A history of Nillumbik Reconciliation Group, prepared by Jan Aitken, NRG President 2007-2023, as background for our Shire Council’s Reconciliation Action Plan.
Origins
In 1998 the Shire of Nillumbik asked the late Mick Woiwod to form a committee which could plan for an event at which the Shire would present an Apology and Memorandum of Understanding to Wurundjeri Elders.
Mick , John Browning, Elizabeth Kooroonya Savage, Elizabeth Bromley and Graham Pritchard joined together in this project. They organised a Reconciliation Walk through Eltham to Wingrove Park. There was a marquee, seats, a fire and beautiful Wirriups which had been made by primary school students. These were decorated sticks which lined a pathway to the site of the ceremony. Ian Hunter, Wurundjeri man, and a colleague cut a coolamon from a nearby gum. This coolamon remains a treasured object in the Shire’s art collection. The Eltham High School Symphonic Band and choir performed an anthem, smoke rose into the trees, and Mayor Robert Marshall presented the Apology and MOU to Uncle Bill Nicholson (Senior). His speech was memorable.
Independence & The Wurundjeri Resource Kit
After this ceremony the committee of organisers continued to meet as a Shire Advisory Committee. But the restrictions required by the Shire did not fit with the urge to bring Reconciliation to Nillumbik. They left the Shire role and formed the Nillumbik Reconciliation Group, an independent organisation with the freedom to speak and act for Reconciliation.
Their first thought was to help with educating primary school students to know more about the Wurundjeri, traditional owners of Nillumbik land. Primary schools were invited to take part in an annual Short Story Competition. Students, with the help of teachers, would write a short piece, imagining themselves as a Wurundjeri child, pre-settlement. In order for teachers to have greater information for their teaching on this subject a Wurundjeri Resource Kit was written with Wurundjeri consultation and endorsement and distributed to all schools in the shire. This competition ran annually for about 7 years.
Each year Aunty Dot Peters came to present awards to the winners at a well attended ceremony at the Eltham Library.
The Wurundjeri Resource Kit has lived on well beyond the life of the Short Story Competition. It has been reviewed and edited on two occasions, always with Wurundjeri approval, and was finally put on a CD which was used by many teachers across eastern Melbourne. As of 2024 it is with the Wurundjeri Corporation board again for edits and approval. It is hoped that it can become a feature of this NRG website, freely available to any who wish to use it.
The Gawa Trail
The Gawa Trail was also established in 2000. Built without mechanical tools, with the help of Lewellyn Pritchard and a Green team. The aim was to give more substance to the education provided by the Wurundjeri Resource Kit. NRG has maintained the trail with support from the Shire’s Environmental Works department. In 2014 a major renovation of signage was undertaken with more information about the use of plants and animals and a decorative border designed by Judy Nicholson, Wurundjeri artist. The information was prepared by NRG members Diana Warrell, Sasha Trikojus and Jan Aitken in collaboration with Uncle Bill Nicholson, Wurundjeri cultural educator.
Learn more about the Gawa Trail
Leadership & Shire’s Reconciliation Charter
Mick Woiwod was an essential driving force in the organisation through the early years. He was publishing books about the Aboriginal history of our area. He organised the monthly NRG newsletter with articles written by Mick and other members. This was posted out to all on our mailing list. In 2005 MIck became ill and stepped back. After another year when Carol Leason took the president’s position, I became president. The newsletter was fading, the organisation had events to run and more was happening in reconciliation through Reconciliation Victoria and ANTaR. Other Reconciliation groups had been formed and we began to meet together as the Reconciliation Eastern Metro region (REM, which is still meeting).
In 2008 the Shire consulted with NRG and other interested parties on a Reconciliation Charter. They decided not to do a RAP. They would have their own document. This was passed by Council and became the official statement for the Shire on Reconciliation. It included the formal Acknowledgement which was used until superceded by the current, longer and more explicit acknowledgement which includes recognition of the unhappy past history of Aboriginal people under colonisation.
