Welcome and Apologies

John McKenna opened the meeting at 2.05pm and welcomed all in attendance. Apologies: Eileen Clarke, Gwen Kearns, Jean Shaw, Noelene Pascal, Lillian Ford, Lila Richardson, Pat & Gerry O'Brien, John Warwick, Irie Olde, Peter Mills.

Minutes of the Public Meeting held 16 May 2004, which were mailed or emailed to members, were accepted by the Meeting.

Correspondence inwards and outwards was noted, as per the agenda.

There was no business arising from the previous minutes.

John McKenna tabled an Unaudited Financial Summary for 2003/2004 Financial Year, and advised that we have incurred some major, but necessary expenditure, i.e. chairs, trestle tables, refrigerator, RAHS membership and public liability insurance, souvenirs, garden project funding. Closing balance in the bank is $12,766.48. We anticipate funds to be spent in the near future on a front gate as the current chain is increasingly difficult to use, especially for one person, and some smaller projects.

Pam Zopf advised that the Gardening Committee has met with L J Hooker and Holroyd Council regarding the grounds and gardens. Council has decided to reduce the number of mowings, and these considerable savings would be directed to other aspects of the gardens. An audit of the trees on the property will be carried out to determine which ones need attention, particularly in respect to safety. Council is awaiting a quote in respect to either mulching on-site the large pile of garden refuse currently near the bamboo as opposed to taking it away to be mulched and then returning it to be spread on the garden and around trees.

Good afternoon everyone, welcome to Linnwood once again and thank you for coming out on this winter's day. I have quite a lot of news to tell you this month so please bear with me as I muddle through it all!

As usual, I will begin my report with "Show & Tell". We have had some very interesting donations since our last meeting and we sincerely thank those members and others who have kindly donated items for display.

Mr & Mrs Fegan - residents moving out of the area - have donated a subdivision plan of an area just off Woodville Road, and an original 1920 photo of HMAS Melbourne on Sydney Harbour.

Diane Jogia - and my sincere apologies for not mentioning this at the last meeting - donated a beautiful blanket for our last Open House Day Raffle, crocheted by her mother.

Mr Redfern - a donation of broken porcelain pieces found in the grounds of St. Barnabas' Church, Westmead.

The Duane family - a donation of a hand embroidered supper cloth, a picnic table and 3 pipes. Phyllis Messer - has donated a really unusual milk jug cover trimmed with small shells, a linen tea cosy, and two pairs of ladies 'undergarments' otherwise known as bloomers!

Annie Ravenscroft - a relative of Pam's, has donated a lovely 'Victorian' style vase, which is very much in keeping with the age of the house, and an old metal steamer trunk - just like you see in the movies! It's just like a mini wardrobe, with drawers and hanging space inside. Make sure you have a look at it before you leave today

Stan Thomas has donated a very large light globe - about 300(?) watts we think.- another to add to our collection!

Kevin Woodward has donated a horse shoe, an old carriage lamp, some WWII car headlight covers, 6 clothes 'dolly' pegs (remember those?) and a small wedding cake tin - used for taking home a piece of wedding cake from a reception, or giving to those who weren't there.

Pat O'Brien has donated a Philishave 120s - still in its original box.

Ellie Ellis has sent through a copy of the poem she wrote and read at our 'literary' night in March. It is a wonderful poem dedicated to 'Linnwood'. Ellie has kindly given us permission to print this and sell.

Last but not least - again thanks to Diane Jogia, we have been very fortunate to receive from Holroyd Council, a photocopier!!!! One of the departments in Council was replacing its photocopier and this one was earmarked to go to a community group - so Diane very kindly put our name forward and we got it! To be able to do our own photocopying 'in-house' will make life so much easier for us - so a very big Thank You to Diane and Holroyd Council.

Some of you may be aware that Pat and I have started our own Local History Research project to put together, for display purposes, a pictorial history of people and places of the area, and I would just like to acknowledge and thank those FOL members, Carol Duane and Kevin Woodward for their donations of photos, and Don Messer for approaching Guildford Bowling Club on our behalf, for this project. We have received lots of old photos from quite a few people and businesses in the area, so you can look forward to seeing some of these on display at each Open House Day in the future. We have been very fortunate to have been in touch with Shirley Turvey, granddaughter of the founder of Nunn's Knitting Mill - remember the Mill on the corner of The Esplanade and Beaufort Street? - Shirley now lives in Hervey Bay but came down for a visit last week and brought a pictorial history of the Nunn family and the mill with her and very kindly donated it to us to display - so at the August Open House there will be a very large display on this prominent local family.

