Hello Farina Supporters

Happy New Year to you all

I hope you have all enjoyed a break over the festive season.

I would like to welcome Helen Rayner to our team, Helen has taken over Cathie Gregory’s role.

We wish Cathie all the best for the future with her family in New Zealand.

Our thoughts go out to all those who have been affected by these terrible fires.

Our thanks to all the fireys and volunteers on the fire grounds.

I am saddened to report that a “Farina Friend” has become a victim of the Cudlee Creek fire in Sth Aust.

Ron Selth perished whilst defending his home in Charleston in the Adelaide Hills.

Ron was our first Structural Engineer who helped design and certify the foundations and flooring system for Patterson’s House. Our thoughts are with his family at this difficult time.

Volunteer registrations are flowing in and we have places across all weeks of the program.

We currently have approx 57 registrations which roughly equates to 100 people.

Weeks 7&8 require more volunteers at this stage as well as week 3.

Getting your registrations in early gives us a chance to have some consistency with staffing levels of across all weeks of the program.

Farina will be a different kettle of fish now that Patterson’s House has come online.

All aspects of our retail side will be “starting from scratch”

Visitor experience is paramount.

I encourage you to read Rob Olston’s book Farina “From Gibbers to Ghostown”

It is almost our bible. It’s important that all information we pass on to our visitors is correct.

We have now sold the bakery caravan.

The “submarine” has served us well over the past 6 years. It’s truly remarkable how our bakers managed to produce so much product out of such a small space.

They won’t know themselves in the new kitchen.

The Official Opening of Patterson’s House will be held on Friday June 19.

I am pleased to announce that Dick Smith OA has agreed to officiate.

Dick is a long term contributor to Farina and I thank him for his support.

The annual cricket match will be held on the following Saturday and the John Bell Memorial will be on the Sunday we hope to see many of our previous Farina volunteers in a Back To Farina celebration.

These volunteers didn’t have the mod cons we enjoy today.

It is our plan to build a portable public toilet block and utilise the site and slab where the caravan was.

We have been improving services in our campground in the “Off” season.

We have installed an underground power distribution network which now gives us 24 protected power points, we will even have a floodlight at the campfire.

It is also our intention to build a second ablution block in our campground. Our volunteer experience is just as important to us as our visitors stay.

In closing

Leanne and I look forward to seeing you all again this season,

We also look forward to meeting new volunteers and making your experience a memorable one.

Get your registrations in.

“Keep up the good work “

Tim Paine

Chairman

Farina Restoration Group

Following is a letter from our new President, Tim Paine, which outlines what has been achieved during the volunteer period at Farina this year

I am sure you will be as impressed as I am!

Regards

Cathie

Hello all

This is my first newsletter as Chairman of the Farina Restoration Group having taken over from Tom in December.

Firstly, I would like to thank Tom for his leadership over the last 10 years.

Who would have thought that so much could come from so little?

We now have a model and a plan to move forward to keep in front of demand.

Tom has left me some big shoes to fill and I hope to have your continued support as volunteers into the future.

This year started off with a bang when our bakery supplies arrived in Farina at 10.30pm on the Friday with the Bakery due to open at 8am the next morning.  Kerry Storer (our head baker) and Laurie started baking straight away, working all night to be ready.

The first days takings set a new record for day 1 trade and also set a precedent for every day to follow.

Kerry was producing over 300 pies some days! Biscuits were the big sellers this year which kept our biscuit ladies busy every morning. There wasn’t much left most days and quite often sold out!

It amazes me how these men and women can squeeze so much product out of the submarine (caravan),  well done to you all . The catch phrase in the caravan was “suck in your guts, here come the pies “

The oven was busy all day with bread and this was reflected by our mulga consumption. We need to source some more mulga as time goes on – the old fence line will only last so long.

Merchandise sales were outstanding this year with serviette holders and bottle openers selling out early. Breadboards, breadknives, stickers, magnets, hats and the Farina Bags were a big hit.  370 bags were made by the “Bag Ladies” and we sold all but 30 of them

Well done to all the seamstresses.

Ernie and Cath Sharman require a special mention here as they work all year on this merchandise.

We hosted many buses this year as they headed to Lake Eyre, sometimes 3 a day!

The RFDS Outback Trek called in for afternoon smoko, all 250 of them in 120 cars.  We had carpark attendants that day!

