Keeping culture

Leanne O'Hara

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Audio Interview with Leanne O'Hara, Coordinator, Cooramah Aboriginal Cultural Centre

Recorded at Berkley suites, Canberra , 13/3/01
Interview by Cathie Payne , Australian Museum
Sound Recorded by Joshua Raymond, Australian Museum

[Interviewer's questions are paraphrased. Words with spelling queries are marked with [sp*]

Q. Could you introduce yourself and what you do in the cultural centre and the name of the cultural centre.
Hello, my name's Leanne O'Hara. Our cultural centre in Glen Innes is called the Coomarah Aboriginal Cultural Centre and I am sort of a co-ordinator, supervisor, bit of a jack of all trade.

Q. How extensive is the local Aboriginal community in Glen Innes and what are the names of the people from that region?
The local Aboriginal community in Glen Innes, the tribal area is called the Nugurrabul [sp*] tribe and population is approximately 250 Aboriginal people.

Q. What facilities does your centre provide and what can people do there?
A Our centre is broken up into a number of areas. First off we have the keeping place. We also have an art gallery and a restaurant and conference facilities, and we also provide for school children to come in and actually spend a day there and learn different aspects of Aboriginal culture and taste foods and that type of thing.

Q. What does a keeping place mean to you?
A keeping place means to me more of education, sharing. I think it's somewhere that we can actually keep part of our past and share it with the present.

Q. Is there any historical or cultural significance about this site or why do you select this site? Where is it actually?
Our culture centre is located on the New England Highway in Glen Innes on approach from Armidale. Now there is no really significant cultural - it's gone - Mainly the site was purchased for the actual position because of we are sort of located on the highway as you come into town.

Q. How did you go about setting up your cultural centre?
I suppose for a number of years the community of Glen Innes had an idea of actually having some sort of cultural education centre and we sort of looked at - the local Aboriginal lands council owns a property called the W ill ows and at one stage there we had a feasibility study done on actually having that centre at the W ill ows and because of different aspects, because it was located near a river and there was different things, that didn't go ahead. But over those years people still had the idea of actually having something in Glen Innes along the same lines. So it's just been a number of people that were sort of keen and kept the idea going. We actually had a feasibility study done with having the cultural centre in Glen Innes and applied for funding and lo and behold we were lucky.

Q. So why was the centre set up?
It probably took, as I was saying before, just with the time frame, about 12 months, two years for the actual centre in Glen Innes and it was more looking for like where we actually wanted to put it, what type of building, what we actually wanted to have in that building and, mm.

Q. Why was the cultural centre set up?
Okay the Coomarah Aboriginal Cultural Centre is part of the, of Coomarah Housing Aboriginal Corporation, that is a corporation that is based in Glen Innes. There is also the local Aboriginal lands council. If you look at it as a whole picture the members of the corporation are virtually the members of the lands council, so it's sort of one community but they are separately funded organisations. Now they sort of, I suppose it's sort of members from the lands council and members from Coomarah that are still , were the initial setter uppers of the actual cultural centre itself.

Q. When was the idea decided upon?
Probably about eight to ten years ago.

Q. And that actual site at the Willows, how far out of Glen Innes?
The W ill ows is approximately, around about 48 kilometres out of Glen Innes and then also another thing too was the actual - like I don't mind travelling that distance but if you are sort of offering school children that type of thing and we've had a number of groups visit the centre, school groups from other actual towns like Armidale and Tamworth and it sort of adds quite a bit more travelling time and that sort of thing. But then sort of out there you've got, out there you did have more of an opportunity of operating, have a wider range of activities and where we are now is more of a confined space but we still do try to offer the same sort of activities there.

Q. In the initial stages how many people from the community were involved?
There was probably about ten to fifteen people that were sort of - well the whole, you sort of look at - there was probably about 50 per cent of the community was involved but there was more of a core base of about ten to fifteen people that sort of kept it going through the years and then more in the initial stages of setting up the centre itself.

Q. What obstacles did you have to overcome in establishing the centre?
One of the first obstacles is, is funding. You've got to look at what you want and the amount you want and where is that available. With the, with the centre it was approximately 260,000 and that type of a grant sort of ATSIC is the main, the place where you can actually go for that money so. And also another area was actual commitment from the community and it's got to be more of a community project for it to succeed.

