Rob Renew – The Automatic Totalisator

Rob was Senior Curator (engineering & design) at the Powerhouse Museum for twenty years, leading a small team of curators with expertise in different fields. Their work included research, collecting, documenting, publishing, and exhibition development for numerous projects, many on the themes of invention and sustainability. 
 

Automatic Totalisators made by the Sydney Company ATL were the largest and most complex computing machines made anywhere in the early 20th century. They automated and revolutionised wagering on race tracks round the world. They are now considered a landmark in computing history, and to have begun the increasing independence of state and city governments on revenues from
gambling. 

But how did this invention begin?

Sandra Peris - ‘Yesterday Stories’

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Sandra Pires is the Founder/CEO of Yesterday Stories with over 20 years of producing documentaries (The Dalfram Dispute 1938: Pig Iron Bob & Beneath Black Skies,) running workshops with young people, and co-telling local histories. Sandra is an innovator and visionary launching the new tech platform Yesterday Stories for communities to showcase their histories in location to visitors.   
 
Come and hear about the importance of local stories and how they reflect the layers of Australia as a whole, the importance of local stories for a sense of shared memory and cohesion and why everyone’s story matters.

Howard Jones – Our Unique Local Environment

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Howard Jones, Visual Arts lecturer since the late 60’s and a Councillor on Kiama Council, 1991-95, has long championed the beauty and value of the unique coastal and rainforest hinterland in the Gerringong, Gerroa and Kiama area. 
 

For over thirty years, he has defended many environmental heritage concerns in the local LGA, and was a founding member of the Gerroa Environmental Protection Society. At a time of intense scrutiny of environmental concerns, Howard will share his knowledge of the environment he has lived in and
protected for many decades, noting the changes, the loss of species, the decline of eco-systems, and the constant need to protect the district’s heritage natural habitat.