Second, I finally finished a proposal I have been working on for the past 2 1/2ish weeks. I completed my rough draft with plenty of time to spare and I ended up going back to it a lot and changing minor things over and over again. It got to the point where I decided that if I did not submit it, I never would haha. So, that is done and it feels good to have it out of the way and submitted. Another academic stepping block has come up in the form of ethics. Both my professor and I are not sure whether or not I will be needing to complete an Ethics form for this project. Thus, we will be looking into this and if so I will complete this before my work at the cemetery begins.
Third, I had a meeting with two people from the Old Cemeteries Society of Victoria. Here is a link to their website. The OCSV has done a number of really great things at Ross Bay, including cleaning and repairing tombstones and fences surrounding burials, meticulously recording the burials, and gathering information about those buried at Ross Bay. They do this purely on volunteer hours and with donations! They conduct tours of Ross Bay every Sunday (each with a different theme) and I highly recommend going to one! Tours are only $5 for a non-member and $2 for a member (instructions on how to become a member are on their website). All money collected goes back into maintaining the tombstones.
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| Ross Bay Cemetery. |
The two members with whom I met showed me the OCSV database on Ross Bay, which is lovely and something I doubt I can recreate (but I will try valiantly!). They also showed me folders and binders that hold the database they have on St. Stephen's, information about how they completed the project, and historical information collected on the Church and cemetery. Within this binder is a section on the history of individuals buried at St. Stephen's and this should prove to be both interesting and useful for situating my project results. They also told me about a disc where an older member of the St. Stephen's congregation was filmed reminiscing about the graves and Church.
We also discussed some possibilities for things I could do. Three tasks came up that I am very much looking forward to. One is updating/adding to the OCSV webpage on St. Stephen's, and the other two involve me separately uploading my electronic database and map to the St. Stephen's Anglican Church Official website (with the Church's permission of course). I will be attending a cleaning session with the OCSV on September 28. We will be working in Section O of Ross Bay, near May St. and Memorial Drive. Anyone can join and it should prove to be a fun day! I would like to thank the OCSV for taking time out of their day to meet with me and review all the resources they have on St. Stephen's. They were very helpful and the meeting was quite valuable to me. The meeting ended with me frantically search for my wallet (I was wearing a new sweater with tiny pockets), which makes me feel a little silly. But I found it! It had sneakily fallen out while I was getting out of my car and was still sitting underneath it! Thankfully.
Next week I will be meeting with the custodian and rector from St. Stephen's Church and we will be going over my project description and timeline. I hope to be out and working in the cemetery by the beginning of October. I plan to be at the cemetery every Thursday for most of the day, although this may change after my meeting next week.
Here is a beautiful fall picture of Ross Bay to finish my post!
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| http://wikimapia.org/38550/Ross-Bay-Cemetery |
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