Friends of Merri Creek Annual General Meeting, 2026

Please join us for the Friends of Merri Creek Annual General Meeting, at the Bagung Magali Community Room, Bargoonga Nganjin North Fitzroy Library.

You can also join online via Teams (link provided to registered attendees closer to the date).

We will hear from our guest speaker Chris McConville, historian and author who is writing a book to mark the 50th anniversary of the first meeting of the Merri Creek Coordinating Committee. The book will cover the social and environmental history of the creek and the work of the MCCC and successor organisations, Friends of Merri Creek and the Merri Creek Management Committee.

For the AGM, Chris's talk will cover the years prior to that first meeting in February 1977, telling us of some of the story of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung along Merri Creek and the undertakings, efforts and challenges for the community, councils and state authorities.

The talk will be followed by brief AGM business. There will be opportunities to mingle over nibbles and drinks and reflect on a year of work caring for the Merri Creek catchment.

More about our guest speaker

Chris McConville was a member of the Public Interest Research Group that produced the first multi-disciplinary study of the Merri Creek in 1975.  He has since then written widely in urban and environmental history. Chris wrote A History of Hanging Rock for the Friends of Hanging Rock and he has worked widely in heritage conservation in Victoria and Queensland. Together with Rob Pascoe, Chris is writing a series of walking guides to neighbourhoods. Series title, Streets Beneath Our Feet. The latest in the series is on Fitzroy, released in October 2026.

Image: View on Merri Creek, Coburg, c. 1914, H90.160/1061, State Library Victoria