The Esperanto House website has just been redesigned, restructured and rewritten. Hopefully, it will be easier to navigate and find useful information about our organisation, and its headquarters. All the page content is complete (although a website is never complete! 😉) However, there may still be some broken links, which I will fix as I find them. – Jonathan Cooper, president and website manager
President’s report 2024
Presented at the Annual General Meeting 7 September 2024 Membership From the beginning of July 2023, we welcomed 17 new members: Monika Agarwal, Gwen Chan, Eszter Coombs, Elsa Cooper, Rory Coverdale, Karim De-Lancel, Minh Thong Do (Tom), Dominic England, John Grant, Amy Hong, Melody (Errol) Hooper, David Ludeke, Jack McMahon, Imogen Marosz, Chunliang Mu, Steve Ripley and Nicole Stevens. Five members from 2023 didn’t renew. Current number of members: 40 Esperanto courses Two courses for members were organised. Although they were held at Esperanto House (and students were encouraged to attend in person), there was always the option of participating […]
The library finally ready!
We are happy to inform you that the library at Esperanto House is finally ready to enable members to borrow from it. After 18 months of weekly work, all 2700+ books (and most of the periodicals) are catalogued, labelled, stamped and sorted on the shelves. The plan is to eventually set up an online loan system, but until then, there is a manual system, using a book. However, you can now see the catalogue as an online spreadsheet, at bit.ly/biblioteko-katalogo. So, what will you find in the library? Well, what interests you? Is it biology? Maybe you would like the […]
President’s report 2023
Presented at the Annual General Meeting, 3 September 2023 Buildings The most significant event in the 2022–23 financial year was the departure in February of our long-time tenant, Hugh Ramage, who had rented the Little Eveleigh Street building as a studio and gallery for over 27 years. Initially, a co-operative of artists (including Hugh’s daughter, Stella) expressed an interest in taking over the lease. However, it turned out that they would only be able to afford to pay $2,000 per month (Hugh had been paying $2,754.00 until the end of 2022, and we had increased the rent to $3,720 before […]
The AGM 2022
On Saturday, 10 September 2022, 12 members of the Federation participated in the annual general meeting (AGM) – five at Esperanto House, and seven via Zoom (including Terry Manley from Armidale and Rainer Kurz from Germany). Jonathan started the meeting with an “acknowledgment of country”. After we approved the minutes of the last AGM (12 September 2021), Jonathan read the president’s report aloud. (See below.) Next, Dmitry read aloud a summary of the treasurer’s report for the 2021–22 financial year: The monetary value of the entire property of the Federation on June 30, 2022 was $1,900,119.83 (however, this is based […]
President’s report 2021
Presented at the Annual General Meeting Sunday, 12 September 2021, 11:00 am By Andrew Spannenberg Maitland RiverLights 2020 multicultural festival went ahead via a video stream. The Federation was represented in the Language Lounge section. President Andrew gave a lesson in Esperanto in front of a whiteboard and flag. It went OK and was well received. Our Zamenhof Day celebration (13 December 2021) saw another “inclusion cake”: vegan, gluten-free, and decorated in the Esperanto flag. Yes, we went a little overboard and over budget. We gave it a damn good shot as a “we welcome our members!” On the actual […]
Minimalism
Doris Chen, member of Esperanto NSW (Originally published in Esperanto, in Telopeo, 57:01, January 2021, and 57:02, March 2021) Minimalism is a way to get rid of non-essentials to pay attention to what really matters, what gives positive meaning to our lives, what gives us joy and value. Minimalists seek happiness not through things, but through life itself; thus, it is up to you what is necessary and what is unnecessary in your life. I found out about the concept of minimalism through an acquaintance’s post. She said she has only useful things in her apartment instead of having a […]
Esperanto on Sydney radio
On Zamenhof Day 2020 (15 December), Josh Szeps (ABC Local Radio Sydney Breakfast) interviewed Jonathan Cooper about Zamenhof Day and Esperanto. Listen to the interview (which included someone who learnt Esperanto in school in 1976 calling in): (Unfortunately, it is no longer available on the ABC website.)
A new way to have meetings: virtually
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, and the rules of social distancing, regular meetings of Esperanto clubs have had to stop. Instead, a new form has been set up: the virtual meeting – most often via the video group chat system, Zoom. While the older Skype system works like a telephone conversation (one person calls others, who already must be connected to the caller), Zoom works in a way like a traditional meeting place: Anyone with the link and password is allowed to enter. [1] In addition, Skype is free for conversations with no time limits, and theoretically no limit on […]
Letter from Bjelovar Esperantist Society
On Sunday, 1 March 2020, during the monthly meeting of Esperanto NSW, we had a special guest from Croatia: Damir Matašin, the great grand-nephew of John Matasin, whose hard work and generosity enabled the purchase of Esperanto House in the 1960s. Damir brought with him gifts, including a beautiful book on the history of the Esperanto movement in Bjelovar, Croatia, written by Josip Pleadin. On the blank first page of the book was pasted a letter from the president of Bjelovar Esperantist Society, to Esperanto NSW. The text, translated into English: BJELOVAR ESPERANTIST DRUŠTVO BJELOVARIAN EXPERANTIST SOCIETY 43000 BJELOVAR, Vlatka […]