Nan Chauncy Award

This morning I have been meeting with Board member Jenni Connor, for further planning for the Tasmanian branch’s promotion of the Nan Chauncy Award for 2015. If you’re not sure exactly what the Nan Chauncy award is, go to http://cbca.org.au/nanchauncy.htm for more information about Nan and the Award.

What are we planning? 

We are kicking off with a ‘travelling suitcase’ exhibition, which will be available for display in interested public libraries in Tasmania. The first library to house this display will be the Hobart LINC, and, if all goes to plan, it will be available from late May in that library, so if you are a Hobart LINC user, be sure to look for it when you’re there. Where will it go next?  We don’t know at the moment, but we hope many of the forty-odd libraries which are part of LINC will put their hands up as potential homes for the exhibition. 

A couple of us are trekking round the opportunity shops in the Hobart area, looking everywhere to find suitable items to add to the CBCA(Tas) suitcase. I can understand the attraction of looking for specific treasures in such shops – there’s always something that brings back memories of my past life!

In June we expect to have John Marsden in Hobart for the weekend – ‘high tea’ with John will be an exciting opportunity for us all to get together to hear him speak about Nan. It won’t be long before our website is ready to take bookings for this, so watch for information on www.cbcatas.org.

Book Week is in August and that’s the time for a showing of the film of one of Nan’s books – They found a cave. You will be able to come along to the State Cinema and enjoy that, whether you’ve seen it before or not. And we’re still organising a showing in the north – you’ll see more on our website in the future.

Our final activity will be at Chauncy Vale itself – again the date is not set but we plan for early October.

And if you don’t think that’s enough for me and the other planners, add in the necessity to read (or re-read) Nan’s books. I’m on Mathinna’s People at the moment; Tangara and Tiger in the Bush have made their impact, and They Found a Cave will be next. The LINC has copies of all Nan’s works in Fiction Stack, available by request, and you can find pre-loved copies on the Internet if you look hard. No doubt you have your own copies at home too, and there may even be copies in various school libraries as well!

Patsy Jones

(CBCA(Tas) treasurer, retired librarian, retired teacher)