A NEW agreement with Albury Council and a well-supported public event has encouraged the group restoring the Uiver memorial plane.
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Monday’s council meeting will be asked to endorse a community and cultural committee recommendation for a three-year memorandum of understanding with the Uiver Memorial Community Trust.
The day also marks 82 years since the air emergency over Albury, where residents joined together to help the Uiver, a competitor in the London to Melbourne Centenary Air Race, land safely.
On Saturday an estimated 100 people, many of them children, attended the Uiver DC-2 restoration open day.
Uiver Memorial Community Trust director and project manager David Stoffels welcomed this response.
“The main thing that we want to do is make sure that we engage the next generation,” Mr Stoffels said.
“The restoration’s for them, it’s not for us at the end of the day, it’s for their future and for them to enjoy.”
Melbourne University library map curator David Jones, one of the visitors, said he enjoyed talking to the restorers and seeing the progress so far.
“It’s a real piece of history for the local area, as well as Australia of course,” he said.
“It’s fantastic that these people are going to the effort of putting back together this piece of history.”
Mr Jones’ interest in the Uiver is increased by Melbourne University possessing an original map from the 1934 air race, one of many distributed to the public.
The map marks the landing places between London and Melbourne but Albury rates no mention, highlighting the emergency nature of subsequent events.
Trust chairman Pieter Mol said the memorandum of understanding would bring all matters related to the Uiver under one umbrella.
“It means we now have a clear recognition between council and ourselves that we are together working towards restoring the aircraft and making it available ultimately to the public as a physical reminder of the historical event that happened in Albury in 1934,” Mr Mol said.
Albury mayor Kevin Mack said the Uiver landing remained a significant part of Albury’s history.
“It’s important we all work to keep telling that story,” he said.
The council transferred ownership of the DC-2 to the then Uiver Memorial Museum Group in 2013.
