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Activities 2011

Dates of meetings and other activities are added to this page as arrangements are finalised. On most occasions a brief summary of the event is added after completion. Exhibitions, seminars, open days etc in which members may be interested are listed in our monthly newsletter. Frequently, some members attend & the more unusual of these are included.

Committee meeting dates are listed for member information.

JANUARY

January Newsletter for Downloading

Friday 28th - committee meeting

FEBRUARY

February Newsletter for Downloading>

Tuesday 2nd - Library volunteers resume duty for 2011

Friday 11th - General Meeting & A Brains Trust panel.

We will have a small panel at the front of the meeting and questions can be asked from the floor (and answered from the floor, if the panel cannot answer - they won't be experts). One good way of getting your family history questions answered. March meeting will be a guest speaker. For 2011 we are going to alternate between workshops and guest speakers, rather than have a guest speaker every third meeting.

Thursday 17th - Excursion: Vaucluse House - those who were able to go had a very enjoyable day visiting Vaucluse House. We had an excellent guide from Historic Houses Trust and Vaucluse House was opened, on the day, for our tour (so - no crowds).

Friday 25th - committee meeting.

MARCH

March Newsletter for Downloading

Friday 11th - General Meeting & Guest Speaker

Terry Nunan, co-author of St Paul's Catholic Cemetery Albion Park, 1874-2010

Thursday 17th - The March outing was to Elizabeth Farm Cottage, Parramatta on Thursday 17 March. Members caught the 9.06am train from Springwood . A small group of members had an enjoyable day.

The March 2011 outing was to Elizabeth Farm Cottage at Parramatta.

Elizabeth Farm is an historic estate in Parramatta. Elizabeth Farm was the family home of wool pioneer, John and his wife Elizabeth Macarthur. It was commenced in 1793 on a slight hill overlooking the upper reaches of Parramatta River, 23 kilometres west of Sydney Cove. This area belonged to the Burramattagal clan of the Dharug people, whose presence is recalled in the name Parramatta. The small, solid three-roomed brick cottage was transformed, by the late 1820s, into a smart country house, surrounded by 'pleasure grounds', orchards and almost 1,000 acres (4 km²) of semi-cleared land. Enveloped within later extensions, the early cottage remains intact, making it Australia's oldest surviving European dwelling. It is managed by the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales as a museum that is open to the public for a modest fee.

To view a selection of photographs taken by member Pauline H, see our Elizabeth Farm Cottage plus photographs taken on other excursions.

Friday 25th - committee meeting

APRIL

April Newsletter for Downloading

Friday 8th - General Meeting & Workshop

The April General Meeting will be held this Friday 8 April 2011 in the Upper Hall of the Civic Centre at Springwood at 10.00 am. After the general meeting and morning tea, members will have the opportunity to speak briefly, (no more than 10 minutes), from their chair position, about something interesting and/or helpful tha they have found in their family history research. This is another way of breaking down the brick walls!

Saturday 9th April - Bi-Annual Seminar

SEMINAR 2011

"BOAT PEOPLE - 1788 to 1922" Saturday, 9 April 2010
Why they came, the passages on the boats and what they did when they arrived in Australia

Speakers are: Christine Yeats (NSW State Records); Gay Hendriksen (Parramatta Heritage Centre); Ray Thorburn (Family & Social Historian); Gary Luke (Australian Jewish Hiatorical Society); and Jim Lowe (local Folk Singer).

Venue Springwood Baptist Church Hall, 313 Macquarie Road, Springwood NSW 2777

Time 8.45 am until 4.00 pm

Monday 18th - OUTING - St Marys Cathedral & Hyde Park Barracks

The April outing will be held on Monday 18 May 2011 and will be:

Tour 1: St Marys Cathedral Sydney 10.30am - 12.00 noon

Tour 2: Hyde Park Barracks Sydney 1.00 pm - 2.30 pm

Each tour is $6.00. Take your lunch. Depart Springwood by train on the 8.01 am.

Unfortunately, The April outing was cancelled, due to lack of numbers. It was a requirement for the tour of St Marys' Cathedral, that we had a minimum of 10 registered for the tour.

Friday 22nd to Sunday 24th - Easter

Monday 25th - ANZAC

Friday 29th - committee meeting

MAY

May Newsletter for Downloading

Friday 13th - General Meeting & Guest Speaker

Linda Emery - "Who Do You Think You Are" researcher and author - meeting topic; Sutton Forest All Saints' Church and the Rev John Vincent among others of interest whose remains are buried in this historic churchyard.

Linda was an excellent speaker along with her visual presentation of the Church, Churchyard, District and personalities over the ages since 1839 was outstanding. If you missed this presentation, you missed a good one; don't miss our next meeting.

Thursday 19th - The May outing is a visit to Liverpool Genealogy Society to see their new rooms, have lunch with their members and to do our own research. Lunch will be provided by Liverpool Genealogy Society and we will travel by car. We will car pool by meeting in the Northern Car Park of Springwood Railway Station at 9.00 a.m. and will travel four to a car.

The May outing to Liverpool Genealogy Group was a success. The members who attended were very impressed with the research rooms, the friendly Liverpool members and the networking. It is always good to see the facilities of other societies and to get new ideas. Our members were provided with lunch and a few of our members found new information, researching in the afternoon.