A Helicopter from Melbourne called in for a pie, an ultralight plane landed on the cricket pitch on his way from Steep Point to Byron Bay and a group of cyclists from Kurri Kurri in NSW (with an average age of 65) called in for breakfast on their way from Lyndhurst Pub to the Betoota Pub.

The Exchange Hotel received most of the “Stonies” attention this year. We were able to open up the “North Wing” with the the help of the excavator which saved many hours of manual labour. This enabled the crews to concentrate more on pointing. Ron and Peter spent many hours up on the scaffold working on the capping and the chimneys.

The footprint of this building is massive and is now quite clearly defined.

We were able to find a slate mine on Mt Freeling Station up the Strzelecki Track. With a 350km round trip we sourced 3 tandem trailers of slate.  This gave us enough slate to complete the northern verandah and outside the back door of Patterson’s House.  It looks great.

Patterson’s House moved into top gear this year. Thanks to Steve Harding, we were able to secure two more grants. One of $5000 for tables and chairs and the other of $20000, for appliances for the new kitchen. These grants have enabled us to complete Stage 3 which will enable us to trade from Patterson’s House from day 1 next year.

We have a few more items to to purchase to fulfil the obligations of the grant and we will have a fully functional debt free facility we can be proud of.

Well done to all, it is a credit to you.

I am pleased to report that we had an impromptu dinner dance in Patterson’s House on the Monday night after we closed the bakery for the year. This was the first dance in Farina for many years.  What a privilege to have been a part of that.

Tom’s shed has had the lean-to extended across the southern wall with enough material left over to enclose the eastern wall. This will offer much more protection to our equipment and increase our rain water catchment   Now, 20mm of rain will produce 38,000 litres of precious water just off the shed.

The skillion on the western side has been enclosed and will become a timber/steel store.

Stairs have been let in to the first aid room which has alleviated the headroom problem.

The Farina sign on our entrance walls has been lifted up on top now and stands out in silhouette.   This was no easy feat but looks great.

Outside Patterson’s the old rusty tank has been replaced by a 48,000 litre iron tank.  Five tables have been installed in front and alongside the house. The next job will be to attach some seating.  It was great to see people using these tables straight away.

The surrounding area was levelled and sheeted with blue metal.  Car parks were extended in front of the bakery tent and caravan bays have been created in front of the Transcontinental Hotel.  Some days the cars were lined up waiting to get a park!

The rails on the cattle ramp were attached and we will install some sliding gates next year.

Our new generator arrived to replace the old blue generator and trailers were built for them which makes it much easier to set up.

A new 100 metre long power supply was installed between the generator and the bakery and we are returning to Farina in late August to install a power distribution network in our campground which will make things much safer and more reliable.

The annual cricket match was held between Farina and the rest of the world resulting in Farina winning.  Approximately 50 people attended.

The Napier / Bell memorial was held the next day.

Our Essential Service Officers and cleaning ladies did a great job behind the scenes. We can’t survive without them – thanks again..

We didn’t have to do any weeding or mowing along our streetscape this year.  Kevin and Anne of Farina Station have not received any rain worth talking about for 2 1/2 years.  Hopefully it will rain soon.

We thank them both for their ongoing support.

In closing, I would like to thank every one of you for your help in making our 2019 season run smoothly. Farina welcomed 2000-2500 visitors a week this year and every one of them saw the green vests hard at work.  You should wear them with pride.

All the comments in the visitors book and on Facebook  praise your efforts  after seeing all  you do.

My catch phrase this year:   “Keep up the good work “

Cheers Tim Paine

We are pleased to share with all of our “Farina friends”, our progress, now that we have commenced this “Social History project”.

We have partnered with Genealogy SA, Oral History Trust SA/NT, and the History Trust SA. Completing two Genealogy workshops and training in Oral recording and sound editing.

Our plan is to research 5 major Farina families, at this point, (and collect your contact details for further records) and they are the following:

Finn, Moffatt, Napier, Bell and Patterson families as our major focus for the opening of our new building next year.

Our two volunteer researchers are Jennie Sach and Bob Moffatt, with assistance in a technical capacity from Peter Davis, whom will be working with our partners to add the details we don’t have at the moment.

As part of this “Journey” we will be recording the “Oral History” of those descendant family members that are able to travel to Farina this year, or by arrangement, at another convenient location.

