The Hallmark Society meeting on Monday, December 10, 2007 will feature speaker Ken Johnson who will give an illustrated lecture on "The Problem with Rattenbury", which will expose the seamier side of the construction of Victoria's Legislative Buildings. The meeting will be at the James Bay New Horizons Centre, 234 Menzies Street, Victoria, at 7:30 pm. Admission by donation.

Please contact the Hallmark Society Office at 382-4755 if you have any questions.

"The Trail of 1858: British Columbia's Gold Rush Past" is the title of authors Greg Dickson and Mark Forsythe (of CBC Radio's Almanac program) talk about their new book, which celebrates the anniversary of the 1858 Gold Rush and the founding of the Colony of British Columbia. The book combines their own research, and contributions from listeners who recounted their own family legends about this seminal event in B.C.'s history. You'll also hear about the famous and the infamous B.C. characters who were here at the founding of the colony.

This Friends of the BC Archives presentation will take place on Sunday, March 16, 2008, from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. in the Newcombe Conference Hall, Royal British Columbia Museum, 675 Belleville Street, Victoria.

For more information about this Friends of the BC Archives event contact Ann ten Cate, Outreach Coordinator, BC Archives, (250) 387-2970, or Ron Greene, Secretary of the Friends of the BC Archives at (250) 598-1835. This event is free for Friends of the Archives, $5.00 for non-members, payable at the door. Call in advance for information about handicap access.

Producer/director Stan Fox will present a collection of archival films on "The Summer of Love" shot in and around Vancouver during the "psychedelic" 1960s, including the film "What Happened Last Summer", his 1967 CBC program on the turbulent hippie movement in Vancouver's Kitsilano neighbourhood. This film was one of the most popular revivals at the recent Vancouver International Film Festival. Come and join the Friends on this "trip" down memory lane.

Stan Fox has spent a long career in the realm of film and television production. He was director and producer in the film department at CBC Vancouver, Director of the Vancouver Film Festival, Associate Professor and Chairman of the Department of Film at York University, Toronto, and Director of Adult Programmes at TV Ontario. He has served on numerous film and television festival juries, and is presently an independent media producer in Victoria, BC.

This Friends of the BC Archives presentation will take place on Sunday, January 20, 2008, from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. in the Newcombe Conference Hall, Royal British Columbia Museum, 675 Belleville Street, Victoria.

For more information about this Friends of the BC Archives event contact Ann ten Cate, Outreach Coordinator, BC Archives, (250) 387-2970, or Ron Greene, Secretary of the Friends of the BC Archives at (250) 598-1835. This event is free for Friends of the Archives, $5.00 for non-members, payable at the door. Call in advance for information about handicap access.

At the February 2008 meeting of the Friends of the Provincial Archives, Bob McDonald, who teaches British Columbia history at the University of British Columbia, will talk about the ?blatant pandering to patronage? and reluctant embrace of the merit principle that characterized public administration in British Columbia well into the twentieth century. In so doing he will ask why the ?dismissal without notice? in September 1898 of poor Miss Wooley, secretary to three premiers through the 1890s, can be said to symbolize the history of BC?s civil service up to the Second World War. He titles his talk "A 'Certain Slackness? in Administrative Procedures: BC?s Civil Service, 1870s-1940s"

This lecture will take place on Sunday, February 24, 2008, from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. in the Newcombe Conference Hall, Royal British Columbia Museum, 675 Belleville Street, Victoria.

For more information about the following Friends of the BC Archives events contact Ann ten Cate, Outreach Coordinator, BC Archives, (250) 387-2970 or Ron Greene, Secretary of the Friends of the BC Archives at (250) 598-1835. These events are free for Friends of the Archives, $5.00 for non-members, payable at the door. Call in advance for information about handicap access.

The Royal BC Museum announced its plans to celebrate BC's 150th birthday in 2008 on Douglas Day. Plans include a temporary exhibit, a traveling exhibit and a Web site, all under the umbrella name of Free Spirit: Stories of You, Me and BC. The Web site is at http://www.freespiritbc.ca