September 15, 2017

Preserving daylesford’s local history

Thanks to support from the Andrews Labor Government, two different aspects of Daylesford’s local history will be preserved.

State Member for Macedon, Mary-Anne Thomas announced today that ChillOut would receive $14,200 to develop an online archive of the festival’s 20 year history as Australia’s biggest and longest-running regional Queer Pride event. Ms Thomas said "There has never been a more important time for us to reflect upon and celebrate the contribution that ChillOut Festival and the LGBTI community have made to our region."

The dynamic website will celebrate the history and people who created ChillOut, with the physical collection to be catalogued by the Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives (ALGA).

The Daylesford and District Historical Society will also receive $7500 to create a short film which remembers the tragedy of Daylesford’s Lost Children to be shown in the museum and online.

The funding is part of the annual Local History Grants Program which provides small grants to community organisations to support projects that preserve, record or publish Victorian local history.

Across the state fifty-three community groups will share in $345,000 worth of local history grants. Merryn Tinkler, Chillout festival director said "We’re so excited to be able to finally consolidate some of the historical material we gathered for our 20th anniversary and to be able to provide that as a resource for the wider community."

The program is about putting our dedicated community organisations first, who do such a great job of collecting and preserving Victoria’s fascinating history.

Victoria’s diverse history is a real drawcard for visitors, with a total of 6.4 million people visiting a museum, gallery, heritage site or monument on their trip in the year ending March 2017. Over the past five years this has been growing at 5.7 per cent a year.

A full list of winning recipients is available at prov.vic.gov.au.

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