Q. How long did the building take?
The building took approximately four to five months and we also had a number of problems during that time was weather and that type of thing.

Q. How many people were involved?
We were lucky that we had quite a large CDP workforce in Glen Innes and most of the actual participants did contribute towards the actual building of the centre along with qualified tradespeople and - which was really good because it kept sort of things going at quite a fast pace. Also the pride in actually seeing, even now seeing participants come forward and say well I helped build that or I put up that stone wall there or I did something and you can sort of, it's really good to see the pride in themselves and that they - you know that they can sort of recognise that it is part of them. Like we sort of try to, not sort of say it's Coomarah Centre, but it's out centre type of thing and we all should have pride in it. Yep.

Q. What type of funding did you seek?
We received a grant from ATSIC of approximately 260,000 dollars. And that was the initial start up, building of the centre and we sort of don't receive a great deal of funding now as I suppose in one way we are lucky that we actually are part of the CDP in Glen Innes because it sort of helps with actual staff, wages and staff because all the staff are part-time. So they work two days a week which is their CDP hours and we also receive some help from the CDP for telephones, electricity costs and that type of thing. But with the restaurant we actually have to be self-sufficient in that area and if we need more stock we've got to actually supply, actually buy it from funds that we do generate, and it's the same, we do stock a few nick nacky sort of souvenir type things in the gallery and we have to actually make money to purchase more goods.

Q. How did the community decide what facilities to include in the center.
Well, initially before we actually built the centre, Koori Cuisine was established. It had a little building on the highway and so that was something that was going to go in there anyway so that was the idea of having the restaurant, and then it was, we have a number, quite a number of good artists that are on the CDP. So that was the other idea of having the actual art gallery and then the actual keeping place.

Q. Was the Keeping Place was in the original plans?
Yes, yes.

Q. What was the main reason people wanted to set up the Keeping Place ?
It's, I think it's, well as I was saying before, just to share information with the wider community. Not a lot of people - well if you sort of look at your local people, not a lot of people I suppose would get to the city to go to a museum or wherever to have a look at artefacts and have that information obtainable to them where the locals, it's sort of - I suppose if you look at any town in Australia there is still an object of racism and we're sort of trying to overcome that in Glen Innes by being able to have the locals come in and have them actually, the information is there for them and they can sort of get a bit more a broader view of Aboriginal culture and that type of thing.

Q. What do you have in the Keeping Place?
We have a number of objects. We have quite a few stone objects and we also have a number of wooden objects, boomerangs that type of thing, yep.

Q. Is this material from the Glen Innes area?
Most of the material is, yes. Initially when we set up, we were setting up the culture centre, we placed ads in the local papers asking for anyone in the Glen Innes area that had any objects that they would like to donate to us on a sort of a, like a permanent loan system and we also wrote letters, wrote a letter to the local historical society in Glen Innes and we sort of weren't too hopeful from, like from talking to a few other different cultural centres, we weren't too hopeful about getting anything but they wrote back to us and they said, look, what we've got here you can have. We try to concentrate more on the local artefacts or whatever from the local area, we actually concentrate more on those and that's what we have on display and we did have quite a few people from the community come in and, and bring objects in for us for a loan system.

Q. Are there labels and information about them?
We do, we have a small amount of information because a lot of the objects didn't come - well most of the objects that sort of came from the local community didn't really have a great deal of information. It's sort of only that, oh well, Uncle Joe was out in the paddock ploughing one day and he found that boomerang, or he found that grinding stone out there type of thing. So most of that is only sort of actual, the area that is was found in and we sort of provide like who donated it, a bit of a spiel about what the actual artefact is and what it was used for type of thing. We got a little bit of information from the historical society of where the actual objects came from and that sort of thing and most of them, most of the objects were sort of deceased estates where people actually had them and left them to the historical society.

