The Town of Victoria Park Local History Awards promote interest in the rich history of the Town by encouraging the community to explore local identities, significant events and heritage relevant to the area. These awards are held biannually.
The awards and ability to add to our local history collection means we are able to preserve the written, oral and visual history of the Town for future generations.
All of the entries into the Awards become part of the Local History Collection.
About the Awards
Entries:
Open: Thursday, 2 January 2025
Close: Friday, 21 March 2025
Awards Presentation Night: Friday, 23 May 2025 at the Victoria Park Centre for the Arts
Awards Exhibition: Saturday 24 May 2025 - Tuesday, 10 June 2025* at the Victoria Park Centre for the Arts.
Prizes:
There will be two prizes awarded in each category:
- Personal Memoirs winner $700 and runner up $300
- Original Research winner $700 and runner up $300
- Photographic memories winner $700 and runner up $300
- Original poetry or Performance work winner $700 and runner up $300
- Open Entry by a School Aged Child (Years 3 to 10) winner $100 Crow Books voucher and runner up $75 Crow Books voucher.
What Could I Enter:
Possible topics include, but are not restricted to:
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history of the area
- The history of your house
- School days in the Town
- The changing face of Albany Highway
- Your experience of life in Victoria Park during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Research a local Soldier (WWI or other conflict)
- How Burswood, Carlisle, East Victoria Park, Lathlain or Victoria Park have changed
- How businesses have developed in the Town, such as the story of the corner stores; memories of furniture factories like Hearn Bros & Stead or the State Saw Mills.
- Historic images relating to the development of the Town
- A photographic study of your street, suburb or theme such as sporting clubs etc.
- Images documenting family life, school days, sporting club life, nature, architecture, car-yards and other businesses etc.
Entries must relate to the development of the Town of Victoria Park and can take the format of:
- a report
- a memoir
- an interview with associated text or commentary
- paintings, drawings or photographs with associated text or commentary
- a collection of original verse or anecdotes.
*The Exhibition will close at 2pm on Tuesday, 10 June 2025, to allow time for 'bump-out', which is packing up the exhibition. This is as per policy of the Victoria Park Centre for the Arts.
Conditions of Entry
1. Entries must be original work and all quotes and use of work by other authors must be acknowledged and referenced.
2. Entries must be relevant to the history and development of the Town of Victoria Park.
3. Entries become the property of the Town of Victoria Park Library Local History Collection, which retains the right to use an entry as it chooses, with acknowledgment of the author.
4. The judges have the right to award a category only if, in their opinion, it is justified.
5. Judges’ decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
6. Entries, including the application form, must be received at the Library by 5pm on Friday, 21 March 2025.
7. There are five categories to the awards:
- Personal Memoirs (maximum 10,000 words)
- Original Research (maximum 10,000 words)
- Photographic Memories
- Original Poetry or Performance Work
- Open Entry by a School Aged Child (Years 3 to 10)
8. Photographic entries must have been taken in the Town of Victoria Park and be original photos or high quality scans (ideally 400-600 dpi) not currently held in the Town of Victoria Park Local History collection. Original photographs will be scanned and archived or returned if requested.
9. Photographic entries must have the ‘Questions about your photograph’ section of the entry form completed.
10. Members of staff, members of Council, their partners and members of their immediate families are ineligible to enter the award.
11. Entries that have received monetary payment or support in their creation through the form of grants, sponsorship, or professional assistance from other sources are ineligible to be entered in the awards.
12. The use of ChatGPT or other AI interfaces will not be tolerated.
Winners
We don't know the winners yet of course, but details will be posted here following the 2025 Local History Awards Presentation Night which will be held at the Victoria Park Centre for the Arts on Friday, 23 May 2025. All entries will then be on exhibition at the Centre from Saturday, 24 May to Tuesday, 18 June 2025.
In the mean time you might like to check out the Past Awards page for some inspiration as you create, research and write your entry and potential winner of a 2025 Local History Award.