The first Community Forum for the development of the Stratford History and Heritage Trail was held at the Stratford Bowls Club on Saturday afternoon, 14 March 2009.
We had a good turn out with many people expressing an interest in the project and several people brought old photographs and newspaper articles along with them.
The meeting was opened by Steve Wettenhall, MP for Barron River, who wished us well with our endeavours to record the heritage of the area. Cairns Regional Council Deputy Mayor, Councillor Margaret Cochrane, also addressed the meeting and then spent the afternoon with us scanning photographs and recording local histories. We then heard from Angela Murphy who has designed the neighbouring Freshwater Heritage Trail. After eighteen months the Freshwater project is nearing completion and Angela had many ideas and suggestions to help us. Dave Phoenix, consulting historian spoke about the value of this project for the community and then displayed maps and photographs outlining some of the heritage sites in the area.
We were kept busy scanning photographs and s before meeting briefly at the end of the afternoon to compare notes and discuss ideas for the next forum.