Q. Was there any information about where these objects were originally found?
Not a great deal. It's mainly sort of - because they've probably had them for 50, 60 years and I suppose, like even at the Australian Museum, you look at that sort of thing, they've sort of only got where it was found and by who type of thing which is such a shame because you lose that history, that history is gone if you don't sort of know the object. But most of them haven't got a great deal of information to go with them.

Q. Is that why it's significant, the Keeping Place?
It is, yeah, it is. Sort of trying to - it's not so much for the actual, like the wider community, it's also for the local Aboriginal community because most of us have lost our history and it is sort of still an education base, it's also an education base for us too because it's a learning process for us. Like some, when I first started working there I sort of didn't know a great deal about the artefacts and that type of thing but just in that time that I've been there and coming down to Sydney to the Australian Museum, I've actually learnt a lot more and you sort of, not respect, but it gives you more of a, I suppose it is respect for your culture.

Q. Is there much historical information on it? Has there been Aboriginal historians collecting information?
Well, one of the, one of the sad things that we found by going to the Australian Museum there isn't really anything of the Glen Innes area in the Australian Museum . I think we came across a couple of boxes, boxes of stone objects. That's all we found down there. There's a little bit of historical information like at the local history house, that type of thing and we are in the process at the moment with, jointly with the National Parks and Wildlife with our Aboriginal sites officer, of putting - there was some ads placed in the paper, trying to obtain - like if there was any photographs that people had or any information that community members actually had that they could bring forward for us.

Q. Are there plans to repatriate anything from the Australian Museum to here?
Not at the moment, no. We have plans - I was in Sydney about a fortnight ago and we have plans to do an exhibition on fishing, that's going to be our first exhibition. And - but it's just a time frame with the actual, with Tracy Duncan down there and time to actually get it up there and get things set up, so that w ill be our first one.

Q. Is this something that the center could get further funding for?
What we want, what we want to do up there, one of our main, what we'd like to do is sort of really, not sort of revamp inside but actually like re-establish our keeping place. We'd actually like - when you came through the door of our cultural centre just sort of step in and go through something like a time frame and you'd sort of start but keep it, try to keep it local and sort of start at a certain area and as you walked around you sort of went, say, from 50,000 years ago you'd start off and as you sort of walked around the actual, actual keeping place, you'd have, you'd come up to say 1900 but during that you'd have different stages that you could go through. And then we'd sort of go into more pictorial and on from the 1900s on to modern day, the modern day era.

Q. How many people come to the keeping place and how is it used by educators and schools
We have - I've got to think - well last year I think we had about five thousand people come through the centre and that is sort of based on just people off the highway, just call in to have a look. School groups, we do have a number of school children who do come through and conference bookings that type of thing.

Q. Is it in the school curriculum?
No. Like Aboriginal education, you know, it is incorporated but they sort of come down. It's just more of a, I suppose it's more of a help for them type of thing, more, a little bit more for them. They can bring the kids in and they can sort of, you sort of structure it, if they are little kids you sort of talk about certain things and if they are older children you can sort of go quite a bit more depth, into a bit more depth with the - we sort of talk about the artefacts, we talk about what they are used for, we talk about a bit of Aboriginal history and we also do food tasting, that type of thing.

Q. What interest have younger Aboriginal people taken in it?
We have, with the younger kids we do a bit of an art experience and the kids absolutely love that. We usually do a big mural. We just get a big piece of calico and we have a couple of artists that come go, a couple of the ladies that come up and they just draw pictures on it, you know, of kangaroos and whatever else, and it's just a big long white piece and the kids get out the back and they have their paints and they actually paint the mural and that's something they can take back and they tell them a little bit of a story as they go, you know what I mean type of thing and they do dot paintings and they paint however. And the kids love that and that's the smaller children. They take that back to their school when it's finished and that type of thing.

