past two years . The members at the Annual General Meeting held in October 2019 endorsed all the proposed recommendations along with ITWG has now turned its attention to setting it all up and the associated five-year budget. managing the change impact on the main users of the Archive computers. Since the AGM the IT Working Group (ITWG) (John Spain, Marg Scarff, John Grant, Barb McMillan and Bruce Carboon) Ideally, we plan to gradually phase out the old computers and met to work through the final details and review various migrate users across to the new equipment once users feel costings - largest single item being the new ready, willing and able. This will involve several training Printer/Photocopier at $4,400, followed by the four new workshops that focus on understanding the changes and how computers. they are to be implemented. Members will be supported in accessing and effectively using the new system. The Society is Society history was truly made in the first week of the also investigating if there is government funding available for February 2020 when the Society finally signed an agreement online training for members. worth over $13,000 with Xtreme Technology in Geelong to provide all the new equipment and ongoing service and So, what to expect? Well, certainly, there will be some exciting support as required. The overall cost to the Society has been new equipment in the archive, but it will all function using the markedly reduced due to receiving a further generous grant same operating system (Windows 10). from the Bacchus Marsh Community Bank Branch of $4,400 There will be: in November 2019. Once again, our local Community Bank Two new scanners (Fujitu and Espon) that will be capable of New computers – 3X new workstations with disc readers, scanning A3 books and producing high resolution digital copies USB ports, wireless keyboards/mouse and Philips monitors of photgraphs and documents. along with a new laptop. 2 Information Technology (IT) Upgrade Project: Society Makes its own History! (continued) The upgrade will also include: • • • • • A dedicated storage space for the Society’s data files and a robust A new upgraded Konica Minolta printer / photocopier 4-tiered back up system (two local and two mobile) on a private which will continue to have all the functionality of the old local area network (LAN) with an uninterruptable Power Supply machine. It will print A4 and A3 siZe paper in black/white (UPS) and colour. It will scan documents and be linked to all of the computers. In addition, there will be new software to manage security and At present, Marg is evaluating Victorian Collections (Museum to support the ongoing administration of the Society Victoria) and eHive (New Zealand Museum) as two possible (Microsoft Office 365). You can be assured that the new off-site (in the Cloud) options for cataloguing. equipment will not be too difficult to use, and at least you can The Society has also purchased a new domain address now easily identify it when you next visit the Archive. (BMHeritage.org.au) so that we can start building a new The main initial impact will be the transition from the old to website using WordPress. new equipment. To ensure ongoing work on research and Please let us know if you have any questions regarding the projects, we will maintain both systems for a limited period. new IT equipment rollout or any of the information in this This will mean that the Archive will be a little crowded for a report. while as the old equipment is decommissioned. We strongly believe it’s important to bring all our members Once it is installed and setup, ITWG will turn its full attention along and celebrate this milestone achievement in the to finalising appropriate cataloguing software and to Society’s ongoing improvement in the way it curates and reviewing options regarding the establishment of a direct promotes its important heritage collection. internet NBN connection. Information Technology Working Group The trials and tribulations of cataloguing – Bruce, Barb, John and Marg agree on a unique numbering system.