Walk in the Warm Zone, a History of Villa Street Team initiative

Walk in the Warm Zone, a History of Villa Street Team initiative

Join Pauline, Jeanette and Wendie to Walk in the Warm Zone starting outside 48 Villa Street at 9.45 am on Friday 21 June and Saturday 22 June.

Walk in the Warm Zone celebrates the Australian author Jessica Anderson (1916-2010), who grew up at 56 Villa Street in the 1920s and early 1930s. Her family were Charles and Alice Queale and she had three siblings.

Jessica Anderson drew on her memories of her Brisbane childhood in her writing including Tirra Lirra by the River which won the Miles Franklin Award, Stories from the Warm Zone and Sydney Stories and her short memoir Starting too Late. Jessica Anderson referred to Stories from the Warm Zone and Sydney Stories as autobiographical fiction.

Walk in the Warm Zone combines local history with the richness of Jessica Anderson’s writing. At the end of the walk we hope you can join us in the ASHG History Room, Yeronga Community Centre to continue to talk history and have a cup of tea.

The walk is free. Donations gratefully accepted.

Bookings are essential. Book through Humanitix.

Volunteering with the Annerley-Stephens History Group

Volunteering with the Annerley-Stephens History Group

As ASHG is completely volunteer run, there are many ways of getting involved depending on your interests, your availability and the way you like to work.

Bring along your love of history and sense of fun and see what appeals to you.

Some of the volunteering opportunities include:

  • Joining our drop-in day team at the history room – a great way to talk to people about local history
  • Participating in a community history project e.g. collaborating on researching a geographic area, organising a history walk, and gathering oral histories, photos and documents
  • Programming and organising history events such as conferences, talks and workshops. Volunteers are also needed to help set these events up
  • Participating in community events such as festivals and fetes to reach out to new people about history
  • Assisting with publicity, displays, social media and the website
  • Videoing, photographing and sound recording interviews and events
  • Researching local history and staying abreast of new developments in local history research
  • Joining the committee and planning other ways to engage with the community.

Contact [email protected] to express an interest in volunteering.

Come join us – become a member

Come join us – become a member

Joining a history group is a way of discussing history with like-minded people and to share your own personal history. We all have a story to tell.

It is also a great way of connecting your history to the local area and reliving memories of days past. We provide opportunities to volunteer and will keep you informed of all of our events and special projects.

ASHG is also affiliated with Brisbane Living History and the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, so you get to hear about events and activities from outside our part of Brisbane.

For just $10.00 annually you can be a part of our ASHG family. We are a very pro-active group – there is always lots happening! You can participate as little or as much as you like.

Contact [email protected] to join.

 

What local history buffs want – survey results are in

What local history buffs want – survey results are in

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.

Activities of interest

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:

  • Tell us about the history – Guest speakers at the monthly meetings, and history talks scored the highest for everyone, members and non-members.
  • Walk us through the streets – Heritage walks rated next. ASHG’s first self-guided walk is being published next week.
  • Let us help tell the stories – people are keen to participate in heritage projects. There are many ways people can participate, through activities like:
    • researching on Trove, and other online archives
    • visiting archives – city, state and national archives, state library and specialty archives
    • taking oral histories, telling oral histories,
    • exploring family histories
    • writing about our heritage
    • digital story-telling -sharing stories through video clips, podcasts and posts
    • creating tiny exhibitions in our history room’s storefront ‘curiosity cabinet’.
  • Make our history easily accessible to us through online publications and websites
  • Teach us skills to uncover our history through skills focused workshops
  • Keep up conferences and books
Full survey results for activities – highest possible score is 3.

Topics of interest

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!