Good afternoon ladies and gentleman, welcome to Linnwood and Happy New Year to you all. Hopefully 2004 will be a great year for the Friends of Linnwood and an even better one for Linnwood itself - with some decisions finally being made regarding its long-term future.

Once again, I would like to start my report with Show & Tell. Again we have been overwhelmed with donations since our last meeting, so if you will bear with me, I will show those I can to you and tell you about some of the others.

• From Jill Ryan we have some interesting WW1 photos taken in Gaza, Egypt, of members of the Tamplin and Jenner families of Guildford.
• From Reg Young we have a photo of a house on Guildford Road, - a house I'm sure you will all recognise, but did you know it was originally the old Police Station?
• From Hazel Magann from Blacktown we have a photo taken about 1948 at Linnwood. Two of the girls and the young boy are cousins of Hazel's husband. An older sister was at Linnwood at the time, and Hazel has kindly also donated a copy of a letter written by young Eileen to her aunt.
• Pat O'Brien has donated some bits and pieces to add to our 'sewing' collection - including some old packets of needles, hooks and eyes, press studs etc. Remember when we all used to sew and use these?
• Also, to add to our 'sewing' collection, Sue Evans has very kindly donated a Barkly Sewing Machine, still in its cabinet, to add to our growing collection. It is now in the Drawing Room with our other sewing machines.
• From Jean Shaw we have an old Electrolux vacuum cleaner, tentatively dated about 1950 - a real classic - an extendable sleeve band owned by her father, 2 toiletry holders owned by her husband and used on board ship when he was in the Navy, and a lovely pair of evening gloves worn by Jean when attending Navy Balls with her husband.
• John Warwick has been extremely generous to Linnwood with his donations of a "High Victorian Vase" - dated about 1880-1890, a green mantel clock with 2 matching vases dated about 1920, a hand embroidered tablecloth, also thought to be from about 1920, a lovely red Persian rug, and lots of curtains.
• A couple of our exhibitors from the December Open House also donated some items from their stalls and we will be using these in future raffles.
• From Mrs Ros McGrory - some more curtains and material.
• From Vicki Movizio and the Merrylands Library we have been given many theatre programmes, some dating back to the 1960's. Some have already been put into folders (and thanks to my Mum for her time and patience in doing this) and I am sure it will be a trip down memory lane for many of you as you have a look through, remembering live shows, ballets or opera productions that you may have been to over the years. Those that don't fit into the folders will be displayed elsewhere - when we work out how we can do it!
• Last meeting I spoke about having some photos from the Guildford Fire Station copied, and if you didn't see them at the December Open House - here they are - a set of 10. A great record of the history of the Guildford Fire Station and its firemen. Our thanks to the Fire Brigade for allowing us to have these copied and added to our collection.

To all those people who have donated items - and I hope I haven't missed anyone - our sincere thanks. These items will ensure that we will be able to rotate our displays and always have something interesting on show when visitors and our own members wander through the house.

Well, on to other 'happenings' at Linnwood - and I will try and keep them in order of events so you know what's been happening over the past couple of months and what will be happening in the future.

On the 16th November last year we held another reunion for Linnwood Girls. This time we had about 40 or so ladies come on the day, and although there had been a few not very complimentary articles written in the local press about the day and also the reunion at the Parramatta Girls Home, we felt that the day really went quite well. Again, we heard lots of stories - both good and bad - of their time at Linnwood, and it was interesting that many of the women who came this time had not been at the previous reunion, and this time many of them brought their families. Again we had members of CLAN in attendance to help any who may have needed support in facing their past, and our thanks to CLAN for their continued support. We now have a database of about 80 women who spent some part of their early lives at Linnwood and we hope that this will continue to grow over time.

On Sunday 7th December, we had our Open House Day with displays from the Hudson Car Club, the Matchbox Label Collectors Club and the NSW Corps of Marines, together with a full house of art and craft stalls with lots of Christmas goodies for sale. To finish off the day, we held our own Friends of Linnwood Christmas dinner with about 60 members in attendance - all in all a very busy, but successful, day!

Many thanks to all those who volunteered their help- either helping to set up on the Saturday, on the day itself, or helping with the dinner - your help was very much appreciated.

We have had a number of enquiries about possible wedding services in the grounds and at this stage have one wedding booked for early July. We have also had a few different groups expressing interest in holding their meetings at Linnwood, so hope that some of these may come to fruition.

We have also been working on our website over the past months and with many thanks to Ian Bertram at Holroyd Council, our website has now been upgraded and bought fairly well up to date, and we think it looks pretty good. There is still some fine-tuning to be done, but on the whole we are really happy with it. For those who would like to have a look, the address is:

www.linnwood.holroyd.nsw.gov.au

Again, thanks to Holroyd Council for hosting the site and allowing Ian to work with us on it.

You may have noticed as you walked in the front door, that there is a big new control panel on the wall. As part of the D.A. for Pioneers to move into the dormitory building, which hopefully will be happening at the end of the month, the fire alarm system for Linnwood and the Dormitory had to be upgraded. This has meant that an Early Warning Alarm System has now been installed to cover both buildings. All the locks in Linnwood have had to be changed with handles fitted to the inside of each of the internal doors for safety reasons. There is a speaker in each room connected to a PA system in the control box to alert people in case of fire and some emergency lighting and Exit signs have also been installed. Also, fire hoses have been installed on the south and rear verandahs of Linnwood - and we sincerely hope that our visiting vandals will leave these alone and not cause any problems. It is unfortunate that these have to be outside and so accessible to unwanted attention. All this work was done prior to and over the Christmas period and unfortunately the committee did not receive the new keys till this week when we had our first opportunity to come and have a look at the new work.

