
Jim Kilsby, former military officer, businessman and now farmer in Kyneton with many walls on his property, has been elected President of the DSWAA. Last year Jim also established the Kyneton Dry Stone Walling Centre on his farm – an initiative that has already trained many wallers.
After 17 years at the helm, Jim Holdsworth will remain on the Committee of Management and focus on field trips and mapping walls. He was thanked and well-praised for his commitment to the DSWAA and presented with a book on the beautiful sculptural dry stone work of Andy Goldworthy. Thanks Jim!
Allan Willingham, architectural historian, fount of great heritage conservation wisdom, generous host for DSWAA meetings and a field trip guide will be missed but he has big projects to complete!
After introducing governance reforms, archiving systems and new association rules, Geoff Thomas is stepping down to spend more time on, you guessed it, the walls on his property. Thanks for the rigour and enthusiasm you have brought, Geoff.
Newly elected to the committee were Andrew Garner, a very accomplished waller from Deloraine in north Tasmania and Laurie Atkins who is keen on cycling, canoes and ds walls and has much needed IT skills to assist with mapping them.
Andrew Miller, Raelene Marshall, Bruce Munday and Stuart Read remain on the committee and Patron Lyn Allison steps up (or down!) to the committee.
The AGM at Eynesbury finished with lunch and a short tour around the beautifully restored homestead, built in 1842 on a pastoral wool-growing empire of 40k ha. – now a golf course and event centre surrounded by a township. The dry stone feature was the ha-ha wall and we marvelled at the extraordinary timber water tower.