History Project Update
By
Robert Prowse
prowserj@bigpond.net.au
Mid-2022, the History Project was finally able to visit the Australian Association of Gerontology office in Melbourne to inspect the archives. I was appreciative of the access granted by James Beckford Saunders, who was by then the out-going CEO of the AAG.
Particular attention was paid to records covering the years around the formation of the Australian Geriatrics Society. The most exciting finding was in the minutes of the AAG Council in Melbourne on 28th September 1972.
Under a heading “Association of Geriatricians” it was recorded that, “Dr Gary Andrews reported that a meeting had been called for Sunday, 1st October for which an agenda and proposed Constitution had been circulated to doctors who might be interested. A good response had been received, indicating that approximately 50 people would attend the inaugural meeting”.
This is the only contemporary record I have seen concerning the foundation of our Society. 1972 has always been given as the founding year, and was recorded as such by those who were involved. However, a historian welcomes a confirmatory document. More importantly, this gives us the actual date of the Society’s founding, in addition to the year. The first of October will be reasonably easy to remember for occasions when reference to the birth of the AGS is required!
I think this is likely to be the only extant record of this important date for the ANZSGM. It was of interest that the AAG had records of its Council meetings from its inception in 1964, whereas the earliest AAG Council meeting minutes seen by the History Project were from 1987 and the first of an Annual General Meeting in 1979. The difference can be attributed to the somewhat different circumstances of the formation of the two organisations.
Our inaugural meeting occurred at the same time as a scientific meeting of the AAG, which provided an appropriate association for medical professionals interested in ageing and aged care. After formation of the AGS, the Society continued to meet with the AAG. The History Project hoped that the AAG archives would provide accounts of these AGS meetings, given the dearth of information about early scientific meetings of the Society. Unfortunately, there were very few such reports. The first was a mention, in the 1981 AAG Annual Conference program, of a concurrent session on undergraduate teaching, the first section of which was listed as an “AGS Meeting” concerning undergraduate teaching in medicine. The second was a recording in the program for the 1983 AAG conference, at which the Annual General Meeting of the AGS was scheduled for the 16th October. These references confirm that the AGS was closely involved with the AAG, but at the 1981 meeting the AGS seems to have been a contributor to the AAG program, rather than meeting in its own right. Apart from these two references, if meetings specifically of the AGS were taking place, they were doing so informally and did not require mention by the AAG.
As usual, these gaps in our knowledge remind me to ask for any historical documentation that members come across in an attic, garage or storage locker.
