We are a POD

One of the exciting things about being open again, with the wonderfully revamped back room, is that we can make our POD records more accessible.

What is a POD? It means that we are a Place of Deposit for the Public Record Office Victoria (PROV), and that they have placed with us a number of records that they no longer wish to hold. In our case we are very fortunate that many years ago the Shire of Avon sent all their old records to the PRO - we now have some of them back. We do not have the Rate Books (they are still in Melbourne, although the early ones have been microfiched), but we do have some other interesting early ones.

For example, we have:

Shire of Avon Herd Book, April 1868 -1872. Contains records for the Bundalaguah Common.

Shire of Avon Commons Cash Book 1871 - 1884. Includes Maffra Town Common, Bundalaguah Farmers Common and Briagolong Common.

Shire of Avon Business Minutes - April 1869 - September 1873

There are lots of Cash Books from the 1800s, and Road Gang Records from the 1930s and 1940s, and Pan Fees Receipts - when you paid the council for the nightman to pick up your "pan" from the outdoor dunny.

Access to the books is by appointment only, usually on Tuesdays, and we hope that once they are all catalogued there will be a more detailed guide to them available. The new computer was installed yesterday (Thanks ESSO!) so hopefully some more guides will not be far away.

We do not allow photocopying of the books due to their fragility, but we do encourage you to bring a camera to record anything in them you wish.

But in the meantime - it is good to have them, and we thank the PRO for the program that brings them out into the community.