Tell us of your families’ journey, involvement, your youth, school and environment. What you liked and what you didn’t enjoy, in this very arid region.

We are taking this opportunity to also suggest that if you do, in fact, have any, Artefacts, “Historical” documents ie, diaries, documents, photo’s at home that you would like to either donate or allow us to scan, please contact us via our new history email address farinarestoration@outlook.com also available on our web page under contacts.

We would like to add this very important social history to our archives for further general display, as so much has been lost, to the ravages of time. This is a great opportunity to be part of this outcome.

We are also looking for further volunteers to assist in the documentation of this journey. We have several roles available if you would like to assist. If you can type, then we will need to “Transcribe” the oral recordings once completed, as a physical record of the narrative, for lodging with the State Library, this is to be done off site.

We are also looking for someone with Excel experience that can collect data in table format, from “Land title” documents, which we can help provide, and the land title family tree.

And so in late July when our current work season is completed, would be the time to commence.

So please jump on board, let’s make this a fantastic historical record to add to our last 12 years of on the ground workings.

Steve Harding and the research team.

Farina History Project.

Our very first meeting with the team was held on Friday 5^th April 2019. Attending were Jennie, Patricia, Bob, and Steve along with Ms Emily Richardson and Ms Sue Lea, Genealogy SA and Ms Pauline Cockrill (taking photo) History Trust SA. Our initial meeting was to explore what we hope to achieve with our project and to what end Genealogy SA and the History Trust can assist. The technology now available is “Mind Blowing” and we should be able to achieve everything from a “Title Search”, “Migration and Trove” to the Family Tree” and tie it all together. Presentation will be the key, to add to this we can develop an “Interactive Town” map for use either on the web or touch screen on site. All this will take some time, but we have the enthusiasm and help from our colleagues to achieve a great result.

Our “Initial” focus will be on the Patterson, Napier-Bell, Finn, and Moffatt families, as quite a lot of information exists, once we complete these families we will go onto other searches.

For the first time we will also be recording your “Oral History” with equipment on loan from the State Library. We hope that our message is spreading far and wide to those descendant family members that can share their story growing up in Farina. We want to know the “Social History” at the time, and so we will set up on site to record those that visit and want to share this experience.

Our next workshop will be 7^th May, where we will learn more about the technology and process to make it all happen.

Farina staffing is progressing with opportunities for volunteers to join us in 2019 still available in :

Week 3, 8 -15 June

Week 5, 22 – 29 June

Week 8, 13 – 21 July

From café to campfire, tradesman assistant to sign painting, walking trail fixer to visitor host we have jobs for all, including tradies.
Volunteers enjoy a sense of excitement in being part of a vibrant team and meeting many appreciative visitors. There is a meaningful task for all, working at your own tempo.

Please register here: https://farinarestoration.com/where-is-farina/volunteers/

Once you have submitted your registration a new window will come up acknowledging that.
You will also receive a personal email of acknowledgement from Cathie within two weeks, maximum. This will be followed up with telephone contact from Tom.

If you have any concerns that the form may not have submitted or you are unable to complete the form online please contact Cathie here: farinagroup@hotmail.com

Tom can be contacted for advice in advance if required: Phone 0418 300 597
Regards
Tom Harding

We trust all our valued past volunteers are refreshed and looking forward to our 11th annual work program and that those of you who are coming for the first time are looking forward, with increasing interest, to becoming part of the Farina story.
Presently, Tom Bob and Cathie are active in receiving and responding to registrations.
It is necessary to balance skills and capabilities across all weeks. We have an eight week program which is implemented by 4 separate teams. There are approximately 40 volunteers on site at any one time to handle the range of tasks required to run a small independent community while completing volunteer tasks in the Farina township. This allows for time off on request.

There is equal challenge and excitement across all weeks of the program.
At present weeks 1, 2 and 4 are fully staffed. Weeks 3, 5, 6, 7and 8 are available for 1 and 2 week bids with scope for the full ambit of opportunity in all weeks.

Farina volunteers may have particular skills but their greatest asset is often being an opportunist and trying something new.
Patterson’s House will have active groups installing flooring and lining, doing electrical and plumbing work and the kitchen fitout during the whole 8 week program.

We have participated in Caravan shows in Melbourne and Adelaide during February. The consistent stories from the volunteer staff at each location is that more and more people know of, and are enthusiastic about, our work at Farina.

