ASHG wants to hear your stories about the history of Villa Street. Perhaps you grew up in Villa Street, or your parents or grandparents did or maybe you are a current resident. Drop in to the history room at the Yeronga Community Centre on Saturday 17 February and share your stories, photos, documents.
“The first Talking History of 2024, The History of the Yeronga Community Centre was held last night at the Community Plus+ Yeronga Community Centre (YCC), ASHG’s new home.
Thank you Mel Hilditch, Manager of Community Plus+ and Melinda McInturff, long term local resident and Community Resilience Coordinator for Community Plus+ for telling us the history of YCC with passion and commitment. From a volunteer run flood recovery centre established after the 2011 floods and eight location changes YCC is now housed in a purpose built community centre where it runs a wide variety of programs. Thank you to local member Mark Bailey for chairing last night’s session.
ASHG started in 2013 as an initiative of Community Plus+ worker Em James and local resident Kath Chown. It was fitting to begin 2024 with the history of Community Plus+ Yeronga Community Centre.
It was wonderful to see such a good turnout.
Join us for our next Talking History on Monday March 4, 7.00 pm when Michael Macklin will talk about how ‘Yeronga’ came to be adopted as the suburb name in his talk ‘Untangling ‘Yeronga‘. The talk will be preceded by the ASHG business meeting at 6.00 pm. All are welcome to both.
Join ASHG for our first Talking History event for 2024 in our new home. Make sure you RSVP. Details below:
The YCC is on the corner of Villa Street and Park Rd, Yeronga, entry is from Villa Street.
In 2023 ASHG’s history room in the Yeronga Community Centre was a work in progress.
In January 2024 the new history room has become a reality.
ASHG held our first Open Day on Wednesday 17 January. It was great to see long term members and new people come in to look at our displays, find out what we do and share stories about our local community.
The centre will be open on Saturday 17 January from 10.00 – 12.00 midday and Wednesday 24 January, 9.00-12.00 midday. Come and say hi. We’re in the new Community Plus+ Yeronga Community Centre in Villa Street.
Our first history talk for the year is the History of the Yeronga Community Centre on Monday 5 February at 7.00 pm. The guest speakers are Melinda McInturff and Mel Hilditch from Community Plus+ Yeronga Community Centre. The history talk will be preceded by the ASHG monthly business meeting at 6.00 pm.
The short answer is talks, walks, opportunities to participate in history projects, and good online resources.
ASHG recently conducted a small survey on what history and heritage activities and topics members and locals were interested in. Surveys were handed out at an ASHG monthly meeting, at the Annerley Festival, and at the Memories of Stephen’s conference.
The results of the survey will help us hone our aims with the history room, plan our programs and understand how best to engage people in local history and heritage.
This survey is just a starting point – a guide and point for discussion. From time to time we will check in on how we are doing, or conduct quick online polls.
People rated their interest in each activity as high, medium and low. Responses were scored 3 for high, 3 for medium, 1 for low and zero if not checked.
Scores were averaged, making ‘3’ the highest possible score. Here are the things you are saying to us:
The second part of the survey was topics of interest. These were grouped into categories of history approaches, history areas, periods, places and things and social history.
Topics of high ranking are early 20th century, women, oral history, heritage places and First Nations heritage.
Below the topics are ranked in order based on percentages of those taking the survey. Some of the rankings changed to the above as a few topics were introduced after the test survey.
That’s a quick snapshot of what people want. Our new history room at Yeronga will help us to deliver these things – ASHG just received the key!
ASHG were delighted to be invited to the 50th birthday celebration of the All Gauge Model Railway Club.
It’s quite a story of a tenacious group of people keeping the club together through many changes of clubhouse. Their history dates back to 1973. The club are publishing their history in instalments – see Part 1 AGMRC.
The evening of course was a Christmas celebration as well, and was generously catered for with roast dinner – and of course the delicious birthday cake after. The champagne flowed.
A lovely connection has developed between All Gauge, ASHC and Community Plus over the years. It seems an odd coupling, but the three are about to share the new premises at the Yeronga Community Centre.
ASHG, Community Plus and All Gauge Model Railway together were the Colocators group, providing input to the needs of the three groups which will inhabit the centre.
Community Plus is the primary tenant.
The Yeronga Community Centre will be handed over to these very happy new tenants in the following week.
Very exciting times, May these connections continue to deepen and new ones be forged.
All aboard every one (I know – corny – I want to say ‘Mind the gap’ but it would be odd). All the best!
