Community
23 January, 2025
Proctor appointed new chair
A PROMINENT Mortlake writer has been tasked with helping to guide Victoria’s historical societies as he chairs a prestigious sub-committee.
Mortlake and District Historical Society member Craige Proctor was recently named as the new chair for the Historical Societies Support Committee (HSSC).
The HSSC works with historical societies across Victoria to provide advice, offer training and serve as a conduit between the Royal Historical Society of Victoria (RHSV) Council and the RHSV’s affiliated member societies for a two-way flow of information.
Mr Proctor said he was eager to hit the ground running, and thanked incumbent chair Dr Rosalie Triolo for both her support and dedication.
“I’m excited,” he said.
“I’ve been working very closely with Dr Triolo, who has been in the position for four years and is a dynamo.
“She is based in Melbourne and, in this volunteer role, she would get in the car and travel to regional communities across the state just to offer support.”
Mr Proctor had been a member of the committee for four years in 2014, where a point of emphasis for him had been assisting historical societies in joining social media, enhancing their newsletters and building succession plans for their membership.
“It was not a common thing with historical societies to be on social media, and to this day it is seen with a great deal of suspicion,” he said.
“But I helped quite a lot of groups set up their own pages.
“There were only around 90 groups using it 10 years ago, and now it’s probably around 800.
“Just about every local area has a historical society, and in the metropolitan areas there are hundreds.
“Regional historical societies are not well-known for having a strong presence - Warrnambool and now Colac certainly do - but it’s been interesting in seeing the ways historical societies are embracing the new while others are sort of being left behind.”
Mr Proctor said greater support and networking opportunities naturally exist for metropolitan societies, but he is hopeful a hybrid approach through technology could continue to bring regional and rural societies in to the fold.
“In the country there is physical distance, age and mobility, cost of fuel to travel, and you have someone who is a volunteer or a member of four or five different groups,” he said.
“It’s not easy for some to travel.
“We’re trying to increase the use of Zoom as a possibility for sharing, but not everyone has had the training.”
Mr Proctor was among the seven members of the Mortlake and District Historical Society who last year hosted a seminar for the RHSV in Mortlake last May, which was hailed a rousing success for a two-day seminar in a small country town.
He said this event served as an inspiration for what he hopes to see historical societies across Victoria achieve through bold action, and confidence in their abilities.
“The idea of staging a two-day event, for most historical societies, is overwhelming and the immediate response is they can’t do it,” Mr Proctor said.
“But with Mortlake, we knew we would have problems but, in the end, it was one of the best events we’ve ever staged in my 10 years with the RHSV.
“It’s about encouraging people to feel they can take these things on without meeting preconceived notions of what they think is acceptable.”
Mr Proctor said the seminars had served as a uniting presence for historical societies, and drawing on the experience and knowledge of likeminded volunteers positioned regional groups well.
“The seminars are an attempt to foster greater collegiality and networking, but most historians love learning, so these seminar days try to have a mixture of local history and how-to information, such as applying for grants or go about embarking on the digitisation of a newspaper collection,” he said.
“We want to provide frequently isolated groups with a means of learning more about what’s available.
“It’s about providing support at the local level to encourage people to stage similar events where they haven’t previously considered it, and encourage them to work together with other societies.
“It’s not changing the world, it’s just continuing to do what I’ve been doing in various guises for 10 years.”
Mr Proctor said it was a challenging time for community groups across the state, with the need for attracting new members more important than ever.
“We’ve lost so many stalwart members - Bern Delaney, Les Absalom, Doris Brewer, Joanne Jackson, Keith Jubb - people who turned up to every meeting and every event,” he said.
“They might not have done research or written articles, but they were physically supportive and passionate.
“I used to go to all these people if I wanted to know something.
“It comes down to succession planning and having strategies for what happens when there is no one left.
“It’s not a Mortlake problem, it’s everywhere.”
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