Q. So these children's programs are part of the activities of the cultural centre then?
Yes.

Q. How many programs might you run in a year?
We've probably had about, oh, in the last 12 months we've probably had about 15 or 20 schools come through, which I suppose is not a great deal but sort of up in that area there isn't a great - and sort of travelling is a bit of a problem too, like Glen Innes only has, they've only got three schools in the Glen Innes and then you've got a few little surrounding schools but the distance, you know, to the cultural centre I think an hour like Armidale, Inverell, then you've got two hours to Tamworth, so it's sort of quite a bit of a travelling distance for the children. But we have actually, we have people, members of the staff actually go to some schools. Like we do have like some of the local ASPA [*] committees which is the Aboriginal - this is going to stump me now. ASPA is a - it's there, it's there. ASPA is a, it's part of the school, It's a funding sort of, it helps, you know, with the school, with the Aboriginal kids in the schools and they sort of, they usually have X amount of dollars to run the different programs and that type of thing. We have had a number of the, some of the staff go actually out to different schools and they might do a bush tucker day, that sort of thing and they take out different samples for the kids and talk about the bush tucker and yep.

Q. What are the main achievements of the centre?
Well, one of the main achievements to me is, is sort of, well one of the main things that we are sharing something with the wider community, and also the pride, I suppose up there too is the pride of the actual community ourselves.

Q. The pride that you have in the centre?
Yep.

Q. How would you describe what it has meant?
See a number of the staff are younger staff that we have working there and they only work two days per week and to a lot of them I think it's their first sort of real job that they've actually had and most of them sort of went away - we've had customer service courses and a few of the younger staff actually went and done catering courses and cooking courses, that type of thing. And it's so great to see them. Like we had a roster system done up and it's so great to say, look, you know, Joe Blow and whoever is rostered on Monday and Tuesday and they roll in at the time they've got to come in at nine o'clock and they're, you know, presented nicely, they've got their uniforms on and I think it's sort of, it's instill ed such a pride in themselves and it's lifted their self-esteem. We've had staff there that some of them, like you wouldn't have got boo, you know what I mean sort of thing, you could, when they first started working there you sort of thought, oh god, you couldn't imagine them serving people or whatever and now they're sort of, you know, they just cruise through the day, you know what I mean. You can have, like I suppose we've got a couple of certain customers that come in that you've got to sort of quickly run and close the door when they walk in, you know, but they handle it, you know what I mean. They come out and they handle the customers and if there is rude customers or whatever, you know, they know what to do and it, it is good. It's like they've got a job, even though they're still on CDP and they're only just working in the local Aboriginal community, it's like they've actually got a job.

Q. What about some of the other achievements?
Okay, we, I think last year we generated approximately $35,000 and we actually did have a profit [laughs]. It was only a small one but we actually didn't run at a loss so that was a good thing. And it's sort of, you know, instead of, well, I suppose we still depend on the corporation for some funding. Like as I was saying sort of with like our electricity and telephone but we are, you know, providing our own, we still , you know, it's not a complete dependency we do have a, part of it is self-sufficient.

Q. The art gallery, you have so many artists.
We have quite a few artists that do magnificent paintings. You know they're very talented and - which is a really good thing. It's not sort of, which is great, it's not really a cost to the culture centre because most of the materials and that that type of thing is actually supplied by CDP as, because the artists are on actual work project. And we've, we sell a lot of paintings and, it's great.

Q. Does that money go back to the artists?
What we do is, twenty per cent goes back to the artist and the other, then we sort of split it up. Money does go back into the corporation for the cost of materials and that type of thing and the remainder goes back into the culture centre.

Q. This is the Coomarah Corporation that actually handles this.
Yep.

Q. Is that separate funding with buying the materials?
See, what happens when the CDP is actually funded there is a, there, they actually apply for running costs of ongoing costs of day to day operational costs and we do, that part of it comes from that.

Q. How many staff do you have here?
There is approximately ten staff, and we have four cooks - one, two, three, four - yep, we have four cooks and then we have six customer service staff and they cover quite a broad range. They sort of - they're waitresses and they're cleaners, they're - they, you know, they help out in the gallery, they, it's quite a broad range that they do cover.

Q. And they do tours?
Yes, they virtually do everything.

Q. A lot of -
Because we don't sort of - we started off with having a cleaner and we started off with having waitresses on that side and then we sort of, at the start we actually had a split up. We had the cultural centre itself which was the gallery and keeping place and you had your staff that worked on that side. And then we had Koori Cuisine which you had your staff, waitresses and whatever worked on that side. But over time staff sort of come and go and things sort of worked out, so now it's just a full area. So you actually come into work. You could be talking to someone about Aboriginal culture in the gallery or you could actually be serving a customer in the, waitressing, serving a customer in the restaurant.

