The cataloguers are making slow but steady progress in ensuring all donated artifacts to Linnwood are properly recorded and stored and are available for exhibition when required. All the permanent fixtures and artifacts in the front part of the house have been catalogued and we are now well into cataloguing the wealth of donated items which have come our way, mostly through our own members.

A storage are has been prepared for the boxes of artifacts which are being stored according to category and will be easily retrievable.

Also, a simplified donation form has been prepared which should speed up the process of registering new artifacts.

The cataloguing committee has increased by one with the welcome addition of Adrianna De Haas as a willing worker.

Dorothy and myself are attending a "Significance Workshop", designed to help amateurs like us to identify the relevant importance, or significance of the various donated items. Another series of workshops with the Power House Museum is in the offing in November.

Although the original intent of the Friends of Linnwood was just to save this house, the house has become by default a repository for items which reflect the history of the local area and people and as such, is doing an excellent and unexpected service.

Pam Zopf

Linwood Garden Sub-Committee Report for August & September 2005

Our report is a fairly short one, due mainly to the absence of any working bees scheduled for this period, but for some ladies on the team, working bees are a weekly affair.

As you saunter along the drive towards the house, on a lovely spring day, tarry awhile, just before you reach your destination, and admire the view between the trees to the south. As you look around, your gaze will fall upon a newly refurbished rotund garden bed with a small Prunus as its central feature. Surrounding it, in the freshly dug soil, you will see some of the plants that were rescued from the fountain last year, and enclosing the soil is a beautifully constructed fancy brick edging, all very pleasing to the eye. We have Pam, Coral and Flo to thank for the extra time and effort that they have put into it. Ladies and gentlemen, I think they deserve our acclamation for their very hard and dedicated work.

Whilst on the subject of refurbished garden beds, you may recall me mentioning in my last report, the work that was done around the little fountain in the lawn at the front of the house. Well! I happened to be standing on the drive out the front on our last open day, when Flo rushed past with a pretty serious look on her face and in one hand dangled a small garden trowel, and in the other dangled some Viola seedlings. I followed in hot pursuit, only to suddenly come to a screeching halt at the aforementioned fountain. Aghast! I saw that most of the plants in the little garden bed surrounding the fountain had been trampled underfoot. Flo dropped to her knees and lovingly planted the new Violas, kindly donated by Del. Since then, some further work has been done to this garden bed to try and protect it from a recurrence of this sort of violation.

Some of us can never resist a bargain, and Coral is no exception. She had heard on the grapevine of some Camellias going cheap at Bunnings, and she thought that some of them might look good at Linnwood. She very quickly got on the phone and rang Pam, Pam said yes, let’s go and get um, so off they went and got um. Those of you who attended the last open day may have seen them on display, 10 lovely potted Camellias of various colours, just waiting to be planted and then display their beauty to the people for many years to come.

Members of the Gardening Sub-Committee gathered at our house on Wednesday the 24th of August to decide on future projects, one of which is the replacement of the sleepers along the edge of the embankment at the southern side of the house. The existing ones are not in very good shape, and indeed some have disappeared altogether. We had discussed this project at our previous meeting, and decided to source the materials needed and try and establish just how much it was all going to cost, and we think we can do the job for about $250.00 or less. We have been helped along by a very generous conation of $170.80 from the ladies who operate the Linnwood Garden Stall, and we have been able to source the sleepers at a wholesale price, thanks to Peter and Dorothy’s son (Ian), who happens to work for a timber merchant. We hope to be able to complete the project on our next working bee, which is on the 25th September. If any of you would care to come along to assist, especially if you have some hard landscaping expertise, we would love to see you. We will even give you a free cup of tea and enroll you as a fully paid up member of The Linnwood Diggers Club, what more could you ask for, and whilst I am on the subject, we are in need of volunteers to do some watering for us on the designated watering days and times, Wednesdays and Sundays I think it is. We are looking for about 20 people to organize onto a roster, so if any of you think that you could spare some time for this important task in the morning and afternoon on those days, please leave your name and phone number with either myself, Yvonne, Pam or Coral. The icing on the cake, ladies and gentlemen, is your automatic enrolment in the Diggers Club, and a free tour of the club house.

That just about sums it up Ladies and Gentlemen - I thank you for listening.

Winston Tattersall