We started of this year with a number of questions for the Derwent Valley Council including their lack of communication with their own committees and the public at large. This theme continued in the 2014 Local Council Elections where a number of candidates raise communication as a major issue. Media coverage for the opening of Willow Court? This remains a concern and is still an unresolved issue including the domain name owned by the Council that was reserved for Willow Court nearly three years ago.
The main part of the year was dedicated to the ongoing conservation of the Barracks and Bronte buildings, we have been getting good reports of information from the Senior Project Manager Mr Brett Noble and being informed about the many holdups and issues that would come up during the restoration and conservation of such old and important buildings.
We have been very fortunate to have been supplied reports and have loaded them on the ever expanding document page, some of these documents have never been publicly released and one has to question why that would be the case. We have also released, for the first time in 50 years, two short silent films from the ABC archives. We have added more podcasts about Willow Court. We have seen a State and Federal election and the outcomes including Willow Court being raised as a site of national importance at the Federal level by the newly elected candidate for the seat of Lions, Mr Eric Hutchinson.
We saw some artefacts that are making their way back to Willow Court through donations from interested people.
We have also seen a call for more volunteers for the Friends of Willow Court Special Committee this year leading up to the opening of the site. There has been a good response to that call with a diverse range of people with a multitude of skills to offer Willow Court.
We have seen the Mayor criticising the Tourism Tasmania promotion of the Derwent Valley and Willow Court, he thought the image was unsuitable, calling it “untasteful” however he is refusing to protect the previous residents and staff from having their image untastefully portrayed as Council considers more rate payer funds to underwrite, produce and distribute a amateur paranormal film.
We have received a copy of the History of Lachlan Park Hospital and are waiting to see if the author’s family will allow us to publish this on the website as a reference document.
We heard of an investigation into the underground tunnels in the area in 2015 by Associate Professor Heather Burke from Flinders University.
Announced openings from Willow Court Conservation Committee Members and DVC staff continues but never arrived creating frustration and confusion among the public and the Friends of Willow Court who were trying to prepare for days that never happened.
We also attended another Willow Court working bee to finalise the front gate.
A thematic interpretation workshop was attended in preparation for tours of the opened site, professionally facilitated by Phil Fitzpatrick and well attended by many interested people.
Again we saw a push for an apology from an ex-patient who reported abuse while being treated at Royal Derwent Hospital. “Politicians facing renewed calls for formal apology to Royal Derwent Hospital mental health patients”
We have seen the start of a possible ten year plus archaeology investigation as part of the tourist experience at the site.
The friends of Willow Court also have participated in three training days in the long preparation for conducting tourist, educational, historical, archaeological and architectural tours at the site.
Social Media and Website:
In the short time that we have been running we have reached fantastic statistics with members, posts, hit on the website, and posts with Willow Court information. Here are a few:
Hits to website: over 422,000 thousand
Posts on website: 268
Facebook group members: 600 (joined of their own request)
Facebook page 194 likes. (joined of their own request)