Q. It's multi-tasking.
Yep, which is good too because if you've got - if like you've got a number of people in the gallery and someone's, you have two or three people that want to know something, you know, people can come across from the other side and talk to them. We try to sort of have the staff knowing how to do virtually everything in the centre.

Q. What range of age groups do you have?
Well, most of the staff are young. There would only be, I think, out of the ten, there'd be three of us oldies. And most of them are probably between the age of 18 to 25 years.

Q. So this is giving them experience?
Yeah and it's a funny thing, more females than males, for some reason. We have only, at the moment I think we've got only one male staff member out of that. All the rest are females.

Q. What happens to the young people that work here?
Well, we have sort of had, well, not a large, we've had a fair turnover of staff but a couple of people have gone on to, have applied for other jobs and there was, one of the young fellas had an interview this week for an actual job in another town. So, it's also a good training base because as they are there they are sort of getting on the job experience each day that they work, so they're not sort of, they've done their initial training, like at TAFE or that sort of thing, and then they can actually, they're still getting their on the job training each time, each day that they actually work.

Q. So what tips and advice would you offer to people setting up?
Well, one of the first tips that I offer to people is that when you're initially setting up, you know, it is good to have the community involved. I think it's not sort of so much if you're getting two or three people there saying we're going to do this thing. I think you need your whole community involved because the culture centre to me is the community's. It's just not so and so because he set it up or it's her because she works there but I think it's got to be a very much more of community based. And also you've got to look at that too as why you want to set it up. You know what is the community itself going to get out of it and also what is the wider community, what do you want to offer to the actual wider community.

Q. What about after setting up?
One of the, that we actually found is, well, initially when you advertise you must make sure, it's a really big must, make sure that the service that you're advertising, that you can actually provide that service because there is nothing worse than having someone come in and you're saying you provide a great big - which is easy to do, you provide a great big glossy brochure, we have this, we have this, and you only have half of it, and one of your best tools of advertising is word of mouth, so there is nothing worse than a local person coming in, having a look around and having a brochure in their hand and realising that, you know, you don't offer half of what you've got in there. And going away and telling another ten people that, oh, I went up to the culture, up to that Coomarah Culture Centre today and they've got nothing there. You know what I mean type of thing? And that's your worst advertising is word of mouth, so that's one of the services, and also if you are actually advertising to say, okay, we're open seven days a week from nine to four, that is the centre is open from nine to four, seven days a week, that you're not sort of, oh, because we don't feel like opening up today or, you know, this happens, and you don't open and you know people do turn up and it's quite a turn off to a lot of customers that you are not there. And also with us with having the actual restaurant and conference areas is we take bookings and to make sure that your bookings are recorded properly and we actually use, we have a diary system and we also have a great big whiteboard in our office that has, it's drawn up with each day of the month and we actually write into our diary when we take bookings and then we write it straight onto the whiteboard. Just to make sure once you do take a booking that, you know, everything turns out right and that the customer is happy.

Q. How do you promote the centre amongst the local community.
We have, we have quite a good association with the local tourist centre in Glen Innes. They've been very helpful to us. Initially we had our brochures up there, we also done up a big sort of poster type of, framed sort of poster, with photographs and that sort of thing and information on it and that is hanging up there. And also about 12 months after we opened I sent out an invitation to a number of other tourist attractions in Glen Innes just inviting them into the centre for a morning tea and it was just informal. We sat together and talked about how we could help each other. It may only be little things as in, the bed and breakfast down the road stocking our brochures or our menu, putting our menu up in the room. The local motel down the road putting the menu in the room. That type of thing. But you can just help each other and just recommendations, like if someone comes in and they say oh where is a good place to stay tonight, a caravan park, that type of thing. There is a caravan park just behind you, Craigie Burns [sp*] over there. It just sort of helps out, you know, it can't do any harm, that type of thing but it's just a little bit of extra pull the customers in through your doors.

