Notes from official response from Council (5/6/2020)

Council has provided the Society with a lease of the Glenorchy History Room since 2003 (for a nominal rent amount) to carry out its activities. Council also provides the Society with a small amount of annual funding.  In the 2020/21 financial year, this was $2,180 and it has been a similar amount in previous years (it is disclosed annually in our Annual Report). 

The Society is otherwise not affiliated with or connected to Council.  However, its members regularly provide our Heritage Officer, David Parham, with advice and information to assist him in assessing the heritage aspects of planning applications.

Members of the Society also work with other Council areas from time to time to provide information about historical matters.  For example, one of the Society’s members has been working with Council’s Urban Services team to develop a display at the old Moonah Railway Station.  Members also assisted Council’s Waste Education Officer during judging for the Keep Australia Beautiful Awards by providing a historical tour of the St Matthews Church in the Glenorchy CBD.

In addition to assisting Council’s Heritage Officer, our Customer Service team regularly refers individuals who enquire with Council about family/property historical matters to the Society. With the recent proliferation of history-themed pages on Facebook, we understand that the Society has received an influx of calls making inquiries about a variety of things including the location of burial sites, the history of properties, the history of family, as well as more broadly the history of the area. These are enquiries which our Heritage Officer is not resourced to provide a response to. So the voluntary contribution of the Society adds to the wider community’s understanding and appreciation of our heritage. The Society is also known to regularly (pre COVID-19) deliver community talks to interested community groups, including U3A and local nursing homes.

Providing access to the Glenorchy History Room is at the discretion of the Society as the lessee, however we generally understand that opening the History Room to the public is not practical or possible because the Society is run by a small group of volunteers who have neither the time or resources to do this. We also assume that for security of volunteers and records it is not necessarily appropriate to have it open to the public.

It is also worth noting, in general terms, that lessees have a common law right to quiet possession and enjoyment of their premises, without disturbance from the landlord or anyone else.

Council has not provided any of its funding or granted lease of the History Room to the Society on the condition that it would be available to the public or wider community.  We understand that the Society is not an outward-facing body that provides a general community service, however would need to clarify this with the Society itself.  

Council doesn’t oversee or facilitate the Society or its activities.  Council leases the premises to the Society and provides a small amount of funding each year, which it is happy to do given the valuable service that the Society provides to Council (please see the answers above for the known activities of the Society).  Council also provides funding and support to many other small community organisations through either monetary donations or in-kind support.  

Council is happy that it receives value for the minimal funding it provides, particularly given that the Society is, in most cases, the only organisation that is able to provide the historical information that Council often requires to assess planning applications. It should be noted that the activity of carefully curating historical material requires significant skill and experience. While there may be many people with a general interest in history, there is only very small number of people with the specialised skills and experience to interpret and curate the material.

Glenorchy Historical Society website

For a few years the society had a website built using WordPress – with the URL https://glenorchyhistorical.wordpress.com/history-book/

The society’s annual return for 2018 contains an entry of almost $1500 for reimbursement to “internet and website consultant”. Sometime in 2020 the website ceased to exist. The URL (as of January 2021) returns a blank page containing the words “Coming soon”. No new website has been found.

Postscript February 5, 2021

In the Mercury newspaper today we read of the passing of Phil Butler, long-time leader of the Glenorchy Historical Society (and many other community organizations).

It remains to be seen what consequences arise from this sad event. What is the future of the Society?

Public information and documents related to the Glenorchy Historical Society

ABN = 93 294 876 450, active since November 1999, initially as the GLENORCHY HISTORY GROUP INC. [source]

Glenorchy-Historical-Society-2009-constitution-as-amended-17-june
Glenorchy-Historical-Society-2014-annual-return
Glenorchy-Historical-Society-2015-annual-return-1
Glenorchy-Historical-Society-2015-annual-return-2
Glenorchy-Historical-Society-2016-annual-return
Glenorchy-Historical-Society-2016-special-resolution
Glenorchy-Historical-Society-2017-annual-return
Glenorchy-Historical-Society-2018-annual-return
Glenorchy-Historical-Society-Association-Extract-Report

Lease agreement currently in effect for Glenorchy History Room 2003