2024 AGM + 2025 SGM – agenda and documentation

Dear Members

We look forward to welcoming as many members as possible to the RHSV’s Special General Meeting (SGM) and Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Tuesday 27 May 2025. To register for the SGM and AGM or to record your apologies please click here.  You can use the same link to book for the Weston Bate Oration which follows the AGM (with a short break for refreshments).

On Tuesday evening, 27 May 2025 at 5pm the RHSV will be holding a Special General Meeting followed by its 116th Annual General Meeting at 5:10pm. The AGM is, oddly enough, a meeting full of warmth, celebration and good cheer as we present all our awards for 2025.

At 6:30pm we will present the 2025 Weston Bate Oration to be delivered by Professor Emeritus Graeme Davison.

RHSV SPECIAL GENERAL MEETING

Tuesday 27 May 2025, 5pm 

To be held as a hybrid meeting both in person at

RHSV 239 A’Beckett Street, Melbourne VIC 3000 and online via Zoom 

AGENDA

  1. President’s welcome
  2. Attendance, apologies, proxies and Acknowledgement of Country
  3. Discussion of proposed By-Law 4 amendments
  4. Proposal for acceptance

That the amendments to By-Law 4 of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria as circulated be adopted.

  1. Close of meeting

DOCUMENTATION TO ACCOMPANY 2025 SPECIAL GENERAL MEETING

 

 

116th RHSV ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Tuesday 27 May 2025 5:10pm

To be held as a hybrid meeting both in person at

RHSV 239 A’Beckett Street, Melbourne VIC 3000 and online via Zoom

 

AGENDA

  1. Attendance, apologies, proxies and Acknowledgement of Country
  2. To confirm the minutes of the 115th Annual General Meeting.
  3. President’s report and to receive the Annual Report for the year ended 31 Dec 2024
  4. To receive and consider the Financial Statements for the year ended 31 Dec 2024
  5. To appoint the Auditor for 2025.
  6. To elect Office-Bearers (President and Treasurer) and ordinary members of Council.
  7. To announce recipients of Distinguished Service Award and Awards of Merit
  8. To elect an Associate Fellow of the RHSV.
  9. To present the John Adams Prize
  10. To commend the 2023 and 2024 entrants to the History Hall of Fame
  11. To transact any business of which notice has been given in accordance with the rules of the Society.
  12. Close of business.

Notice to members

  • Two office-bearer positions will be open for election: Rob Pascoe as President following Richard Broome’s resignation from the position. Mary Jones as Treasurer following the resignation of Daniel Clements.
  • There are two vacancies for ordinary members on the Council following the resignation of Elizabeth Triarico and Nikita Vanderbyl. Standing for election is Steven Campbell- Wright, co-opted since 17 December 2024 under clause 54(5) of the Constitution and Aaron Magro

DOCUMENTATION TO ACCOMPANY 2024 AGM

6:30pm WESTON BATE ORATION 2025: MELBOURNE FROM THE AIR

From the balloon to the drone, and from the Exhibition Building viewing platform to Skydeck, Melburnians have thrilled to the spectacle of their city from the sky. They were fascinated by the exploits of hot-air balloonists like the accident-prone Henry L’Estrange.

When they could not actually fly above the city, artists like Albert Cooke reconstructed it from the ground in the black and white ‘bird’s eye views’ published in popular newspapers. In the twentieth century aerial photographers like Airspy’s Charles Pratt shot the city and suburbs in fine detail, producing the most comprehensive photographic record of the city’s changing topography. In this lecture Graeme Davison reviews the aerial history of Melbourne and asks: Why does the view of the city from the air so enchant us? And what is the value of the Melbourne’s rich archive of aerial views to the social and local historian?

Graeme Davison AO is Professor Emeritus at Monash University and one of Australia’s leading historians. He has written widely on Australian urban and cultural history and on the public uses of history. His books include The Rise and Fall of Marvellous Melbourne, which won the Ernest Scott Prize, My Grandfather’s Clock, The Unforgiving Minute: How Australia Learned to Tell the Time, The Use and Abuse of Australian History, Car Wars: How the Car Won Our Hearts and Conquered Our Cities, which won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Non-fiction, University Unlimited: The Monash Story (with Kate Murphy), Lost Relations: Fortunes of My Family in Australia’s Golden Age and, as co-editor, The Oxford Companion to Australian History.

The Weston Bate Oration is one of the RHSV’s Distinguished Lecture Series.