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The 2004 Exhibition
This year we were in the Digby Memorial Hall, at the crossroad of the Hamilton-Dartmoor and Portland-Casterton roads.
Again this was a very popular venue, with almost 300 people enjoying the photos, the family history, and the afternoon teas. Visitors came from around the district, all over Victoria, and interstate.
There were several successful new features at the Exhibition this year. The first was a set of printed catalogues that covered 99% of the photos in the collection. The catalogues were divided into towns (Casterton, Merino, Portland and so on) and into activities (farming, shipping, etc), with four photos to a page. Our visitors spent many hours happily browsing through these catalogues: they had access to the complete collection and, once they had selected photos they could have them printed immediately at the second innovation, the "print on demand" centre.
The "print on demand" centre was a portable computer that held digitised versions of all the photos in the Collection, hooked up to a printer capable of up to A3 size prints. This year's visitors could have selected photos printed while they waited. This gave them their treasured memories to carry away, and freed Vern from hours in the darkroom fulfilling orders.
The downside was that Vern spent a lot of time manning the print centre, and did not have as much time as he would like to talk to all the visitors.
Also new were the several "themed" displays. Vern's sister Lorraine and her husband Geoff contributed displays featuring "Women and Children", "Small Schools of the District" and Vern's ancestor "Captain Alfred Thomas Farley." The themed displays allowed us to give more depth to a subject and were popular, judging from the number of heads bowed over them. "Small Schools" are already featured elsewhere on this web site, and we will be adding more themes.
The final new idea was use of a computer hooked to a data projector in the Supper Room. This setup let us project a slide show of photos from the Collection, to be enjoyed while enjoying the excellent light meals and afternoon teas provided by the Digby ladies. It was also a great help to Lorraine who together with an ever-changing group of "volunteers" scrutinised photo after photo to determine who was in them and when and where. This sort of activity is essential to the value of the Collection as so many photos come with no information at all attached to them.
Important !!
Don't let your photographic memories slip away. Add names, place and date NOW !!
The Exhibition would not now be complete without its family history section. Photos and family history go together like peaches and cream. Darryl Povey and associates were again busy giving and receiving information about families of the district, back to 1840 and before. It continues to amaze just how many of the visitors to the show are related in some way or another, sometimes unwillingly so!
We were disappointed that local historical societies did not send representatives to the Exhibition. We'll try harder for the next Exhibition.
There has already been great value in follow ups to the 2004 Exhibition. We found State School 2378, Killara resting happily on a local property; we have scanned "family" photos from several source, and; we hear that a Heazlewood Family Reunion is in the mill. More about each of these will appear on the site.
Young Justin started his inspection in the first photo on this page, in the arms of his Mum, Angela.
Later he struck out on his own, and achieved a very personal perspective of the Exhibition!