Well, on to other things. In case you haven't already noticed - the floor in the back room is now fixed and useable! What a difference this will make - we will have so much more room to do things and hopefully, many more community groups will be able to make use of it too. You will notice that the floor has been repaired, not replaced - note the patchwork effect of the replacement tiles - but nevertheless, it's fixed - that's the main thing. We have obtained some quotes for replacement floor covering, but will not be rushing into anything - it's very expensive to cover such a large area!

Speaking of community groups, we are very pleased to announce that the Australian Lace Guild who were here at our last Open House Day, demonstrating and exhibiting their very intricate craft, have asked to make Linnwood their home and will be holding their bi-monthly meetings here permanently, beginning in 2005. They have also offered to have a few of their members present at each of our Open Days again demonstrating and displaying - so of course we said 'yes'! This is a very prestigious group and we are very pleased that they are going to be here. It is through groups like this, who advertise in major craft magazines, that Linnwood's existence as a viable meeting and exhibition venue will be spread further. Already, we have been profiled in the journal of the Australian Miniature Enthusiasts and more recently, in the magazine of the NSW Spoon Collectors Club who will be exhibiting here in October.

If you have a look at the new Calendar of Events you will see what an interesting line up of exhibitors we have for rest of the year. August is our 'Kids Day' at Linnwood and apart from having the Marines (with small cannon), Fire Brigade, SES and Police, we hope to have some 'old fashioned' children's games such as quoits, horse shoe throwing (anyone have any old horse shoes around?), and hula hoops. There will be the workshop from 1pm-3pm for children to make a "Funky Figure" as well as plaster painting, temporary tattoos and hair spraying - so bring your kids or grandchildren along for a fun day. The down side to all these fun things is that we need helpers on the day, so please if you can spare us some time, we would really appreciate your help. Christine will fill you in a bit later on some more details for this day.

October will have more of a 'male' theme with the Sydney Woodcarving Group and the Marquetry Guild here showing us what they can make with timber. Also here will be the Spoon Collector's Club and a Colonial display by Phil Patterson.

For December, so far we have the National Association of Watch & Clock Collectors here to do an 'evaluation' - not valuation - on your old clocks and watches - which should prove very interesting. They will be able to tell you when, where and how your timepieces were made and hopefully where they can be repaired if necessary.

With regard to the Open House Days, we have heard that some members are not happy about having to pay the $2 admission fee on the day, claiming that as members they should have free entry. We are very sorry that these members feel this way, but the committee feels that as our annual membership fee is really very reasonable, a $2 admission every 8 weeks is really not a great expense. If all members were to have free entry our fundraising for the day would drop dramatically, so unfortunately, the $2 admission price for members will stay.

Also on the Calendar of Events, you might notice that we have changed the date of the December Open House. It will now be on the 12th, instead of the 5th, as we have had confirmation of another wedding to be held in the grounds on the 5th. We had our first wedding here last Saturday, and it went off very well. The bride of course looked beautiful and it was a perfect day weatherwise. We have some photos here for you to have a look at - just 'happy snaps' for our album, but the family have offered to send us some professional photos later. We were asked to provide afternoon tea for approximately 120 guests and this we did, again with the help of both committee and general members. Many thanks to Helen, Coral, Audrey, Christine, John, Stan, Beth, Diane & Olive for helping on the day and also to Christine, Pam and Dane for coming and cleaning the house on the Friday - without the help of these people it would not have been possible for the day to have been the success it was. The service was held on the front lawn in front of the big pine tree and we served afternoon tea from the dining room onto the south verandah and guests then wandered or sat around the fountain - looking at our wonderful new garden! The December wedding will be much the same, but on a Sunday, so we have made the decision to move the date of our Open House Day. We hope this will not inconvenience too many members, and we will still have our Christmas Dinner for members on the evening of that day.

We have had a couple of tours through recently and I would like to thank those members who came and helped on each of the days. We did a sausage sizzle for the Local Justices Association in June and morning tea for a group from St. Marks of Granville last Thursday. We have also had a group from a retirement village at Hunters Hill and a history group from Baulkham Hills, so as you can see our visitors are from a variety of groups and areas.

We cannot do these tours etc without the help of volunteers - we need people here to help with the serving of morning or afternoon tea, so if you would like to help on these days, please see a committee member and we will take your name and contact number. We do have more tours booked in the coming months, so if you could help share the load we would really appreciate it.

Other coming events are: - participating in both Holroyd Council's Open Day on Saturday 7th August and the Guildford Festival on Saturday 16th October. As part of the festival, we will do much the same as last year - open the house for the day with displays etc. and serve devonshire tea. Again, we will need helpers on the day so if you're free and would like to help out, please let us know.