Two teams are at work developing interesting new merchandise. For example, a Farina carry bag for bakery goods and a smartly labelled labelled cutting board. As usual Ernie Sharman and Trevor Cross are continuing to monitor and increase our base stocklines.

Laurie Gray and our newly appointed contract lead baker, Kerry Storer (a previous volunteer) have advanced planning in place to ensure an efficient start up and follow on for the bakery.

Peter Russell and Ron Johnston have assessed stonework priorities. There is an important 8 week program of repair, pointing and wall capping ahead, to assist preservation of our precious sandstone relics.

Administratively, Bob Brownlee is doing battle with our auditor to satisfy trading and other legal requirements. Steve Harding is engrossed in meeting grant requirements for Patterson’s house, stage 2. This involves both the planning requirement and organizing material on site to enable a smooth start to the internal fit out which we hope to have completed in July.

Drought conditions are extreme in this area of South Australia. Kevin and Anne Dawes are silently suffering due to this lack of rain. We are thinking of them.
As a result, volunteers will need to supply their own drinking water. Stocks can be replenished at the Leigh Creek supermarket. Showers and toilets at Farina are connected to bore water.
We are expecting plenty of visitors this year as many travelers head up to Lake Eyre to see the water.
Newsletters will give updates with any changes.

We will continue the challenge of presenting Farina as it was across the period from 1875 to 1975. As a working group we are well placed to continue this recovery and maintenance program into the future.
We invite your continuing support

Farina Restoration Group Committee to launch “HISTORY PROJECT”.

We are pleased to advise that following our conference and steering groups input, we are now launching the “Farina History Project”, this is a new project to capture our “Social and Family History” from the establishment of the township to latter day.

We hope to capture family group timelines, with family trees, social history ie what we did in the past, Images that are available, diaries, wage books and newspapers etc that all put detail into Farina life as it was around the “Railway, Town ship, Cemetery and World Wars 1 & 2”.

Our target over the next 14 months is to collect as much information as we are able to for the “Official” opening of our Museum in 2020.
We encourage you all to either bring a copy of your records with you to Farina this year or contact us via our web page https://farinarestoration.com/contact-us/steve-harding-committee-liaison/ or any other committee member to arrange delivery/collection.

We are being assisted in this project by Genealogy SA and History Trust SA and our main researchers will be Ms Jennie Sach and Mr Bob Moffatt who both have links with Farina.
We will also be calling on some of the main Farina family members, still in contact, to supply as much of their shared history as possible.

This year for the first time we will be also be making “Audio Sound Recordings” on site, to capture your own personal story details from your time living in Farina, all with the final goal in mind to have as much information as we can gather for electronic media display within the gallery space and finally on the web.

So friends of Farina please talk to your family members, unlock the cupboard doors and suitcases that may release your story and send them in. Now is the time!

On behalf of the committee Steve Harding.

Without Tom’s foresight Farina wouldn’t be where it is today. Tom has led from the start and over the last 11 years or so has managed the transition from a heap of rubble “Ghost Town” to what it is today. Tom’s favourite saying is that “we are chasing the ghosts out of town”, it’s no longer a ruin.  Results now show that we are “Bringing Life Back” to Farina.

Many, many people have met Tom & Joan over the years and their enthusiasm for Farina’s rebirth was infectious. Many of us signed up on the spot!!!!!.

Tom however will not be going too far away. The committee will now be chaired by Tim Paine and Tom will continue on as a normal committee member and mentor for as long as he wishes.

Whilst passing the banner over to Tim and Leanne Paine we wish Tom & Joan a happy and less stressful Farina life.

Peter Harris as past secretary and public officer has passed the reins over to Anne Dawes, whom will now take over responsibility for these roles. Peter will stay on as a committee member.

The committee takes this opportunity to welcome Tim to his new role as chairman and Anne as secretary.

Behind every great man is a great woman, and we would like to again thank Tom & Joan for all of the wonderful drive, enthusiasm, massive commitment, and focus since this all started.

We will still look forward to the days ahead when Tom makes his next trip to Farina

Tom wishes to say a huge thankyou to those that have supported him and to our many volunteers and supporters, whom have worked tirelessly over the many years, with encouragement, generosity and goodwill, to get us to where we are today, and is looking forward to catching up again later in 2019.