Ascension : Heritage Notes
Submitted by The Islander (Shari Parkhill) 30.04.2009 (Article Archived on 14.05.2009)

The Ascension Island Heritage Society is pleased to announce an “Open House” on Friday, May 8th (6 – 9 pm) and Saturday, May 9th (10 am – 4 pm).

We will be opening the Tonks Exhibit.  Jon Tonks is a photographer who was here several years ago, and took many pictures of Ascension and its residents.  Please drop by and see if you are in his pictures!

The Society has acquired a couple of good scanners and we would like to invite all of you who have old photos of Ascension to bring them along.  We will scan them and give them right back! 

At the Museum, we have been working hard on updating our exhibits.  The Islander exhibit has been rearranged and expanded, the Maersk model has been moved to a new location, and the Philatelic display has been updated.  The Communications room is also getting a facelift!

We are working on an exhibit “Life on Ascension” and are looking for contributions from Islanders, past and present.  We are always looking for input from Islanders.  After all, this is your Museum.  All of us who have spent some time on Ascension contribute to the history of this fascinating little island in the middle of the vast Ocean.  Please share your memories with us.

We would like to thank a recent volunteer, Paul Robinson, who while visiting Ascension, was a great help to the Heritage Society.   He spent many hours in the archives helping catalogue and conserve 19^th century Naval documents, as well as helping to recover the old documents from under Main Store. We thank him for donating his time and effort.

There are still lots of photos in the archives to be catalogued.  We have a couple of ladies helping us out at this time, which is a great help.  Anyone else who has any time to contribute to this worthwhile project would be welcome!  There are lots of photos that need to be identified, dated and conserved.  If you can help, please loan us your talents.  Your assistance would be greatly appreciated.  And the archives are air-conditioned!