Before that of course will be our September Public Meeting, so we will give you a subtle reminder then as well. Don't forget that September is our Annual General Meeting, so if anyone is interested in standing for a position on the Committee, please start thinking about it now. It is a definite advantage if committee members have internet access as a lot of the 'work' and sharing of information is done that way. Please think about it - we don't have a limit as to how many members we have on the committee and it would be good to be able to share the load a little more.

At the last meeting, I was able to tell you that the Heritage Office had passed on the day to day running of maintenance and security to L.J. Hooker Parramatta, Commercial Division. This has worked out extremely well, with lots of cleaning up being done in the grounds and general maintenance work being done in the house - such as the leaky toilet in the 'ladies' - in a very professional and quick manner. As of last Friday there is now a new Security company looking after the property, as the previous one did not meet the criteria demanded by L.J. Hooker. We see this as being a very positive step and the security patrols on the property will now be done as they should be, not as they have been in the past..

Now, on to some more serious business. As you know, when title to Linnwood was transferred to the Heritage Office in 2002, a Steering Committee was formed to determine the Future Use of Linnwood. As your representative on this committee over the past 2 years, I have attended each meeting and reported back to you any developments as they occurred. I would like to now let you know the latest news - see the advantage of coming to the meetings - you get to hear the news first!

In the next week or two, each FOL member will receive a letter from the NSW Heritage Office outlining their plan for the future of Linnwood. With this letter will be one from your committee explaining why we have agreed 'in principle' to what is being suggested.

The NSW Heritage Office, after preliminary discussions with the Steering Committee, Holroyd Council, Member for Granville Mr. Kim Yeadon and the Friends of Linnwood Committee, and having unsuccessfully applied to Treasury for further funding, has determined that the only option available to raise funds for conservation work, maintenance and any hope of future restoration of Linnwood, is to subdivide and sell the rear portion of the property, that is, the land fronting Tamplin Road.

As a courtesy, in recognition of the work the Friends of Linnwood have done over the past 2 years, all members will be informed officially by the Heritage Office before any announcement is made to the general public. After the letters have been received by members, the Heritage Office will be announcing its plans by way of notices in local newspapers.

As we explain in our letter to you, the decision to agree 'in principle' to this suggestion of selling part of the property was not made lightly. After meeting with the Heritage Office and discussing other options, we saw this as the only funding option available to preserve Linnwood for the community.

The sale and development of the rear of the property will go ahead only after a master plan with strict design controls, to protect the heritage significance of Linnwood, has been formulated.

The committee feels that the sale of the Tamplin Road frontage will have the least amount of impact on the remainder of the site and funds raised will result in Linnwood being restored to a level which will allow more community access and use, which has always been of prime importance to the Friends.

It is unfortunate that this decision has had to be made, but realistically, I think most of us knew that it was a possibility, if not now, then some time in the future, if Linnwood was to remain in public ownership to be used for and by the community.

If the land at the rear is not sold, the Heritage Office does not have the means to continue funding the cost of repairs and maintenance to Linnwood, so there is the very real possibility that the house will fall into much greater disrepair than it already is.

We, as a community group, certainly do not have the means to raise the money needed. An example was given to us of a house in much the same position as Linnwood. Strickland House at Vaucluse, built in the 1850's - a heritage listed property in public ownership on a large parcel of land, admittedly on the harbour foreshore - but still a similar situation. The community opposed any subdivision of the property and wanted it left as public parkland and now the house is not open to the public at all and has deteriorated because there were no funds available to properly conserve the property.

We certainly do not want to see this happen to Linnwood and hope that you will understand and support the decision made by the committee on your behalf.

On that note, I will close now and try to answer any questions or concerns you may have. Thank you.

Dorothy Warwick then asked if anyone had any questions relating to the proposal. Questions raised were:

Dorothy reiterated that the NSW Heritage Office and Holroyd Council are only in the early stages of this proposal and that consultants would be appointed to determine what type of development would be allowed, bearing in mind that whatever is built needs to be sympathetic to Linnwood and should have the least environmental and historical impact. A Development Application has to be submitted for the change of use of the land in question, that portion of land would need to be re-zoned and that would determine what the land will be used for. However the land is worth less as a car park than as a residential development. All of this won't happen overnight so we will still promote Linnwood as an asset for community use and continue with our programme of Public Meetings, Open House days, tours, room hire, weddings, etc.

The general aim is still to lease out McCredie Cottage and Faulds House on a commercial basis, and hopefully we can get long term tenants who will upgrade the buildings.

Christine McKenna gave a status report from the Catalogue Committee, which meets twice a month. Each item that has been donated is photographed, measured, details taken down for identification. Over 45 items have been recorded so far from the displays in the Drawing room. A Deed of Gift is being compiled for each item, and the Catalogue Committee will approach each person who has kindly donated an item to sign off on the Deed. The cataloguing process is slow, but very thorough, so please be patient if you have made a donation.

