As usual, I would like to begin my report with our "Show & Tell" segment to acknowledge those people who have donated items of interest to our growing collection of memorabilia. Not too many things to show this month - so it won't take too long.

At our April Open House, Bruce McCredie, grandson of George McCredie, came for a visit and donated 3 photos to our collection. The first is a photo of an original painting by John Campbell of Linnwood. You may recognise this one, we have a larger version which we often have on display - but the copy we have is very 'blue' , the colours in this one are a much truer copy of the original painting. Next, is a photo of a pair of mantle vases which belonged to the McCredie family, and lastly a photo of the Certificate of Illuminated Address, presented to George and Susan McCredie by the Guildford community.

Mr Stan Thomas has donated a large pie warmer (now in the kitchen) and some old gardening tools. My apologies to Stan for not acknowledging these donations at the last meeting.

Mr Kevin Woodward from Wentworthville has kindly allowed us to copy some 'ephemera' which has been in his family for many years. This is quite an interesting collection to look through - I'm sure many of you will recognise some of the pieces - receipts from local stores in the area, a licence to have a radio, a licence to drive a horse drawn vehicle and much more.

We have made a start on cataloguing our collection - it's surprising just how much time it takes to do each item, describing, measuring, photographing and categorising them all - it's going to be a long process! We will be trying to catch up with those who have donated items, to formally acknowledge the donation and to give you a 'proper' receipt - so please be patient - we will get to you!

Well, on to what's been happening since our last meeting. Some good news! The Heritage Office has, this week, signed off on the requisition to have the floor in the back room repaired and are hoping that this will be completed before the end of the financial year. The floor has to be jacked up and levelled and then new floor covering put on and we have offered to donate some money towards the floor covering to help expedite things. So if anyone has contacts in the floor covering trade - please let us know. The leaking roof has once again been repaired, but it hasn't rained since the work was done so we don't know yet if it is a success. Also, the Heritage Office has now contracted L.J. Hooker's Commercial Division in Parramatta to take over the day to day maintenance management of the site.

I have met the lady who has Linnwood under her wing and have been very impressed with what has been achieved in the short time that their office has been involved. Any time that I have been here during the week, there has been a fellow here doing clean-up work over the whole site and I'm sure you will agree that the property as a whole is looking much neater and tidier.

Representatives from the Heritage Office will be meeting with Holroyd Council in the next couple of weeks and we believe a progress report will be made to the community shortly afterwards - so we look forward to hearing what the future holds.

Some of you may have seen an article in last week's Advertiser, in the Historical feature section, written by Mr Parker of the Historical Society regarding the 'plan' for Linnwood. Well, contrary to Mr Parker's comments, we do not believe that the property has 'declined' since ownership was transferred to the NSW Heritage Office. In point of fact, in excess of $200,000 has been spent on the property under their ownership, just in basic maintenance costs, to improve it from the state DOCS left it. Both the FOL committee and the Heritage Office are considering writing letters of reply to Mr Parker's article. The committee believes his opinions and conclusions as stated in the article are misguided, and if he had accepted our initial invitation to join us in the fight to save Linnwood, he might know a bit more about what is going on.

On to other things:-

You may remember from the last meeting, we were waiting on our Public Liability Insurance renewal - well, it did come and to our relief, was about $100 cheaper than last year. Unfortunately the Public Liability issue has had an effect on the number and type of exhibitors we can have here, so now we can only invite those people or groups who have their own insurance. Consequently, our April Open House Day was not as successful as previous days - a bad combination of being on Easter Sunday and not as many exhibitors meant our visitor numbers were down. But - we all had a good day anyway.

We have confirmed a few other exhibitions etc for June, August and October's Open House Days and hope that there will be something for everyone.

In June we have an exhibition and display by the Australian Lace Guild, together with "Designing Women - A Display of Contemporary Embroidery" by the Embroiderer's Guild. Our regulars, the Girl Guides and the Art & Craft Society will also be there, but we are yet to confirm if the Marines will be in town!

In August we are planning a Children's Day with activities and displays geared towards the younger members of the community, and in October we have confirmed that the Sydney Woodcarving Group will be here with a display - something for the men this time! We are still working on December's programme - and will once again conclude the day with our Christmas get-together dinner for members.