Q. What difference do you think it's made to the Glen Innes area? Is the community working together now?
Well, it's, it's so great. I think one of the great things I know when we first started was seeing different people come in from the town, just to come in for a look to start off with. You know you sort of have your town ladies type of thing and they come in just for a look. And then at Christmas time they come in and make a booking for their Christmas party type of thing and they come up and have, you know, they have their party, they have a lunch here, they turn around and say how wonderful it was. And we also have a number of community groups in Glen Innes utilise us, along the lines of Rotary. They come up and have dinners there, they have meetings there, use our conference facilities, different ones. Legacy and Lions Club, that type of thing. So it's sort of, I suppose, it's more like the community sort of, it's more of an opportunity for the community to mix together. But I think they weren't sort of, it was sort of quite a split in Glen Innes, do you know what I mean? So you have the Aboriginal community and the non Aboriginal community but now with the non Aboriginal community coming to the centre more I think it's getting, you know, bringing the community a little bit more together, and I know sort of like, for instance, just one example, like we've had the mayor of Glen Innes, he's been up there a number of occasions for different things and he popped up a couple of days before Christmas and invited the staff to the mayoral dinner, you know, that type of thing where before something like that would have never happened, do you know what I mean?

Q. This is a significant change, isn't it?
Yeah, it is quite.

Q. You are working more together. Do you think it is going to get bigger as you go along?
We hope to, yes, we hope it does get bigger, it's so ought, and it's so like, you know, say the president of the Lion's Club or something like that, you'll walk down the street, and he w ill pull up and say hi to you or, you know how the centre going and that type of thing? Where things like that just never would have happened. There seemed to be a barrier, a barrier there but I think with the opening of the centre and, and the on going of the centre, it's sort of breaking down a lot of the barriers in Glen Innes with the two communities.

Q. Breaking down some of the prejudices?
Yes, it is, yes. Like they can sort of see that, they can come up there, that we are just as professional as anyone else in Glen Innes. You know, well, as I said, we are just as professional as any other organisation, catering organisation or whatever in Glen Innes.

Q. Do the young people take a lot of pride in it and is it their future?
Yes, I do I think they see a great future. Well as I was saying before a lot of them this is their first job really, their first real job in, it's not really in the real world but I suppose it is in the real world, and I think it sort of gives them that little bit of get up and go, okay, you know, there's a job going at one of the restaurants in Glen Innes, I'm going to have a go at that, you know what I mean. And a few of them are doing that now, where before they were just on CDP. They sort of, I suppose like any small town, they have the pressures of drugs and alcohol, that type of thing and a few of them were sort of getting, going a long those lines, but now they can sort of see a future and they can sort of say okay, there's a lot more than that sort of thing in Glen Innes. You know, and they're having a go, they're sort of more, a lot more self-esteem, they want to have a future, they want to improve their lifestyles and they want to improve their opportunities.

Q. Also seeing it at the grassroots stage they might feel it w ill grow.
I think it's, a lot of the younger ones, I think it's, and even like myself, they have a feeling like it's part of them. You sort of - and quite a few of them, like you still , like you still in the community you get the knockers, that knock the centre and I've seen them, you know, they, they get the bristles up their back when people are saying something bad about the centre and it's their pride, their own pride they've got in themselves and they've also got pride, it's their place and they are part of it.

Q. How have you used the local Media?
We have quite a good - change positions - we have quite a good relationship with the local newspaper which is the Glen Innes Examiner and they run quite a few, they run a really great article when we actually opened the centre. Usually when we have something on at the centre like we've had, we had a visit from Troy Cassar Daly there when he spent a couple of hours with the community. The local newspaper comes up. But also, they include, you know any little tidbits, something that might be going on there, something new might be happening and they are always quite happy, the editor is quite happy to come up and have a bit of a talk to us and pop something in the paper. Initially when we opened up we did send media releases to all the television stations, but we didn't receive any interest, no one turned up on the day of the opening and, so that was quite disappointing.

Q. But this is beginning to change?
Well, not so much, sort of locally, not regionally really but locally and also now we've been included, they have a, the Glen Innes Visitors' Centre actually have - where it's really good to have a, I think what a lot of the centres should be with their local tourist centre is have a good relationship with them because they've just done a thirty second commercial in Glen Innes and we're actually included in that commercial and that is aired regionally in the New England area.

