A1.1 – The Very First Invitation Letter Drop to Local Residents

Archive Document Title:	(no title)
Archive Document Type:	letter
Archive Document Date:	1989-10-15
Archive Topic Category:	The Friends Formation
Archive Digital Document Format:	Adobe Acrobat (PDF)
Number of Pages:	2

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Document Abstract (introduction):

In early October 1989, a public invitation letter circular to local residents of Katoomba was drafted and distributed via walking letter box drop by Neil Stuart and John Rule. The letter would have likely been distributed just around the immediate residential area surrouding Katoomba Falls Creek Valley.  See map below with dashed oval shape identifying the likely distribution area for the letter – being residents specific to Katoomba Falls Creek Valley.  This forms the natural water catchment draining via a confluence of watercourses from the highway to the north (top of dashed oval shape) to Katoomba Falls to the south (bottom of dashed oval shape).

 

Their letter (copy attached below) politely requested local residents (specific to Katoomba Falls  Creek Valley) to voluntarily attend a local resident meeting scheduled for Sunday 15th October 1989.  The letter is kind in nature and self-explanatory.  It set the tone of what was to come over the following three decades.

Readers/Researchers please note that the year was 1989, so before some years before the technological advent of computers, Internet, mobile phones, etc.  The letter would have been typed on a mechanical/non-electric typewriter, like this one:

 

 

Approximately 200 letters (2 pages each) would have been distributed at the time.  Of those, the very first resident meeting consisted of just eleven attendees:

1. Neil Stuart
2. John Rule
3. Des Barrett
4. Sue Barrett
5. Les Petö
6. Rosemary Brister
7. Marysia Kreisler
8. Carol Probets
9. Ross Davidson
10. Shane O’Neil
11. Grant Solomon

Further information about members is to be made available on this website under Topic Group B – ‘The Friends Membership’.

The outcome of that first meeting:

“A group of 11 residents met on (Sunday) 15th October (1989) to share their concerns.  They agreed to work together to get car racing, motor-bike racing, go-cart racing stopped from Frank Walford Park, to have Frank Walford Park protected as a bushland reserve, preferably with Open Space Environmental Protection zoning, perhaps with walking trails, functioning asa a native botanic garden, and for the whole valley to be managed as an entire system protecting the natural environment of the valley.”   

 

[SOURCE: The Friends second flyer inviting residents of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley to a second follow up meeting to be held on Sunday 19th November 1989 in the same shed.]

So, a second meeting of residents of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley was agreed to be held on Sunday 19th November 1989 in the same shed.  Out of that meeting, it was agreed to hold a public meeting (the first) on Sunday, 10th December 1989 at Blue Mountains Council’s Civic Centre nearby at 81-83 Katoomba Street, in Katoomba’s main street.

Some 600 residents of The Valley were invited to the second meeting, of which 40 attended and 15 set their apologies.