The Project Outline | October 2013

Green Plaques | Local Communities

A practical companion for creating and managing commemorative plaques and plaque schemes in the County of Cumberland and country towns across New South Wales

A Local History & Archives Project

Green Plaques | Local Communities is an online guide with associated resources, developed as a companion document to Celebrating People and Place.

Celebrating People and Place, produced by English Heritage, is a significant resource for managing an open-air archive of historic commemorative plaques.

Green Plaques | Local Communities will help communities to plan and manage a commemorative plaque program to a high standard of historical authenticity, with long-term management of the plaques as a durable community heritage asset.

Green Plaques | Local Communities adapts the experiences of London’s blue plaques scheme since the 1860s and the RAHS’s near-century of plaque programs, such as the Sydney green plaques of the 1980s, for urban communities in the cities, towns, suburbs and villages of early twenty-first century century New South Wales.

Sustainability

Green Plaques | Local Communities will make a long term contribution to sustainable local heritage management through:

• Supporting communities making a long-term commitment to managing their plaques,
• Creating opportunities (community and commercial) to tell stories through tours and activities that use historic themes or storylines to connect various plaques, and
• Advocating only sites or events that have passed ‘the test of time’ being honoured with a commemorative plaque.

Leadership

Green Plaques | Local Communities will encourage local leadership and innovation in presenting history by:

• žž Empowering local communities to make their own informed decisions about initiating and managing a credible, long-term commemorative historic plaque program, and
• ž Linking static plaques with dynamic electronic media to allow innovative new research and interpretations of sites to be developed without affecting the plaque inscription.

Opportunities

Green Plaques | Local Communities will increase opportunities for people to learn about, access and enjoy their history, and their local open-air archive of commemorative plaques, with:

• žA free, downloadable PDF version of Green Plaques | Local Communities,
• žA link to the original Celebrating People and Place,
• žExplanatory podcasts for critical points in Green Plaques | Local Communities,
• žThis blog for discussion and sharing ideas among communities using Green Plaques | Local Communities, and
• Links to the Royal Australian Historical Society and other relevant websites.

Map of the County of Cumberland in 1840, divided into 13 hundreds and 53 parishes. The oldest, smaller parishes in the City of Sydney are not displayed. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)