Q. Has the local radio been supportive?
Yes, they, as I was saying, when small things are going on, or when different things are going on, they sort of, if you give them a call they are quite happy to give us a bit of mention and a bit of a plug and that type of thing, yeah.

Q. Do you time events happening at the centre with more national ones?
Well, yeah, we usually, we sort of, we had an anniversary. Our first year of opening we had a bit of an open day at the centre which was a free day for people, like the community, and also the wider community to come in and have afternoon tea and have a bit more of a look around, have a talk, that type of thing. We also had the, when the torch relay came through Glen Innes the actual torch came into the centre. We had it there for five minutes, which was quite significant I don't think it sort of happened in too many places, but - and it was good because a lot of the wider community, the non Aboriginal community came up to the centre, we put an advertisement in the paper saying we're having free afternoon tea, damper and tea and that type of thing, you know what I mean, and a lot of the non Aboriginal community came up to us then to actually have a look around, have a cup of tea and that sort of thing, they come out and stood outside and watched the torch relay come down the road and come into the centre. So it's just drawing, it's good to sort of keep, it's good to keep something going every couple of months, just even if it's a bit of an open day or a bit of a something or rather, just to keep the community coming back through because and also I think it's good to keep, I know you've still got to work on your local community, but also your biggest dependency is sort of like your passing trade or your visitors to town or whatever. But just to keep your local community interested, like sort of keep things, that's what we want to try and do at the moment, it's like with exhibitions, it's keep something turning over in the centre so they are interested in coming back. Like they can come up and have a look at the centre once and say okay we've seen it, but if you can keep their interest and like when they do have visitors they bring them back up to the centre and just keep their interest going in the local community.

Q. What are the Keeping Places near you?
We only have one actually in New England and that's in Armidale, Armidale Aboriginal keeping place in Armidale. The other closest one would be between Glen Innes and Ballina. There's one on the highway, I can't think exactly what the name is and then there's Yarrawarra Aboriginal Corporation down at Coffs Harbour, they're the closest ones.

Q. What kind of activities can you see happening in the future?
Now what did I say there. We'd like, what our aim now is to, is because our centre is set up, we have the, the art gallery and the keeping place is virtually set up in the one area. We'd like to completely separate the two and have the art gallery and souvenirs in one area and then actually have the keeping place, but what we'd like to do is for people to come in and actually go through a time frame. And starting off probably say around60,000 years ago because there was a significant find of megafauna in Glen Innes which is * on bones and that type of thing and sort of looking at man and mammal type of thing because I was, I got onto the internet and I was having a look on the internet and there was different policies on there saying oh, did, you know, the Aboriginal people wipe out these, you know, these, this megafauna, did they die out like the dinosaurs did, or did the Aboriginal people virtually k ill them out. So something like that and then starting with something like that and then going through the stages of Aboriginal history sort of and keeping, trying to keep it to the local Glen Innes area and coming up to probably about 1900, to Federation even that sort of thing, or you could actually to, like colonisation, 1788, and then going more into a pictorial display with information and coming around to the present day. And we would sort of like people to come in and they'd have, they'd have an experience, they've learnt something by walking, sort of in a timeframe type of thing where you could actually, because you get a lot of overseas visitors come in and they are sort of, they don't know virtually anything about Aboriginal culture and it's good for them to come in, it's good to be able to sort of say, okay, Aboriginal, that boomerang that is in the display case there is a thousand years old and it's good to identify with them and sort of say well, around the same time that the, you know, the pyramids were built in Egypt type of thing and that sort of time frame so they can sort of identify, like 60,000 years ago, this was happening somewhere else in the world, you know what I mean type of thing. And it sort of gives that like how much history there is, not sort of thinking that Aboriginal people were only here six months after Captain Cook sailed in 1978, in 1788, which a lot of, you know what I mean type of thing, yeah. And so they actually come in, they actually come in through the front door and they go through the centre and they walk away learning something. Even something, you know, a little significant thing but they actually walk away with a different perspective Aboriginal people or just learning something.

