By Peter Mitton

Another year has passed and the Museum continues to serve the community.

Firstly, l'd like to take this moment to reflect on the sad news of the passing of long serving member Bruce Robinson.

Bruce a past president and life member contributed so much to the museum from his knowledge of the Bimbi and Quandialla, the books he wrote about these areas Seaton farm and the Weddin Mountains. Our condolence goes out to his wife Alice and family.

On a happier note, another longtime member and contributor Dot Lambkin has just celebrated her 100th birthday, a fantastic milestone.

Once again with just a small number of volunteers the society has continued to keep the doors of the museum open. Being able to open allowing the public, schools and bus tours to come in and view our collection and learn about our rich local history.

The hailstorm on Xmas day caused the museum to flood and much unwanted work and expense for the society and members with the museum having to be closed to the public.

Lifting displays drying of the carpet and objects that were on the floor took a considerable amount of time. But with the hard work and long hours spent by members and other volunteers the museum finally was aired and dried out enabling the museum to be reopened to the public.

Thank you to everyone that helped in this process.

Again, the hard-working Monday team has continued to work on cataloguing the collection into Mosaic along with digitally scanning the photo collection and renumbering and organizing the museum library.

As always, we continue to receive donations of varying objects into the collection which is always welcome. Finding space to store or display these items is becoming an issue, but they are always appreciated, and I thank the people who have donated items.

With the funding received through a grant from the government, via Michael McCormack and a council trust fund we were able to replace the four front windows and security screens. Mark Telfer, the builder who undertook this project, has done a fantastic job with very little inconvenience to the museum.

As technology improves, the museum has too with the purchase of a Square ETFPOS terminal, an upgrade of the security system to 4G, a new book scanner and a few other items in the pipeline.

Another milestone for the museum was the celebration of our 60th, celebrating with an afternoon tea and the screening of some of the society films. Thank you to all the people who were involved in making this event happen which was a great success. Thanks, must also go to the Grenfell Dramatic Society for allowing us to use their rooms at no charge.

A disappointing note was the damage to the museum by vandals which is now being dealt with by the courts and police.

Finally, l'd like to thank all those people who have helped in any way to keep the museum open especially the out of hours opening. I know by naming people l'll miss someone but:

Fred and your can collecting

The Monday crew

Keith and Allen for overseeing the build

Jason and Fiona for the photo scanning

Di and Hugh for the hub display and publicity

Jill, Hugh and everyone else that helped them on weekends to open the museum

Col for taking meeting minutes and sending them out

Penny as treasurer and now Square expert

To all the people who have helped with research. This has become a big part of museum business with many people now researching their family history.

But a big thank you must go to Jill for all the work she does with Mosaic research and opening the museum on weekends

Again, Thank You to Everyone involved with the Museuml