Historical Sub-committee report – June 2023

The main activity of the sub-committee is the collection of photos (group and class), obituaries, and news of members, for addition to the website (www.nbhsoba.net). This will continue into the foreseeable future. There are many interesting additions in the past year; as an example, we have recently received a detailed biography of Professor Lewis Keys, our major benefactor, who died in January 2022, in his 100th year.  

For anyone supplying photos by email, please digitise to at least 500kb to ensure a quality image (or just send the photos to Dick by mail, and they will be returned after digitisation). Dick’s job is made easier if names are given in row order, with any unnamed students clearly shown (please see the photos on the nbhsoba.net web site for examples).

We would again like to encourage the various yearly cohorts to write down their anecdotes, so that they can be included on the website (only those from the year of 1957 are there so far).

Our activities at the Regional Library, involving 4 volunteers from the OBA (Beach, Scaife, Sanders, Wilson) and 1 from the NGHS ESU (Lindsay) working on NHS, NBHS and NGHS items (the Caesar Smith Collection) should come to a successful conclusion in the next year. All of the documents and photos held by the Library have been catalogued, and are to be made available through the Hunter PhotoBank.

The remaining issues to be addressed with the Library/Museum are:

• Transferring a full set of our group photos (staff, prefects, sporting teams, etc) to the Library in the format required for addition to the Hunter Photo Bank; this duplication of these photos offers a greater chance that they will be available into the long term future

• Cataloguing cassette tapes used to record interviews with ex-students (NHS, NGHS and NBHS) used by Audrey Armitage in writing the 75 Year book.

• Cataloguing items given to the Museum, which were not catalogued previously; a large number of items are catalogued and are available through our website (see “Caesar Smith Collection” under the History tab). The goal is to have the complete Collection catalogued (both Library and Museum items), with links to our website. All of the Archive activities at the Library and Museum have now been placed under one person, Julie Baird, which should assist in the integration.

In addition, through an initiative of Bill, additional names have been added to the WW2 plaques at Waratah High School. Bill has also found details of all NBHS participants in WW2, and has one page records of each one; consideration is being given to adding them to our website.

The NBHS Old Boys Facebook site (with use continuing to increase) is maintained by Greg Kentish, and this has become a useful communication medium for the Old Boys and Senior Ladies, and is also useful to members of the public who have had relatives at the school. Greg’s efforts in maintaining and enhancing the website and Facebook page are again gratefully acknowledged.

Each year our numbers decrease, and we have a limited time to set up our legacy. If there are any photos, programs of school events, physical artefacts that you would like to contribute, now is the time.

Peter Scaife/ Bill Storer/ Dick Sanders

21 June 2023