Q. This year, what have you got planned?
Well, this, what I, as I was just talking about, what we'd like to do, we sort of haven't got a great deal of programs projected this year yet but we sort of still are doing what we've been doing most of the time. We're still doing, you know, school groups, we're still doing our conference bookings and that type of thing, so we just sort of at the moment because we haven't got a great deal of funding at the moment so it's just sort of go with the flow as things come along.

Q. What kind of funding does the centre need at this stage?
See one of the problems like, one of the main problems, funding with ATSIC there is quite a big competition with your funding with ATSIC and I think we sort of have to look elsewhere, like the Ministry of the Arts, that type of thing and go from there because - and sort of like with the, with the CDP, they only give us a specific amount of money for the actual CDP and you've sort of go so, like the culture centre isn't the only project that the CDP activity or project, what you call it, that the CDP has. So you can't sort of take the bulk of that funding they receive from ATSIC for the culture centre and that means other projects w ill suffer. So it sort of has to be split up in different areas, so I think we need sort of to look elsewhere for funding for the next two years.

Q. Are the community coming to you with ideas?
Well, we've had, we've had different people come in from the community and say you should be doing things this way or you should be doing things that way and, but most of it is positive, most of it is positive ideas. They might come in and see something they, you know, you could do this bit this way and it might, you know, look better or whatever.

Q. How important is the networking part of your job? Do you have links nationally, locally?
Well, we've got quite, a very good network. I suppose regionally and nationally not a great, not a great big network sort of thing but locally we do have quite a good network.

Q. Are other Aboriginal people approaching you from other communities?
We have had a couple of different people contact us from different communities on how we set our centre up and we sent out information to them.

Q. They don't visit?
Well sort of, well I think a lot of the communities it's funding wise too. Like it's - you sort of, it's no point in jumping in a car, driving up for a day and having a quick look, do you know what I mean, and jumping back in the car and going home. I think it's something they need to have, even come up for a week and spend a week there because there is so much that you need to talk to them about and go through with them and just let them get a feel of what you are doing, because I know that every culture centre would be different. Like you sort of look at ours and look at Lightning Ridge or wherever, everyone's different. But I think that they need to sort, they need time to spend at each culture centre and probably over say a two week period they'd have a couple of days at one, a couple of days at the next and just move around, and get their ideas from there.

Q. How long has your web site been set up and how important has that been?
One of the important areas of your web site is that, well, Glen Innes, one of Glen Innes', one of the significant at Glen Innes is they have the only, they have what they cal the Glen Innes Standing Stones which is actually a national monument. And they have quite a big festival there every year, and that's very, well very highly promoted by the local tourist centre, so we're actually linked in with the tourist centre. Our web site is linked into their web site. And I think it's a good idea because technology, the way it is going now most people are on the net and if you are actually visiting, say for instance you are visiting Glen Innes if you type up Glen Innes, you actually get Glen Innes tourist, well the Glen Innes' web site and we're actually listed in there as an add on and they can have a look at us and, and, and it's sort of, I think it's more of a realistic - like a brochure is a brochure but I think a web site more interesting, you can put so much more on there, people can view different things, and yeah.

Q. Do many people in the Aboriginal community have access to the web site?
Well not a great deal of people do in the local community. There is a few that actually have computers that have access to the web but a few people do come up to the centre and utilise it up there. But another tip is, give my friend a little plug, I've got to give Fred a little plug. No, we had our web site down up by a fellow by the name of Fred Bolton who is from Tenterfield and he actually didn't charge us anything to initially do the web site. And he was really great, he just came in and got photos, he'd done it up, came back and two or three times he brought it back to us and said look is this what you want and you know, we said no we don't like the colour of that or we don't want that included or whatever, and he just charges ten dollars a month to keep the site going. So it's - but I think as I said with technology, you know, it's the, you know, the computers and the net is here to stay and I think it is where most people do look for information so it's good to be on there.

Q. Does the tourist bureau in Glen Innes give you feedback?
No, they haven't, but that's something we could find out.

End of interview

Credits

Contact details

Peter White
Aboriginal Project Officer
Aboriginal Heritage Unit
Email: Email Peter White