Letter from OHV President

The financial year might be drawing to a close but the opportunities available through Oral History Victoria in 2018 are just gathering pace. There’s plenty available to keep you sustained through the winter.
Already this year we have staged two workshops – one beginner-level and one advanced – and sent out a call for papers for our annual symposium.

Upcoming events include:

Sunday, 29 July – our annual symposium at Museo Italiano in Carlton. This year we’re exploring oral history and the emotions. More information is available at https://oralhistoryvictoria.org.au/events/category/2018-events/
Saturday 25 August – our second introductory workshop on oral history interviewing to be held at the Emerald Hill Heritage Centre, South Melbourne.
Saturday 1 September – our second advanced workshop for the year, also to be held at the Emerald Hill Heritage Centre, will deal with the interview relationship.

OHV is also going regional in the spring, with plans firming up for an introductory workshop in the Latrobe Valley, Gippsland in September/October.
And later in the year, we’ll be calling for entries to the Oral History Victoria Innovation Awards.

So to be sure to keep abreast of our full program and opportunities, now’s the time to renew your membership to Oral History Victoria for 2018-2019!
And beyond our programs, members have the opportunity to profile their work on the OHV website, in our regular Rewind email newsletter; to use the information and links to oral history advice and news from across Victoria, interstate and around the world; to receive the annual Oral History Australia journal, and to get updates on participating in the biennial national conference hosted by Oral History Australia.

But most importantly, members have the opportunity to join the OHV committee and shape oral history in Victoria. Whether you’re working with family or community, a professional historian or an academic, we’re interested in the oral history work you’re doing and your contribution to this community.

Look forward to seeing you at one of our many events.

Susan

Susan Faine
President, Oral History Victoria
c/o Royal Historical Society Victoria, 239 A’Beckett Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3000
contact.oralhistoryvictoria@gmail.com
https://oralhistoryvictoria.org.au

Member survey results

We’d like to say a big thank you to the members who completed our recent survey. We really appreciate you taking the time to help us better understand your needs.

We’re busy interpreting the findings and working out how best to implement some of the suggestions. However, we’re pleased to be able to act on some of the feedback immediately.

Regional  outreach

Some regional members noted that it was difficult to attend events. We do have a regional event planned for Gippsland later this year and hope to offer further regional events in future years.

In response to concerns from regional members about access to events, we’re pleased to be able to offer a regional members discount to attend our upcoming symposium to help subsidise the costs associated with travel. If you are a regional member you are entitled to attend the 29 July symposium at the ‘concession’ rate.

We’re also looking into the possibility of recording the symposium to make some content available to members who can’t attend and to build our online resources.

Please keep in touch

We are always interested in hearing from our members. If you would like to provide further feedback or suggestions please send an email to contact.oralhistoryvictoria@gmail.com. If you are a Facebook user, please ‘like’ our page at https://www.facebook.com/oralhistoryvictoria/

Summary findings

Oral History Victoria conducted a member survey during April 2018 with the aim of better understanding our membership and its needs. Fifty-three members completed the survey.

The findings suggest that the majority of our members are female, metropolitan based, professional or education focussed (academic/student) and aged between 45 and 64. All OHV’s activities are appreciated; however, our workshops and events are the most valued. There was a strong appetite for OHV to offer more services – the most popular options centred around increasing skills (exchange activities both online and with guest speakers) and providing partnership and funding opportunities.

Key results

Number of respondents: 53 (64 commenced the survey but only 53 completed it in full).

  1. Location: The majority (80%) of the survey respondents live in metropolitan areas.
  2. Age: The majority of the survey respondents (61%) are aged between 45 and 64, followed by 25 to 44 year olds (30%) and 65 and over (9%).
  3. Gender: Most of our survey respondents (80%) are female, the rest are male except one who identifies as non-binary.
  4. The majority of survey respondents are professional historians (35%) followed by students (22%), academics (15%), oral history enthusiast (11%), other (11%), community historians (9%) and organisational members (9%).
  5. Reason for membership: The reasons for membership are fairly evenly spread across all our activities but our educational services (in the form of events and courses) are the front runners.
  6. Additional services/resources: There’s a strong appetite for us to be undertaking most of the suggested additional activities. However, the most popular involved in increase in: online advice and resources; partnership and funding opportunities; and skills exchange opportunities (both online and with guest speakers).
  7. Communication channels: Survey respondents prefer to hear from us via email and our newsletters, followed by website and in person, with facebook trailing significantly.
  8. Communication regularity: Fourty-four percent of members prefer to hear from us whenever relevant material is available followed by once a month at 33%.
  9. Most of our survey respondents (79%) said they would subscribe to blog updates if our website had that functionality.
  10. Comments/suggestions: There were 23 comments. Most of them were positive with suggestions for future courses, more online content and further spending and support for our members.

Access the full survey results

You can access the detailed results from the following link: https://oralhistoryvictoria.org.au/april-2018-ohv-member-survey-detailed-results/