The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic are forcing south coast businesses and community organisations to radically adjust the way they are interacting with the public.
The South Coast History Society, who normally publish the free south coast history magazine ‘Recollections’ every second month, is one organization that has had to rapidly adjust to the change in conditions and it, perhaps surprisingly, has decided to double the frequency of publication of ‘Recollections’ to once every month.
But there is a catch. ‘Recollections’ will, for the next few months, only be available on-line. Peter Lacey, the President of the South Coast History Society, explains:
‘The April-May 2020 issue of ‘Recollections’ was printed about 10 days ago and was about to be distributed when that became impossible. So, I now have (to my wife’s annoyance!) 3,500 copies sitting in boxes on our loungeroom floor. They’ll be distributed some day, but who knows when!’
‘At least the great information they contain will not become ‘stale’ in the interim!’
‘We know, however, that many people really enjoy receiving and reading the information included in ‘Recollections’ and that many of these people now have extra time that could be spent reading ‘Recollections’. So we have decided to produce mini-issues of Recollections each month and email these to everyone on our email list.’
‘The first of these monthly issues will be the May 2020 issue. This will become available at the end of this month.’
‘Anyone interested in receiving copies can email ‘Send Recollections’ to southcoasthistory@yahoo.com and we will immediately add them to our ‘Recollections’ emailing list.’
South Coast History Society, however, is not completely turning its back on those who normally read paper copies of the magazine.
‘Even though it will be an additional cost to us, we will print a strictly limited number of these monthly ‘Recollections’ on-line magazines, utilising a small print run facility, and continue to post these to those who are paying for paper copies to be delivered to them. And we will also post paper copies, on request, to organisations (such as schools, libraries and museums) that are archiving issues of ‘Recollections’.’
‘And, as soon as things return to normal and we are able to resume distribution of paper copies of ‘Recollections’, we will also reprint some of the articles that have been included in these monthly on-line ‘Recollections’ in a future paper issue of ‘Recollections’.’
South Coast History Society has already witnessed a very significant upturn in interest in the south coast’s local history in recent weeks, which it can only attribute to the Covid-19 pandemic.
‘The April-May 2020 issue of ‘Recollections’ can be accessed on-line at www.bit.ly/Recollections19 and already the number of people who have visited that site up by an incredible 1928% when compared to the number of people who viewed the previous issue on-line. And visits to www.bit.ly/Recollections3 - , where there is an excellent article on the effects that the last major pandemic in Australia (the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1919) had on the NSW south coast, are about triple the number of visits to other issues of ‘Recollections’.’
The South Coast History Society can be contacted at southcoasthistory@yahoo.com or by phoning 0448 160 852.
