Annual General Meeting 2017 will be held at 10.00 a.m., Saturday 2 December, at the main meeting room, Sunnybank Hills Library.
At which point all SDHG positions will be vacant. Three vacancies need to be fulfilled
- President
- Secretary
- Treasurer
For an organisation to continue it has to have one executive position of leadership (President). The current SDHG President will not re-nominate (see explanation below). If no one nominates and is elected at the Annual General Meeting on Saturday 2 December, the Sunnybank District History Group will go into abeyance.
Statement of the President of the Sunnybank District History Group, February 2012-November 2017
I will not re-nominate for President nor any executive position. I would be happy, if so elected, to hold a position as voluntary local history adviser and/or ad hoc professional historical researcher (my community rate is $25). The reasons for my decisions are as follows:
1. I may have the high ground in the policy to run a history group that addresses a wide range of topics — all of the Brisbane local history groups that maintain their membership do so, and frequently have speakers to talk about local history beyond their own district, however, it is apparent that I am not going to convince the small SDHG membership on this approach;
2. For several years, I have been the only substantive historical researcher who has put together papers and presentations specializing on the Sunnybank District, acknowledging the wonderful and kind assistance of my qualified colleagues, but the voluntary and unpaid professional work hours I put in the SDHG is too much. It is damaging my scholarly business more than helping. I have larger commitments for Brisbane Local History where my time and effort is being appreciated.
3. While I have worked hard to be very inclusive of political and social views, I felt that the populist and provincalist attitudes in the local history communities are too resistant to change, at least, that is how the SDHG has been for many years. Local history is a field of learning, it is not a place of local prejudice, personal memory, and to withdraw into a comfort zone of the familiar (provincialism).
I do see any further possibility for policy compromise. Across the main spectrum of political ideas, theorists and historians will tell you that such a policy of appeasement to prejudice and provincialism will end badly for those who value knowledge and a better world for everyone. In fact, my theory is that younger people don’t join local history group because they cannot relate to the nostalgia.
As mentioned in the last talk, the local poet and philosopher, Jack McKinney, concluded that knowledge is an interpersonal thing, and while that is true those persons need to be across the age range and across different cultures and different localities. I am 56 years old and I am not retired from professional life.