As part of the Holroyd CityFest, we held a "Rhymes, Rhythms, Writings & Refreshments" night - it was actually the evening of the day of our last Public Meeting. Our thanks to Jacqui Douglas and the New Writers Group and the musicians who entertained us on the night - it really was a wonderfully relaxing evening, sitting out the front listening to lots of poems and short stories and some very talented musicians. It would be really great to make this an annual - if not more often - event. I have 2 lots of photos here if you would like to have a look through - one set from the Council's professional photographer and the other set - my 'happy snaps' of the night - and it was very disappointing that the 'professional' didn't take a photo of our very special guest on the night - one very tame and personable galah who entertained us all by perching up on the gutter and listening to the stories and music, for all the world as if he was the resident critic. He then hopped down and waddled amongst the audience and I know there were quite a few who would have loved to have taken him home.

Pat, Christine and I attended the Thank You Reception held by the Council after CityFest, and we have here the plaque we received in appreciation for holding an event as part of the Festival.

At our last Public Meeting it was decided to form a Garden Group to continue the work started last October on the southern side of the house. Well, talk about keen! This small but passionate group of gardeners held their first meeting, elected a committee, worked out a plan of attack, held a working bee here on the 2nd of May, and now, you wouldn't recognise the garden on the southern side of the house! They were given a budget of $500 from the executive committee and came in well under that amount - so much so that they now have plans to turn the fountain into a garden as well! The president and secretary of this group, Winston and Yvonne Tattersall, could not be here today, but have asked that I hand out these envelopes to those members who worked so hard on the day. Please join with me in congratulating Russ Werner, Pam Zopf, Coral Hamilton, Florence McMaster, Adriana De Haas and Sue Evans for the wonderful job they have done in turning the overgrown jungle out there, into - a garden! And make sure you go and have a look at it!

We have received some more bookings recently and now have tours of Linnwood booked for the 25th May, 8th June, 19th June, 26th August and 19th September. These bookings are from groups that range from retirement villages to history groups - we'll take anyone! The wedding is confirmed for Saturday 3rd July and we will be serving a Devonshire Tea for the guests. We may need help with the catering on the day, so if anyone would like to put their hand up to help - it would be much appreciated.

The Australian Miniature Enthusiasts have confirmed their booking for a 2 day workshop here in September and the Porcelain Artists recently held their 1 day workshop here as well.

It's really great to see these community groups being able to use Linnwood for their functions - and think how many more activities can be accommodated once the back floor is repaired.

Holroyd Council held an information night here in April as part of Heritage Week - the subject being "Restoration & Maintenance of Older Buildings" - so Linnwood was quite an apt venue for this.

Council has also invited us to hold a display in August as part of Local Government Week. This display will be either in the Council Chambers or the library on Saturday 7th August - the day designated for Council to be open to the public.

This year, History Week will be held from 11th-19th September, and we are thinking of holding a function on Sunday the 12th. This is a Public Meeting day and we thought we might be able to organise a 'little something' for after the meeting - especially if the back floor is fixed - we will have so much more room to hold all sorts of different functions. We will keep you informed as to what type of, if any, function we decide to do, so you can keep that day and evening free!

After Trish Skehan's talk about "Yaralla" and now more recently receiving an invitation to visit the NSW Toy & Railway Museum at Leura, we have wondered if the members would like to have a couple of day or ½ day bus trips a year organised. If so, can you let us know, and we can possibly look at organising some in the future - and if there is anyone out there who is good at organising this type of thing, don't be shy, we would appreciate your expertise.

One bit of not so good news - the second hand fridge that we obtained recently apparently didn't like being moved, and up and died on us! Unfortunately this happened only a couple of days before the Porcelain Artists were due to have their day long workshop, so after some discussion amongst the committee, it was decided to buy a brand new fridge - in a hurry! We were able to buy one for a very good price from Betta Electrical in Merrylands, who also delivered it for free, the same day! Hopefully this one will last the distance and we won't have to worry any more. Once again we had food spoilage - this time not only some cakes etc. but also some sausages - so you can imagine how good the smell was!

Unfortunately, it has turned out to be an expensive couple of months, with the insurance having to be paid and then having to buy a new fridge, so we definitely went backwards, but hopefully our next few Open House Days will recoup our expenses. Let's hope so.

I think that's all for the moment. Please stay and have a cuppa and a chat after the meeting and hopefully we will see you all back again on our next Open House on Sunday 13th June. Thank you.