The Foundation is organizing annual Jindabyne and Cooma Festivals which started as Mound & Mount Kosciuszko Festivals and developed recently into multicultural K’Ozzie Fests. The Festivals followed another event unique in the history of Mount Kosciuszko: Kosciuszko Music on Mount Kosciuszko on the 17th of February 2007. Involvement and contribution of the FKPP and of the Polish community to the region has been recently recognized in the official document on the Australian Alps on the National Heritage List.

We use this opportunity to call attention of the Town Planners and the Council to the public demand for appreciation of cultural and historical values of Jindabyne and of the adjacent Kosciuszko National Park. The old plans to build a Historical Museum of the Region, which we propose to name after the explorer Strzelecki who first climbed and named the Kosciuszko Mount, should be revived and effectively integrated into the Jindabyne Action Plan.

So far, the idea of the museum has rather beeen referred to only as a dream of the community. The prospective museum should be located near the Strzelecki monument and it should become a home for the famous Strzelecki map of Australia. This 7 m wide original produced by Strzelecki around 1845 is of great historical value . It is presently hosted by the British Geological Survey Library, recently in Nottinghamshire, in the UK. The map has been long forgotten and rediscovered only in 1972 by an Australian scientist, Professor D.F. Branagan of the Sydney University. The Polish community will be happy to donate also other items of historical value to the Museum.

(Photo:Mr Ryszard and Les Strzelecki of Cooma photographing the Strzelecki’s map in Nottinghamshire.)

The prospective museum should be multicultural and should include both the Aboriginal history of the Monaro region and the history created by the constructors of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme.

We believe that the town and the region should better benefit from the Festivals organized by the FKPP. There is a prospect for expanding the cultural part of the event by including musical, photographic and artistic components. They should attract both artists and spectators to Jindabyne in seasons without snow in the area. However the town should provide suitable location (open area) as well as a huge 10 x 10 m portable stage for performing concerts and artistic competitions within the Banjo Paterson Park, close to the Strzelecki Statue. It would be ideal to have it integrated with the proposed museum. The cultural activity of Jindabyne during no-snow period should provide an attractive component of the recreational aspect of the region, attracting more tourists both to town and to the Kosciuszko National Park.

The Strzelecki Statue is a big attraction; may we recall that it was a bicentennial gift of the Polish nation to Australians. The monument requires now some cleaning and restoration after serving Jindabyne over 20 years. This should not elude attention of the City Planners and we postulate that a regular maintenance of the statue be included into the Snowy River Shire Council budget.

(Photos: All photos of the Strzelecki Statue taken in November 2008.)

We also postulate to commemorate the contribution to the local community made by late Father Wally Stefanski. Rev. Fr Stefanski has had faithfully served the local community as well as tourists. He initiated all sorts of events, of which the Strzelecki Festivals in the 90ties were perhaps the most important. He is fondly remembered by the older residents of Jindabyne, Thredbo, Perisher, Dalgety. We suggest a creation of a walk or a bike track bearing his name as well as building a memorial plaque in the Jindabyne catholic church.

Ernestyna Skurjat-Kozek – President
The Cultural Foundation of Puls Polonii
Mobile: 0414 353 307

Puls Polonii is appealing to members of Polish community to present their ideas about development of Jindabyne as a tourist centre.