Lavington & District Family History Society Inc.

  President’s Report

 

 7th August  2017.

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 It is that time again!  End of another year. A year full of interesting walks and talks.

The heritage train journey was our first social outing arriving at Culcairn for an welcoming lunch before returning home. From all reports, a day enjoyed by all.

The Smollett Street Walks conducted by Grahame Garvie and ably assisted by Judy once again proved thoroughly illuminating and entertaining.Sharing a meal afterwards provided a relaxing avenue to discuss the day’s tales and recuperate.

 

 The Society has enjoyed many interesting talks:

• Darren Eddy’s recount of the sad and patriotically uplifting ‘Return of the Unknown Soldier’ . It is important to preserve the stories of all men and women who have served this nation in times of conflict.

 

• Greg Ryan outlined how the three types of DNA results can give information about the subject’s ethnic groups and about other individuals that they may be related to.

 

• The interesting Life and Times of Lou Liebermann, his dedication and contributions to the communities of the region.

 

• The darker side of Victoria’s history, illuminating the disturbing and revealing atmosphere of the Beechworth Lunatic Asylum (MaydayHills Asylum) presented by Eileen Clark. The requirements for committal were quite disarming. Sadly, the photographic display at the LibraryMuseum did little to portray the desolation and despair of the institution.

 We look forward to impending talks by

• Howard Jones, topic unknown but always a fascinating storyteller,

• Possibly another on the restoration of the Uiver, the Dutch DC2 airliner,

• Hopefully, rescheduling Pat Scammell, our Albury Olympian.

 

 Our thanks must extend to all those who go above and beyond, helping to plan and organize all of the Society’s activities and make them enjoyable.

We were unfortunate to find our meeting venue under threat in early 2017. Approaches to various other facilities prove unsuccessful. However, the generosity of the Men’s Shed at the MAC, allowed the Society to remain. The need to de-clutter reared it ugly head and continues to influence our storage capacity. My thanks go to the members who are generously storing our equipment off-site.

At present, technological storage through scanning, though cold and lacking substance, appears our only option.

 

 Our financial position remains stable with some small growth. Memberships, as usual, are difficult to come by.

 

 A special ‘thank you’ to Anne as Treasurer and Joy as Secretary for their continuous assistance and tolerant support in the roles they fulfill.

 

• Greg for the Website, Sherri for Facebook, Debbie for photography, Pam for Catering, Narda for continuously searching out Guest Speakers and everyone else I have neglected to mention for help throughout the year.

 

 Overall, my appreciation and gratitude goes to all the members for their ability to work together to help maintain the functioning of our Society.

 

 The culmination of the year’s activities was our annual dinner at the Albury Golf Club The food was fine and the company delightful.

 

 In conclusion, I would like to take a few moments to think about our members who may be ill or hospitalized or, even sadder, are no longer with us. Our thoughts are with you.

 

 Thank you,

 Lillian McGrath

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 Web Page Report

 

 The Society's web site is going along smoothly, I keep an eye out for items in the newsletters to add to the 'Our Stories' page. There seems to be some issue regarding the latest story, but I can only assume it has something to do with the users screen resolution, as I cannot see a problem on my side and I have 4 computers to look at.

 

 I also keep up to date with the newsletters and add them when they become available.

 

 I have not, over the last 12 months, received any feedback via email from web visitors, only in the last month about Len's story that I have mentioned that earlier.

 

 I have to get motivated as I have had a few family and health issues to contend with, and I will add some more information pages to the 'Useful Links' page and 'Family History' page.

 

 As with all free web sites we are limited to what we can do. The Web site developer’s occasionally ad new tools to aide in the design and presentation of the hosted web sites.  

 

 Recently they have added a colour pallet to the list of tools which is great. Now I add a solid colour instead of page designs.  I would like to add a web counter to see how many visitors we get. Maybe that will come later as an add on to the tools menu, but that is only an add-on when a user purchases a full web site.

 

Finally if there is anything you would like to see on the web site please let me know and I will see if it can be added.

 

Thank you,                                                                                                                                            Greg Shepherd                                                                                                                                         7th August 2017

 

 LDFHS INC. FACEBOOK REPORT

 

 Currently Facebook has 108 likes on the page. We are receiving more interaction with the page due to the regular 1 - 2 weekly posts that are being placed on the site. Thank you to Lillian for helping with the regular posts. If anyone has a piece that I can place on the site, could you please email Joy Rochford.

 

 Over the year a number of our posts have reached over 100 people per post with the highest amount reached being 284 people on just one post. In the month just gone (July 2017) there has been around 54% of people visiting our page, 4 more people have liked our page, round 234 people in total have seen our posts for the month.

 

 I would like to thank all those who like the posts I place on the site. If you like our posts, this makes the posts reach more people and will create more likes. So be sure to like our posts or even share the posts I place on the site.

Thank you                                                                                                                                           Sherri Rochford                                                                                                                                   7th August 2017