MMXV: Features of 2015

"Carnamah Historical Society and Museum's website and, in particular, it's Virtual Museum and Biographical Dictionary are one of Australia's biggest online success stories." - Museums & Galleries NSW


First World War

April marked the centenary of the Anzac landings on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey. We marked the occasion with the launch of a new virtual exhibition on the First World War as well as a physical exhibition within our museum (the latter being in partnership with the WA Museum). A request to say a word or two at Carnamah's dawn service quickly escalated into us being handed the baton to give the official address, and for such an auspicious anniversary.

Links:  First World War virtual exhibition  |  Transcript of Anzac Day speech 

"I used your... virtual museum exhibition in my year 7-10 classes at Carnamah DHS today as a lead up to Anzac Day. The students were thoroughly engaged by the stories particularly as they featured local soldiers and names they could relate to. It provided a great springboard for some fantastic discussion. Thanks for such a fantastic and timely resource."

Major Jack Colpitts of Heppleholme Farm in Winchester, South Carnamah

Macpherson Homestead

It's been a year of highs and lows for the old and wonderful Macpherson Homestead.

We were delighted to welcome a special group of visitors during the year, which included Oriel Green (nee Bartlett), her sisters and a number of their relatives and friends. Oriel spent a portion of her childhood in Carnamah and Three Springs during the 1930s but what made the visit more momentous was that her family are believed to be Aboriginal descendants of the Macpherson family.

Another high was our first steps toward the homestead hosting primary school excursions. Our thanks to Ignite Your Audience for their work so far and to the Three Springs Primary School for being our enthusiastic test-subjects!

Sadly the conserved ruins of the bakehouse at the homestead began to rapidly and suddenly deteriorate in October. Huge cracks spread through the walls and a large section began to collapse. However, we're pleased to report that the collapsed section has been restored and the remainder has been solidified and conserved to ensure the ruin will continue to stand strong.

Western Australian Heritage Awards

For the second year in a row, we were a finalist in the community organisation category of the WA Heritage Awards and were stoked to be named this year's winner.

"Carnamah Historical Society & Museum uses cutting-edge technology to engage with and promote the heritage of, not only their own and neighbouring districts, but also the State. Impressively, the society has established a virtual volunteering platform that has engaged 7,000 people with online heritage projects, which, in turn has provided a valuable resource for historians and the State."

Australian Curriculum Resources

For a few years we had been working hard, in partnership with Ignite Your Audience, to create a suite of Australian Curriculum education resources. Our completed range of nine resources, which relate to primary years, were promoted at the History Teachers' conference in Mount Lawley and the third History TeachMeet in Peppermint Grove. The resources are a little different - as they can be used with school visits to our physical museum or from classrooms anywhere in Australia (with our virtual museum and other online content).

Link:  Carnamah Historical Society & Museum's Australian Curriculum resources

We've received a lot of favourable comments, including glowing feedback from the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra! We were especially delighted when our resources received a Highly Commended in the Interpretation, Audience and Learning Engagement category of the Museums and Galleries National Awards.

Museums and Galleries National Awards

The Museums and Galleries National Awards, or MAGNAs, are conducted annually by Museums Australia and are held during the national museums conference. This year's conference was in Sydney and we had a few reasons to go. Both our education resources and our virtual volunteering program were short-listed in different categories and we're pleased to say they each received a Highly Commended. Not a bad effort considering the competition was mostly state and national institutions!

 
In the Media and in Parliament!

Our achievements of recent years were featured in the Museums Australia magazine, on the blog of Museums & Galleries NSW and in the Heritage Council of WA's Heritage Matters magazine. We were also honoured in the lower house of the Western Australian Parliament on 21 May 2015 when Shane Love, the MLA for Moore, spoke about our endeavours and successes.

Thank you

Our thanks to you for being part of our 2015 - whether it was online to our blog, Virtual Museum or Biographical Dictionary, or as a physical visitor to see our history and heritage on the ground in Carnamah.

We'd also like to thank those who supported us during the year. Special thanks are due to all of our virtual volunteers, to project partners atWork Australia and the North Midlands Project, and to financial supporters the Department of Culture and the Arts (DCA) and the Anzac Centenary Local Grants Program.

If you're ever in Carnamah, we invite you to stop by:

• Carnamah Museum
• Macpherson Homestead 

Attention Virtual Volunteers: Thank You!

We'd like to thank all of our virtual volunteers but that can be tricky. They are all over Australia, some are overseas and we don't even know who many of them are! If you're one though, please know that we're thankful.

Back: Evan, Alan and Damien
Front: Julie (atWork Australia), Tiffany, Andrew (Carnamah Historical Society), Shantelle

On 23 June we had the rare opportunity to say thank you in person to a group who have contributed many hours through atWork Australia in Spearwood. We attended their morning tea, expressed our appreciation and took along the Highly Commended award recently received for Virtual Volunteering at the Museums and Galleries National Awards.

Thanks guys!

WA Parliament and two Highly Commended in the MAGNAs

On Thursday 21 May 2015 we were honoured in the lower house of the Western Australian Parliament. Shane Love, the MLA for Moore, spoke about our endeavours and successes for 90 seconds, which can be watched below or on YouTube.



The following day, on 22 May 2015, the annual Museums and Galleries National Awards (MAGNAs) took place in Sydney. We are delighted to reveal that we received two Highly Commended awards for our Australian Curriculum resources and Virtual Volunteering program.

Shiona Herbert and Andrew Bowman-Bright in Sydney with our two awards

Our thanks to Shane Love for his encouraging words and to Museums Australia for the two prestigious awards. We'd also like to thank the supporters of our now award-winning projects: the Department of Culture and the Arts, the Western Australian History Foundation and the Government of Western Australia's Social Innovation Grants Program.

