By Ann Marie Angebrandt
HAVE a spare Wednesday and Thursday for the next six months?
Then Conservation Volunteers Australia is looking for you.
The organisation begins a six-month “heritagecare” project at Point Cook Homestead next week, to catalogue its collection of antique farm machinery.
Wealthy Scottish pastoralist, Thomas Chirnside, built the homestead 150 years ago as a thoroughbred stud and sportsground for his fellow colonial gentry, eventually adding rabbit, fox and deer, as well as formal gardens to his Point Cook Rd estate.
Volunteers will help research and record information about the farm machinery, as well as help out with low-level maintenance at the Parks Victoria-owned property.
Julie Brown, Heritagecare Project officer, manages similar projects around the state, and said volunteers were not always interested in history when they started.
“We find some people volunteer in these projects just for something to do, but then they develop a very keen sense of history about the property,” she said.
Heritagecare programs are run in conjunction with Heritage Victoria.
Anyone interested in volunteering for the project can contact Ms Brown on 0428 367 118 or visit their website www.conservationvolunteers.com.au.
They need to be available every Wednesday and Thursday for the next six months, starting 9 May.
Volunteers receive training and a uniform.
