Join the Celebrations
Melbourne Day celebrates more than just the day the city was founded. It represents the point at which the proud community of Melbourne began. And it is a day to celebrate all that makes Melbourne one of the world's greatest and most liveable cities. So join our celebrations for 2011.
Melbourne Day Banner Competition
Join the fun and create a banner that best displays Melbourne, and why it is a great city. Display it on your school's fence, in your office - anywhere. Win great prizes. Various entry levels available. More details here.
Enterprize, Melbourne's tall ship
The schooner Enterprizewill
be docked at the NAB Wharf from Sunday 29 August until Tuesday
30th August. The Enterprize
will offer discounted and free tours around Victoria Harbour. Bookings
essential.
Where: NAB Wharf, just
outside NAB headquarters, Docklands. Details, bookings.
The Great Melbourne Day Debate
Is Melbourne More Than Football? Melbourne Business Network's annual luncheon remains the must-attend Melbourne Day event. Moderated by Dr Sally Cockburn - Dr Feelgood of 3AW.
Venue:
RACV City Club, 501 Bourke St, city.
When: Friday, August 26,
noon - 2pm.
For tickets and and online bookings melbournebusinessnetwork.org.au .
Official Flag Raising Ceremony at Enterprize Park
Join Lord Mayor Robert Doyle and Melbourne Day chairman Campbell Walker at the biggest flag-raising event of the year. A special message direct from the Mayor of Launceston will arrive aboard the Spirit of Tasmania acknowledging Launceston's link with Melbourne's history. Free public festivities also include morning tea, a rifle volley and cannon fire by the Historial Re-enactment Society. Come and meet the 2011 Melburnian of the Year.
Where:
Enterprize Park, cnr William Street and Flinders Street
(near
Melbourne Aquarium on the Yarra River's north bank).
When: Melbourne
Day, August 30, at 10am. Free event. .
Melbourne Awards Ceremony dinner
To celebrate the people and organisations whose passion and hard work shapes our city. Nominees are invited to a prestigious gala awards ceremony where winners and the Melburnian of the Year are announced.
Details:
melbourne.vic.gov.au/melbourneawards
Where: Melbourne Town Hall, August 27. By invitation.
Celebrate at your workplace
Host your own Melbourne Day celebration with a morning or afternoon tea. Bake a cake, download a hat, colour it and wear it with pride. You can also download a poster, a birthday card, Melbourne flag, history and trivia to test the knowledge of your friends and colleagues.
On a search for history
Almost thirty years ago, Dr
Fred Cahir decided in
a fit of youthful naivety to cross the Australian continent on a
bicycle alone.
Half way across the Nullabor Plain he ran out of water and food and, in
his self imposed misery, he pledged to himself that if he survived the
ordeal he would find out all he could about Aboriginal survival skills.
Dr Cahir lived to tell the tale and on Tuesday 30 August - Melbourne's
Birthday - he is sharing his story and his subsequent historical
discoveries.
"After my ordeal, I
became a hopeless 'bikeaholic', traversing most of
Australia's deserts," recalled Dr Cahir.
"I also kept to my
promise to research Victorian Aboriginal studies,
and continue to do so, thanks in large part to the records and books
held at the RHSV."
"My talk will highlight
some of my riveting finds over the years -
sometimes just a rakish sentence, and other times a major peeling back
of the historical onion."
Dr Fred Cahir holds a Hons, MA and PhD in Aboriginal History and is
coordinator for the Indigenous Studies Programs at the University of
Ballarat. His PhD thesis 'Black Gold: Aboriginal Peoples and Gold in
Victoria, 1850-1870' was awarded the Australian Historical Society's
Alan Martin Award (2008). Some of the recent projects Dr Cahir has
involved himself in include a literature review research project to
investigate Indigenous Eco Knowledge with Glenelg Hopkins Catchment
Management Authority and the GunditjMirring Corporation. He was also
Appointed Associate Research Director of a major collaborative research
project between the University of Ballarat and the Royal Society of
Victoria to investigate the Aboriginal story about the ill-fated Bourke
and Wills Expedition in 1860/61.
The Melbourne Day event will be held at the Royal Historical Society of
Victoria in the former Australian Army Medical Corps Drill Hall - an
impressive Art Deco space, listed on the Victorian Heritage Register
for its state-wide architectural and historical significance.
Formed in 1909, the Royal Historical Society of Victoria (RHSV) is
committed to collecting, researching and sharing an understanding of
the history of Victoria. Housing the most extensive single information
resource on the history of Melbourne and Victoria, Collections are open
Monday to Friday, 10am - 4pm. The RHSV is a community organisation that
relies on membership subscriptions. Join today and help promote and
preserve the history of Victoria - www.historyvictoria.org.au.
Date:
Tuesday 30 August
Time: 5.15pm
tea/coffee; 5.45pm - 6.45pm lecture.
Address:
Royal Historical Society of Victoria 239 A'Beckett Street
Melbourne (entry via William Street)
Cost: $5.50
non members; free for members
Bookings: t: (03) 9326
9288 e:
office@historyvictoria.org.au
Download coloring sheets
Hey kids download and color a Melbourne Day birthday card (click the image)
Hey kids download and color a Melbourne Day birthday party hat (click the image)