Double short-listing in the Museums & Galleries National Awards!

2015 is shaping up to be quite the year for this little historical society! The short-list for the 2015 Museums and Galleries National Awards was announced today and we found ourselves among the list not once, but twice!

We're a contender in the Innovation category for Virtual Volunteering and are also in the running in the Interpretation, Learning and Audience Engagement category for our Australian Curriculum Education Resources. The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on 22 May 2015 at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney.

We were honoured at last year's awards as the Level 1 Permanent Exhibition or Gallery Fitout winner for our Virtual Museum: to be known and distinguished as Carnamah.

Our virtual museum inspired the State Library of WA Foundation to create a virtual exhibition on Western Australia's Freycinet Collection... and we're pleased to reveal that it too is a finalist in this year's awards - in the category that we won last year!

MMXIV: Highlights from 2014

During 2014 one of our most popular blog posts was 2013: The Year in Review. We've taken that statistic as a mandate for a similar post to recap some of our highlights from 2014.

Biographical Dictionary

It was the end of an era as we bid farewell to our much-loved Coorow-Waddy, Carnamah-Winchester and Three Springs databases. It wasn't bad news though, as they joined forces to become a new and improved Biographical Dictionary. The new online dictionary is much easier to search and navigate, includes photographs and streamlines contributions from members of the public.

Museums and Galleries National Award

Our Virtual Museum: to be known and distinguished as Carnamah was the Level 1 winner of the Permanent Exhibition category at the 2014 Museums and Galleries National Awards. The judge's summarised us as "A small society with an innovative solution to extending their audience and sharing a larger proportion of their collection with the community. The website is very creative with excellent production values and interpretative images and narratives."

Memories of the Midland Railway

The privately owned Midland Railway was purchased by the Government of Western Australia in 1964. To mark 50 years since the takeover, we accepted an invitation to collaborate with Rail Heritage WA to gather memories and stories of what was affectionately known as the family railway. Many of the stories have been featured in the book Memories of the Midland Railway Co. of Western Australia by Philippa Rogers. Copies of the book can be purchased at our museum or alternatively some of the stories can be read at the end of our virtual exhibition on the Midland Railway.

During the year we completed, in partnership with Ignite Your Audience, an education resource on the Midland Railway. It links to years five and six of the Australian History Curriculum and is freely available for teachers via our Education Resources page. We also published Jeff Austin's histories on the railway's Stations & Sidings.

Virtual Volunteering

We did it! Hundreds of online volunteers, and especially a dedicated few, have successfully text-corrected and transcribed all of our local electoral rolls for the Commonwealth subdivisions of Irwin and Moore from 1903 to 1969. We are presently amalgamating the transcriptions into a single index to be published online.

During 2014 our Virtual Volunteering website has also hosted the virtual transcription of WA Biographical Index cards for the State Library of Western Australia. Thousands of helpers have transcribed over 30,000 cards... but there's still plenty more to go!

Carnamah Museum

As with every year, we have been kept busy running our museum and caring for the state heritage-listed Macpherson Homestead. If you're ever in Carnamah or passing through, we invite you to come and say hello. Our museum is open Friday afternoons or at any other time by prior arrangement.

We've come home with a Museums & Galleries National Award

The Museums & Galleries National Awards (MAGNA) are held each year during the annual conference of Museums Australia. The 2014 conference was in Launceston, Tasmania and we had a very exciting reason to attend.

In early May our Virtual Museum: to be known and distinguished as Carnamah was short-listed for the Permanent Exhibition or Gallery Fitout section of the awards. We were in exceptionally fine company with most of the other finalists being state and national institutions.

At a ceremony in Launceston on 17 May, following a few failed attempts at pronouncing Carnamah, we were announced the Level 1 winner!

"A small society with an innovative solution to extending their audience and sharing a larger proportion of their collection with the community. The website is very creative with excellent production values and interpretative images and narratives." - MAGNA 2014

Our virtual museum began with three online exhibitions in 2011 but tripled in size during 2013. In order of their popularity, starting with the most popular, they are Midland Railway, Toys, Milk Cream & Butter, Macpherson Family, Business Houses, Ready Made Farms, Post Office, 10 Macpherson Street, Town and Roads to Government.

"The Museums & Galleries National Awards program encourages excellence and recognises the significant positive impact of our highest achievers in contributing to the sector by establishing benchmark excellence in Exhibitions, Public Programs, Indigenous projects, and projects and developments that promote ethical and sustainable practices." - Museums Australia




We'd like to thank:

• The Department of Culture and the Arts for supporting the 2013 expansion of our virtual museum
• ABC Mid West and Wheatbelt for spreading our good news on the airwaves when we were short-listed (listen above) and again when we won
• The many individuals and organisations who have expressed their support and congratulations in person, by e-mail, telephone and on Facebook and Twitter
• Museums Australia for the wonderful award

We're shortlisted for the Museums & Galleries National Awards!

The time difference between Western Australia and the Eastern States isn't always a bad thing! We got up this morning to the exciting news that we'd been shortlisted for the Museums & Galleries National Awards, otherwise known as the MAGNAs.

Our shortlisting is in the permanent exhibition category and is for our Virtual Museum: to be known and distinguished as Carnamah. The winners of each category will be announced at a function during the national conference of Museums Australia, which is being held later this month in Launceston, Tasmania.

Our virtual museum is our simple but effective way of sharing some of our collection and history with online audiences who are beyond the physical reaches of Carnamah. It was made possible thanks to financial support from the Department of Culture and the Arts. It can be viewed online at: www.virtualmuseum.com.au