December 2024 Newsletter

THE Quarterly NEWS from December 2024

Roses, roses, everywhere!!!

Dear Members Wishing all our members a very Happy Christmas and summer holidays! 2024 has been another good year for Parnell Heritage. We have made full use of our excellent space in the Bloodworth Pavilion on Shore Road, and have held events there too. This year our AGM was held in the Parnell Cricket Clubrooms which was a perfect venue for this special event, well organised and most enjoyable.

Again, we have taken part in the Auckland Heritage Festival, and our stall at the Parnell Rose Festival was a great day out. It is our opportunity to showcase Parnell Heritage and engage with the public. The roses were just incredible (see above) and although the weather didn’t quite perform as planned, it was a very happy day enjoyed by many.

Remember, if you would like to take a more active role in Parnell Heritage or to help in any way, please contact Sue (who looks after our administration) at andreassensue@gmail.com / 022 647 5155.

With best wishes to you all for a Very Merry Christmas, Joint-Chairs Beth O’Loughlin and Roger Burton and Members of the Executive Committee

THE Quarterly NEWS from Auckland Heritage Festival – Exhibition at Kinder House As part of the Heritage Festival, we arranged an Exhibition of Louise Lonsdale-Cooper’s photographs at Kinder House. The event in September to launch the Exhibition was most enjoyable. We are very grateful to Parnell Heritage member, Carolyn Cameron, who liaised with Louise and organised the whole event, and to Gary Russell at Kinder House for all his help.

Having graduated with a Diploma of Fine Arts (Honours) from Elam, University of Auckland, Louise’s photographs from the 1970’s reflect aspects of Auckland city seen through her eyes over fifty years ago. As a student, she lived in Parnell, and on her daily walks photographed people, architecture and curious items (old trees, billboards, discarded furniture) seen around the houses and shops that others may have overlooked.

At the time, two notable photography teachers from Elam, John Turner and Tom Hutchins, were very positive about her work and encouraged Louise (whose maiden name was Wilson) to exhibit at the Auckland Central Library. Some of these photographs have been published in a number of 1970’s Photo-Forum magazines and her work also appeared in a 1975 book of New Zealand Women Photographers, called Fragments of a World - this will be issued in a new form next year to celebrate 50 years since its production.

Louise Lonsdale-Cooper

In 1974, at the time of the Polynesian Panther Movement, Louise was in Ponsonby Road one evening and photographed the Police Task Force who were rounding up suspected over-stayers near the Gluepot Hotel as they were closing. These documentary photographs were published in the Panther's Rapp Magazine. Stephanie Gibson, curator of New Zealand Histories and Cultures, from the Museum of Joint-Chair Roger Burton welcoming visitors

THE Quarterly NEWS from New Zealand, was very keen to have the negatives and prints, along with the magazine in the Te Papa collection. These items were gifted to Te Papa and can now be accessed online by the public for research and educational purposes.

We were most honoured to be able to exhibit these unique photographs and thank Louise for enabling such a memorable event.

The 2024 Annual General Meeting As you will have seen from the minutes and Chairs’ Report circulated to members in October, this year we were pleased to hold our AGM at the Parnell Cricket Clubrooms in Shore Road.

Complete with bar and very helpful barman, the meeting went well and we enjoyed a most convivial evening. Jeremy Boucher, Chair of Parnell Cricket Club, gave an excellent presentation on the History of the Cricket Club, which is one of New Zealand’s most successful.

Parnell Rose Festival As always, this Festival is such a lovely event.

Although there was some unexpected rain(!), the roses were spectacular. The crowds turned out and enjoyed wandering through the gardens, and the many food trucks did a great trade also.

The photo shows the Parnell Heritage stall with Sue Andreassen, Beth O’Loughlin and Alastair Bell.

THE Quarterly NEWS from Executive Committee As announced at the AGM, sadly Julie Hill has resigned from the Executive Committee. Julie joined Parnell Heritage at its very first meeting in the Strand Hotel in 2005. She had seen an article written by Rendell McIntosh, the first Chair of Parnell Heritage, announcing the meeting and encouraging people to take part. So Julie has given nearly twenty years of outstanding service to the Society, and we are all so grateful to her. She became a member of the Executive and served as Co-Chair with Mary Barry for many years, before becoming Chair when Mary went to live in the Bay of Plenty. Amongst helping with so many different issues for Parnell, she gave a lot of time to working on the Unitary Plan, as well as supporting the movement to protect the Dove-Myer Robinson Park.

Julie has a deep knowledge and love of Parnell. She lived first in Lee Street, a very old part of Parnell off Tohunga Crescent, and then the family moved to Takutai Street where she grew up. She attended Parnell School and later, as one of the ‘cool crowd’, she gathered outside the Parnell Pines Motel in 1973 to catch a glimpse of the Rolling Stones and she attended their concert at Western Springs. Julie’s grandfather owned some of the earliest motor cars in Auckland and started the garage on Birdwood Crescent - Montgomery Motors.

Also, we give special thanks to Carolyn Cameron who has resigned from the Executive Committee. Carolyn has contributed so much to the Society: she instigated the house name project commissioning plaques from Morris and James, she responds to queries about local buildings with historical details, she has created an inventory of artefacts and documents, as well as providing and labelling large folders as scrapbooks, now all neatly and safely stored in the Pavilion, and she delivers books and letters of welcome to families that move into Parnell. Thank you, Carolyn, we will miss your most generous support on the Executive.

If you would like to join our executive, do please let us know via the details given below.

If you have any suggestions for future events, or local places/history/people in which you are interested, and which might be suitable subjects for events, please don’t hesitate to contact Sue via the details given below. www.parnellheritage.org.nz contact: enquiries@parnellheritage.org.nz / PO Box 37100, Parnell 1151