Christine also advised the meeting what was planned for the August "Kids Day" Open House, and asked for volunteers to help out with some of the children's activities. We also intend have a stall with "old fashioned" sweets/lollies, e.g. ginger bread, coconut ice, marshmallows, toffees etc, so if anyone would like to help make some of these it would be greatly appreciated. We also hope to have some old-fashioned games, like skittles, Beth Werner has lent us her quoits set, the Marines may bring some horse shoes for tossing.

The next meeting of the Friends of Linnwood will be held on Sunday 12 September 2004 at 2.00pm, and our Guest Speaker will be Jacqui Douglas who will speak on the "Guildford Road Project".

The Annual General Meeting for the Friends of Linnwood will also be held on this day, including the election of Committee members.

John McKenna then introduced our Guest Speaker for today, Melissa Duane (a Friend of Linnwood). Melissa has been a Climb Leader for BridgeClimb for four years, and gave us a really interesting insight into the building of our famous Sydney Harbour Bridge. She also gave a PowerPoint presentation which included some wonderful old photos of the progress of the bridge being built and the workmen who risked their lives.

When the First fleet came to Sydney, the north side of the harbour was not considered as very good land so convicts were given land grants for this "less fertile" land and spent much time rowing between the north and south shores. A Jamaican rogue named Billy Blue started the first ferry service across the harbour - his way of negotiating fares was to suddenly double the price half way across! Over the years demand for ferry services grew and consequently the need for a major bridge to cope with the amount of people and traffic became apparent. There were five other bridges in use before the Sydney Harbour Bridge was built, however people had to travel a long way in order to get from one side of Sydney to the other, via the Fig Tree, Gladesville, Iron Cove, Glebe and Pyrmont Bridges.

Because of the plague (which George McCredie played a major part in eradicating) and people dying, the government was able to buy the land around and on which the pylons are now standing.

Construction work started before anyone actually knew what the bridge was going to look like. Twenty tenders were received from bridge builders around the world, and the firm of Dorman Lang & Co. won the tender. 70% of the steel in the bridge arches was transported from England, the rest from BHP here in Australia. 250 stonemasons were recruited from overseas and locally and they all moved to Granite Town, now known as Moruya. Each block of granite took one week to cut - there are 40,000 blocks in the four pylons, each block engraved with a number and then shipped up to Sydney, and the builders had to put it all together.

The four pylons don't actually have anything to do with supporting the bridge - four huge bearing pins support the bridge and allow it to move (as steel contracts) about 18cm. Each pin supports up to 20,000 tons in weight (the bridge weighs 39,000 tons). Steel cables were built into the land to support the arch as it grew (from both sides of the harbour), and when the two arches met in the middle the cables were slackened off.

Every worker involved in joining the arch was given a gold sovereign, or 2 shillings. Remember the bridge was built in the days of the Depression so this was considered a lot of money. The road was put in place "from the inside out", working towards each of the ends of the bridge. There are 6 million rivets in the bridge, each weighing up to 3.5 kilos - there was no welding done on the bridge - each rivet was hand drilled in.

Bearing in mind the workers wore no harnesses at all (no OH&S in those days!), only 16 of the 1,400 men lost their lives - 7 fell off the bridge, others died at the steel factories or at Moruya cutting stone.

As most people know, the bridge was finally officially opened on 19 March 1932, with a huge parade, speeches, fly pasts by the RAF, and of course Francis de Groot who cut the ribbon with his sword in protest that a politician (Jack Lang) was going to do the official honours. Francis was carted off and assessed for insanity, but was deemed sane and was charged £5 for causing a disturbance and £2 for the damage he caused to the ribbon. On 20 March the first train crossed the bridge.

The NRMA recognizes the six middle lanes of the Sydney Harbour Bridge as some of the narrowest lanes anywhere in the world.

BridgeClimb was founded in 1998 by Paul Cave, who inherited a bridge ticket from the first person to hold a ticket to cross the bridge back in 1932. BridgeClimb rents the bridge from the NSW State Government, and money from the climbs goes into the coffers which pays for the bridge's maintenance. Melissa showed some beautiful photos taken from the top of the bridge, gorgeous sunrises and sunsets, and storms rolling in.

Melissa has taken some VIPs to the top of the arch, including some of the New York firefighters and police after September 11, Pierce Brosnan (Agent 007) and she showed a special photo of herself with Prince Harry.

(As a footnote, Melissa told us that during the year the bridge opened, many newborn babies were named either Archie or Bridget!).

Thank you Melissa!