Yesterday, I attended one of the few Auckland City Heritage Festival events I'll be able to get to this year (as usual, I'm busy researching history, and can't get round to most of the stuff happening right now. Sad, but true. There's always next year, though.) Anyway ... I promised a librarian at Pt Chevalier library, Padmini Raj, that I'd show up at a triple-speech presentation of Pt Chevalier history there, along with (hopes and fingers crossed) the start of the formation of a history group for the district.
It was a good morning, with speeches from David Verran, the local history expert at Auckland City Libraries; Leigh Kennaway, Deputy-Chair of the Western Bays Community Board and one of the leading lights of Pt Chevalier's history revival; and Pam Burrell, past member of the Pt Chev Community Committee. At the end, I suggested to Padmini, as she talked about forming a history group to the packed room, that she circulate a pen and paper and get folks there to put their names down if they'd like to be part of the group. That went down well -- last I saw the paper, as I left around 1pm, there was a page of names, and they were starting on page 2. I've offered to prepare and distribute a bit of a newsletter around to those interested; someone else said they were keen to be a facilitator of the meetings, until folk felt confident enough about chairmen, committees, etc., and another person mentioned a steering committee forming.
Hopefully, I've witnessed the birth of a new history group here in Auckland. It was amazing to see the enthusiasm, to be sure. All that's needed now is to keep that enthusiasm stoked up.
It was a good morning, with speeches from David Verran, the local history expert at Auckland City Libraries; Leigh Kennaway, Deputy-Chair of the Western Bays Community Board and one of the leading lights of Pt Chevalier's history revival; and Pam Burrell, past member of the Pt Chev Community Committee. At the end, I suggested to Padmini, as she talked about forming a history group to the packed room, that she circulate a pen and paper and get folks there to put their names down if they'd like to be part of the group. That went down well -- last I saw the paper, as I left around 1pm, there was a page of names, and they were starting on page 2. I've offered to prepare and distribute a bit of a newsletter around to those interested; someone else said they were keen to be a facilitator of the meetings, until folk felt confident enough about chairmen, committees, etc., and another person mentioned a steering committee forming.
Hopefully, I've witnessed the birth of a new history group here in Auckland. It was amazing to see the enthusiasm, to be sure. All that's needed now is to keep that enthusiasm stoked up.
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