We have now been invited to Ku-ring-gai Historical and Family History Society research rooms at Gordon and an outing will be planned before the end of the year.

Friday 27th - committee meeting

JUNE

June Newsletter for Downloading

Friday 10th - General Meeting & Workshop

Ian Kendall, Society member and Honorary Treasurer presented a Workshop on two topics. Firstly, how to effectively use removeable media (USB Keys etc) with the computers in Springwood Library and more generally, to ensure a better working environment for all users by "safely removing USB media".

Secondly, to explore the huge resources presented by the National Library of Australia through 'TROVE'. This resource is on the internet http://www.trove.nla.gov.au and allows many national and local newspapers right from the early years of the Colony up to 1954 to be searched. Additional newspapers are being scanned and added all the time. As well many other publications are available for searching and then can be obtained from the National Library or borrowed through the local library inter-library loan.

As well, subscribers to the service are able to correct the transcribed OCR from the original scan and tagged for others to be able to more easily locate their family.

Thursday 16th - activity. Visit to St Mary township

Unfortunately, after the visit on 16th June had to be postponed due to wet weather, the visit subsequently planned for Thursday 30th June had to be cancelled due to further wet weather. A walking tour in such weather is hardly conducive to good health.

Friday 24th - committee meeting

JULY

July Newsletter for Downloading

Friday 8th - General Meeting & Guest Speaker

Beth Matthews, Researcher for the Parramatta Heritage Centre - Parramatta Female Factory. Beth presented a most interesting talk about "her girls" (the women of the Female Factory) highlighting a number of women and the success they found in the new colony of NSW. Beth also had a number of photographs of these pioneer women. Beth was a member of the research team for the travelling exhibition 'Convict Women Transported'.

Thursday 21st JULY - activity. Visit to the Powerhouse Museum

The July outing was a visit to the Powerhouse Museum on Thursday 21 July. Following the enjoyable visit to the Museum a few of our members went on to the book launch of Richard Reid's "Farewell My Children", at the NSW State Records at The Rocks.

Friday 22rd - committee meeting

AUGUST

August Newsletter for Downloading

Friday 12th - General Meeting & Workshop

The August General Meeting will be held on Friday 12 August 2011 at 10.00 am in the Upper Hall of the Civic Centre, Springwood. This will be a "How to...." session and Ben Clark from the State Library will be telling us how to access the Australian Joint Copying Project records or AJCP.

Thursday 25th - STATE PARLIAMENT HOUSE - The August outing was a visit to Parliament House Macquarie Street Sydney. This is also when Parliament was sitting so as well as an extensive tour by Parliamentary staff and local member, Rosa Sage, visitors were able to sit through Question Time.

Friday 26th - committee meeting

SEPTEMBER

September Newsletter for Downloading

Friday 9th - General Meeting & Guest Speaker

John Lowe - Historian, former BMCC Local Studies Librarian and the title of his presentation was "Forgotten Diggers of WW1"

Friday 23rd - committee meeting

OCTOBER

October Newsletter for Downloading

Friday 14th - General Meeting & Workshop

Many thanks to Joan Edwards, Ian Kendall and Audrey King for their help at the general meeting in October, presenting their ideas for writing your family history. The committee thought we might start off the first meeting of the year, in February, with a repeat and you can go to the same person or swap and go to another person.

Thank you also to Ian Kendall for his presentation on the use of the Index series, compiled by Joan Edwards and published now every two years.

Friday 28th - committee meeting

NOVEMBER

November Newsletter for Downloading

Friday 11th - Annual General Meeting (AGM)

November Annual General Meeting: Nomination forms for the AGM will go out in the October edition of The Explorers' Tree magazine. Nominations for committee membership are required 7 days prior to the AGM. As some members on the current committee are thinking of standing down, this might be the time for members to consider whether they would like to become a committee member. Being on the committee involves attending a monthly meeting at someone's home on a rotating basis. After the Society's business has been attended to, these meetings usually become a social event with everyone taking a plate.

Friday 25th - committee meeting

DECEMBER

Friday 9th - Christmas function

DECEMBER CHRISTMAS LUNCH

Don't forget our Christmas lunch, to be held on Friday 9 December 2011 at the Blue Mountain Hotel Lawson. We have booked for 12.00 noon and lunch will most likely be served at 12.30 pm. Husbands, partners, friends are welcome. Please pay by Friday 11 November at the general meeting.

CHRISTMAS RAFFLE

Our Christmas raffle will be drawn at the Christmas lunch. We are still collecting raffle prizes, so if you have any items for the Christmas hamper (first prize) or any other items suitable for raffle prizes, please bring them along on Friday or you can drop them off at the library. I will leave a box at the library on Friday, until the end of November.

SECOND-HAND BOOK STALL

Coles Property Management had to change our booking for the second-hand bookstall and we are now holding the stall at the Winmalee Shopping Centre on Friday and Saturday 16 and 17 December. A number of people have offered to help on both days. Anyone else willing can see me at the meeting on Friday or phone me 02 4754 1544 or email me [email protected]

There is no committee meeting in December