Volunteer has a hundred reasons to celebrate

8 June 2018

A century is a top innings in anyone’s book and on Sunday a special lady raised her bat to celebrate that special milestone and 34 years of volunteering for the City of Albany.

Gwen Norman has seen a lot of change in Albany since she moved here in 1943 as a Sergeant in the Australian Women’s Army Service.

Her list of community achievements is long and as she will tell you, she’s still going strong and volunteering her time to Albany History Collection as she has done since 1983.

Gwen has transcribed numerous oral histories and, every Wednesday and Friday mornings, continues to help index collections held in the archive.

With her late husband Gordon, she was instrumental in creating a searchable card catalogue of Albany’s newspapers, and when the Collection came online in the 1990s, it pioneered digital access to archives in the region.

Among other achievements, Gwen is a life and founding member of Albany Ladies Probus Club, and life member of both the Albany Historical Society and Albany Agricultural Society.

She is recognised by the RAC has having the longest local membership, and has been heavily involved with the Wesley Methodist Church since her arrival in Albany 75 years ago, including conducting the church choir and starting the Methodist music group.

These achievements culminated in Gwen receiving recognition as Albany’s Senior of the Year in 2012.

“Gwen is just a remarkable lady and we are very lucky to have her as one of our volunteers,” Mayor Dennis Wellington said. “She has done a lot of work for our history collection over the years and has contributed so much to our community.

“It’s wonderful to see her reach this special milestone in her life and we’re very grateful she is still able to volunteer some of her time to help the Collection.”

City of Albany staff hosted a morning tea last Friday morning to celebrate with Gwen and thank her for her work at the History Collection.