Douglas Shire Historical Society

The Courthouse Museum was opened after the annual maintenance with even the Chinese temple panels having been refurbished.  Thanks to a very generous and welcome donation from John and Jocelyn White, the Society now have a portable wheelchair ramp available to access the Court House Museum.  Opening times remain Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays between 10am and 1pm and there is always a knowledgeable volunteer available to answer questions.  In Mossman, in partnership with the Mossman Library, the Society has celebrated HeritageWeek with an historic walk around the township of Mossman.  They have been a busy group at the moment with their April meeting taking the form of a trip to Daintree.  The day involved a visit to Sally and Peter Maher at River View in Daintree to see their display of collctables.  Peter cranked up his 1913 International portable engine, which delighted the gentlemen on the tour.  Then the tour did a walk around the town following the Society's historic posts before having lunch then returning to Mossman.  The Society's foundation Life Member Mr Noel Weare was recntly awarded a RADF grant from the Douglas Shire Council to travel to Brisbane to do research at the Queensland State Archives.  While there, he met with Dr Jonathan Richards, a professional researcher and avid historian who is researching North Queensland history.  He was able to collect some 1500 page images in the six days spent there, most of which will assist in research for the manuscript for the complete history of the 1879 Port Douglas Court House building.  Thanks to the Douglas Shire Council for assisting Noel in his far-reaching research.  The Society also mounted a Heritage Week display which will run for a month in the Shire Council building foyer.  The Society is also very pleased to see the local schools' interest in local history.  The Port Douglas school visited the Museum recently where secretary Annette Anich gave a talk and the Daintree school children walked the Heritage Trail in that village.  Some new information on the Port Douglas Chinese history was revealed at a presentation by Jacky Tam of the Cairns & District Chinese Association at the May meeting held in the Port Douglas CWA rooms.  

Cairns Historical Society

It was a big welcome home to the 1906 Chandle & Price platen printing press after repairs by Dave McIvor at the Herberton Historic Village and Greg Wyatt from Wyatts R & M Services.  The entire CHS Archives team was locked away for two days learning storage and handling procedures for archival materials.  Thanks to Rachel Spano from the State Library who has led the training.  The new Society website is up and running, so when you are done testing it out, you should check in and 'like' the Cairns Museum Facebook page.  Then you can keep an eye on the work as the Society gets ready for the reopening of the museum in 2017.  Debra Jakes, the volunteers co-ordinator, welcomed six new workers to the 'History on the Move' school trailer team.  They attended an induction and training session with the existing team and they're all fired up for the sharing of their time and Cairns history with local school kids.  'History on the Move' is a great program, popular with local schools and new volunteers are always welcomed.  Thanks also to Cairns Penny Savings and Meteor for their sponsorship of the trailer.  It was a happy National Volunteers Week with volunteer manager, Debra hosting a morning tea on the 9th May for all the volunteers of the Cairns Historical Society and Museum to acknowledge the wonderful work that the volunteers do and the skills that each person brings to their role.  Some thirty people turned up and filled the room.  The Society has relied upon volunteers since 1958 and it is very grateful for all the work that they do.  It was also reported that over fifty members attended the last quarterly series of lectures which were held on the 17th April.  The papers were presented by Dr Graham Cossins, Dr Nicky Horsefall and World War One expert, Pauline O'Keeffe.  All of the contributions had a medical focus and were extremely interesting and will appear as Society history Bulletins in due course.  The Society is now looking for someone who is a bit of a Graphic Designer who would be able to produce the group's newsletter and publications.