View a copy of the Nillumbik Shire Council’s Reconciliation Charter.
In the early days of NRG, after the formal Apology and MOU, the Shire and the NRG held four flag raisings each year. Two of these were on days of national importance and two were commemorating events of significance in Wurundjeri history. Australia Day and Reconciliation Week, the Battle of Yering and the Lettsom Raid . The latter two are stirring stories of attempts to capture Aboriginal leaders and the murders of many in the process. The ingenuity of Aboriginal tribesmen in outwitting those who had taken captives was celebrated.
With the Charter the Australia Day and Reconciliation Week flag raisings were continued. NRG organised the content of these events with shire support. Australia Day was celebrated at the citizenship ceremony at the Community and Reception Centre and reconciliation week was held at the Shire’s Civic Drive offices around the flag poles.
This has continued until two or three years ago when the shire began to take more responsibility for these ceremonies.
Partnerships
NRG has continued over the years to hold reconciliation events for the community. We looked for partnerships with community organisations. The Eltham Bookshop and St Margaret’s Anglican Church Social Justice Group and Eltham Library were three. A lecture at the Eltham library with Uncle Bill Nicholson(Jr) in partnership with the library, a concert featuring Jessie Lloyd, singer and song writer of songs from the days of life on Aboriginal reserves, a Victorian Treaty information afternoon, a bus trip to the Yarra Valley visiting the sites of significance to Wurundjeri people. And for four years the Past Matters annual events at Monsalvat joined NRG and Eltham bookshop in a day of celebrating Indigenous authors and other publications about Aboriginal art and achievements.
Places of Significance
Mick Woiwod also took the initiative of installing memorial Rocks at places of significance: at the spring in the Kangaroo Ground Cemetery, site of an Aboriginal encampment, at the site of the Reserve, gazetteed in 1854 on both sides of the Yarra at Pound Bend and site of the last Corroborree.
The shire provided a corner of the paddock below the Kangaroo Ground Memorial Tower for a native grassland. John Browning put up the rabbit-proof fence and we began to weed out the pasture grasses. A Friends Group was formed and a name given: Moor-rul Reconciliation Grassland. It remembers that Kangaroo Ground hill was a major kangaroo hunting ground for Wurundjeri. Fire had been used so that native grassland spread around large remaining manna gums, behind which hunters could secrete themselves. The land also supported Yam daisies (myrnong), orchids and lilies with tubers, and other foods then gathered by women.
Eltham North Seasons Sign & Gathering Place
In 2017 a Pick My Project grant from the Victorian State Government was awarded to a proposal to bring to the Eltham Adventure Playground a series of Aboriginal elements. With Nillumbik Shire the Community Reference Group and NRG worked together installing a Seasons Sign, painted by Judy Nicholson, Wurundjeri Artist, a Mosaic Gathering Space with design by Tom Civil in consultation with Wurundjeri elders, a native garden by Narrap Team and Indigenous design, and six pages of Aunty Joy Wandin’s book Welcome to County installed as plaques near the picnic shelter in the playground. A pottery path was also laid with tiles made by local primary students, managed by May Lou Pittard, Ceramicist.
25 Years On
In May 2023 NRG celebrated 25 Years since the event in Wingrove Park and the first Apology to Wurundjeri people. NRG continues to bring reconciliation to Nillumbik, calling now for people to become Allies of First Nations. Partnerships continue with engagements with sports clubs, the Eltham Bookshop, Eltham Library Banyule Reconciliation and Monty Allies, Nillumbik U3A, Aboriginal Advancement League and Nillumbik schools, both primary and secondary. We continue to engage with Reconciliation Eastern Metro, Reconciliation Victoria and ANTaR. We remain most appreciative of the support we have from the Shire of Nillumbik: generous grants, support with printing and design of brochures and flyers, and advice and assistance from council officers.