Story Telling Update

Saturday 24th January 2015 saw a gathering of families and friends at Boyagin Rock to meet with the Wheatbelt NRM team who are in the process of capturing and publishing stories of the Traditional Owners about their connections with the landscape at Boyagin Rock. Below is a summary compiled by Kerry Horan.

Geri Hayden, Merv Abraham and Christie Kington

The Boyagin Rock Working Committee will continue to provide updates as they happen. It is expected that a draft of the storybook will be available for comment in the first half of 2015.

Hi All

The day was very casual, on the day Mervyn Abraham, Elvis Bennell, Vince Holt, Janet Hayden, Dot Rodney, Aubrey Hayden,  Geri Hayden, Christie Kingston, David Grasby & Kerry Collard (Horan) attended at Boogin. One of the local farmers also came across to say hello.

Some stories were collected in the afternoon from those who stayed,  Janet, Geri, Elvis, Aubrey & Dot as mentioned by Geri below. I also received apologies from Fay Slater & Vivienne Hansen.

Thanks Geri for starting the ball rolling over the weekend, it was a good opportunity for Christie & David to see Boogin & to meet some of the participants of this project. It was a lovely day out and it was great to hear some of the stories & the respect people hold for Boogin and each other.

I understand that some participants would like to record stories as a bigger group all together. In this case, we need to remember on the day we need reasonable conditions to use audio & camera and for everyone to be mindful that we are using stories in a story book format. It is harder to record in the larger group and we will have to stop & start & move equipment to get the story and/or come back to people for the parts we miss. The design of the storybook is a little unknown until we know what the stories are and the decisions about which stories will be used & the design of the storybook will come from the ideas of working group. I would like to reiterate what Vince has mentioned about getting individuals stories from participants, those who are unable to make the bigger group days we are happy to make times (and it’s our preference to do individual/ family interviews) with people at their homes or another convenient location.

Wheatbelt NRM will not be responsible for setting dates of the larger group meetings, we want to support this project as much as possible as it’s such a great project to be part of. However our part of the project is around developing the storybook. Which involves for the most part:

•   meeting participants,
•   coming along to record significant activities as co-ordinated by working group,
•  making appointments recording individual participants (family groups) to tell stories were appropriate,
•  collecting & researching documentation, photographs etc,
•  reviewing material for publication where appropriate (at different stages) with the working party
• We are happy to make a collection of photographs available on CD for participants at the end of the project

I would also suggest that face to face meetings with the working party at different stages would be helpful to provide feedback, progress (be a general point of contact)to discuss issues etc. Vince may be this is something for you to talk to the group about as we do not have everyone’s contact, and am unsure of who are representative of each of the groups involved in the project and its too difficult to manage communication for this aspect of the project with so many people involved in the project. I assume the working party has representation of the families/ people involved in the overall project? It is especially important as Wheatbelt NRM isn’t involved in all the aspects of the project but we would also have an idea of other things that are happening. Wheatbelt NRM will Vince as the first point of contact for the project, in any case.

Regards Kerry

 

Kerry Horan

Aboriginal NRM Project Facilitator
Wheatbelt NRM