Well we have reached another year and our group is going from strength to strength. At the end of 2019 we celebrated our 35th birthday, the official opening of our Research and Training Centre and had a great Christmas get together. We then had a much earned rest over the Christmas and New Year period before we returned to our Research Centre on 20th January.
The Christmas and New Year period was a difficult and tragic one with the bushfires across the States and we hope that any of our members who reside in these areas are safe. We also hope our members who are farmers and those living in drought affected areas get the much needed rain that they need.
We are coming up to our yearly Autumn Colours Program starting on 21st March and finishing on 10th May. Again I wish to thank our members who give their time to research and present a very interesting program of historical tours and talks on the rich Bathurst Regional heritage. We have Cemetery Wanders, a Back to the fifties event, a Showground tour, My Block Tour, Down by the Riverside tour, a Charlton tour, a Chinese cemetery tour and a tour focussing on the early Bathurst Settlement. There are other tours on the Bathurst Town Square, Rockley, Perthville Convent and more. So please check our website for details or contact one of our Committee members for more information.
We are again involved in the Seniors Festival with our Group running three bus tours, The Historic Cox’s Road Tour; The Historic homes of the Eglinton area and the people who lived in them and a Peel tour with a focus on the burial site of Windradyne and stories of Peel. These tour run from 14th February to 23rd February and if you would like more information please contact me on president@bathurstfhg.asn.au or call us to discuss.
On 27th February we are running a State Archives tour, trialling using the Bathurst Bullet train to access the Archives Centre and return to Bathurst. If this proves successful then we can organise more visits for members. Please let me know if you would like more information about this tour.
Our next general meetings are 22nd February and 23rd May with our Annual General Meeting to be held on 25th July. Please make a note of these dates and try to attend if possible. We value your support.
Our group intends running more training and focus groups during the year. We will have researching tips and tricks sessions, Using Ancestry, DNA and writing forums for our members to attend. Please let us know if you would like more of these sessions and what subjects you would like us to focus on and we will try to provide those for members.
We thank our members for their continued support of the committee and our Group and hope you enjoy being a member, reading the Chimes and participating in our sponsored events. We welcome any feedback and our committee are happy to speak with members on the direction of our group.
This is our first 2020 edition of the Chimes we hope you enjoy reading it.
Kind regards
Dianne Barnes
President