Whilst we realise that the upgrade had to occur, the committee was very disappointed with some of the work that had been done. We have expressed our dismay to the Heritage Office regarding the position of the new control panel - it is much larger than we had anticipated and now restricts the view of the front lead light windows from the hallway, totally destroys the aesthetic appeal of the entrance, and also makes it impossible for anyone to sit on the bench seat without bumping their head. We have also expressed our disappointment with the standard of workmanship on the doors, with the rear lead light door suffering the most damage. The committee has requested that the control panel be relocated and that the Heritage Office take into consideration our concerns regarding the poor workmanship on the doors. It was very disappointing to us to see this standard of work done on a State Listed Heritage building, so we now wait to see if any action will be taken regarding our request and concerns. We will keep you posted on these issues - maybe by our next Open House something will have happened.

One side effect of the work having been done is that the lights in the drawing room now do not work - at first we thought that the bulbs had blown but when John checked them, they appeared to be OK, but the most interesting thing we discovered was that they are 500 watt globes! Incredible! We have informed the Heritage Office of the lights now not working and hope that they will be fixed in the near future. We have also had to replace globes in the hall lights as well and found that they were 200 watt globes. Not surprisingly, we have not been able to replace these exactly, so the hall may not shine quite as brightly as before!

Some of you may have received the new issue of the Holroyd Herald. Once again, Council have rung and apologised for not getting it quite right with regard to events to be held at Linnwood in 2004. This time they have put Beth Werner's name phone number as the contact and also the Arts and Craft website address instead of Linnwood's. Luckily for us, Beth is a member of FOL so will be able to answer any calls and questions she receives! My phone at least, may be a bit quieter this year!

Now, what's happening in the future? Well, our next Open House is on Sunday 8th February and should be a really special one. The NSW Corps of Marines will be here and we are hoping that this time they may be bringing their cannon with them. The Rotary Club of Guildford will be holding a Garage Sale in the grounds (with it being moved into Faulds House as Plan B if it is a wet day), and we will also have an exhibition of Antique Dolls from a private collection on display. This promises to be a very special exhibition, and we encourage you to come along and have a look at this extraordinary display. Setting up for this day is going to involve quite a bit of work so we are asking if anyone can volunteer some time on Saturday the 31st January to help with a working bee to prepare for the day. We need to move some display cases that are in one of the back rooms and also sort through all the things left over from our own Trash'n'Treasure stall held last year, as we will be donating it all to the Rotary Sale. Rotary has pledged that FOL will receive one-third of the proceeds from the sale, with the remainder being donated to the Children's Hospital and other charities.

We will also be asking for as many volunteers as possible to help on the Open House Day - all items, including some of the excess furniture from Linnwood and the Dormitory will need to be moved out to the sale area early in the morning and we may need extra help with the BBQ and inside the house. Please, if you can help on either or both days, put your name down on the forms being passed around. We would really appreciate your help.

The Holroyd CityFest will be held this year from 12th-19th March and Linnwood has again been asked to host a function as part of the Festival. Last year you may remember we had a Chamber Music night and this year we have decided to go for something a little less formal and have tentatively called it "Rhymes, Rhythms, Writings and Refreshments at Linnwood". Bit of a mouthful, but we are aiming for a fairly relaxed type of event with community members invited to read their own works, whether they might be poems, short stories or perform a musical item. Each 'artist' will perform for 3-5 minutes, so we hope there will be quite a variety of items to listen to. It will be on Sunday 14th March which is the day of our next Public Meeting. At the conclusion of the meeting we will set up for the evening's event, which will begin from about 5pm. There will be no entry charge but we will be doing another of our famous sausage sizzles and providing tea, coffee & cold drinks for the usual prices. Members and/or visitors to the Public Meeting are invited to stay for the night's entertainment. If the weather is fine, we hope to have the event outside - it will still be daylight saving so should be quite pleasant outside and still light when we finish - probably around 7pm. Again, if anyone can offer to help with the set up (and pack up) on the day, it would be greatly appreciated.

The Festival Parade will be held on Saturday 13th March and we will probably have a stall in the main street again. It has been suggested that we might like to participate in the parade, so if anyone is really interested in doing so - either dressing up and walking or offering some sort of vehicle to decorate and ride in - please see a committee member after the meeting. If not, we will just have the stall to promote Linnwood and sell some of our merchandise. Again, anyone who can spare an hour or two to help 'man' the stall let us know.

I'm sorry we seem to be asking for your help so much, but the committee members really do need your help, we simply cannot do it all, and really, the old saying "many hands make light work" is very true. We also find that all our functions are great social events, everyone seems to catch up with old friends for a chat or make new friends in the course of working together - so come along and join in!

If you have a look at our Calendar of Events for this year, you will see that we have some interesting Guest Speakers lined up for our Public Meetings and hope to be able to put on more exhibitions on our Open House Days as a way of drawing more people in to Linnwood, so make sure you put it in a safe place and mark those days as "Linnwood" days!

Lastly, another piece of community news. Guildford Rotary have informed us that they will soon be starting monthly markets to be held on the 1st Saturday of every month in the undercover carpark of Guildford Leagues Club - so keep your eye out for when they will be starting - I'm sure they will be another successful community project for the area.

I think that that is all for the time being - it may not look like anything is happening at Linnwood, but there really is a lot of work going on behind the scenes either by the Heritage Office or your committee, so hopefully we've kept you as up to date as we can.

Please stay and enjoy the talk by our guest speaker and then join with us for some afternoon tea. Thank you.