The Yass Valley History Centre was officially opened by the Hon Bob Nanva, Member of the Legislative Council and Government Whip in the Legislative Council on 4 October 2024. It was the culmination of a community effort to provide a permanent home for the unique archival record of life in Yass Valley.

The opening of the Centre in its current form owes much to the assistance of many individuals, government departments, community organisations, and our own hardworking members who came to our rescue when faced with eviction from the Soldiers’ Memorial Hall in February 2023. Our archival collection had occupied and grown within that space over forty years and in just nineteen days the impossible had to be achieved – to find a new home for the collection.

Our local member Wendy Tuckerman, the then Minister for Local Government, worked hard to ensure we had a safe location to move the collection to and secured the former ambulance station for us.  It was only available for a relatively short time – just sixteen months but it provided the vital accommodation that allowed our society to function while the former Yass and District Museum was repurposed to accommodate both the object and archival collections.

The refurbishment of the building was made possible with a $60,000 NSW Government grant, facilitated by local Labor candidate Michael Pilbrow, a small Transgrid grant and donations from the Yass Soldiers Club, Yass Rotary, individuals and our own fundraising efforts. Local community groups played vital roles in the transformation with the Yass Antique Farm Machinery Club assisting in the dismantling of internal partitioning and relocating the archival collection and Yass Men’s Shed laying the floorcoverings.

We also thank our local tradesmen James Alley Building and Carpentry, David Cleary Electrical, James Byrne Plumbing, Parkers Painting, Howard Stacy Air Conditioning and David Fields Blinds who for the most part worked under less than ideal conditions to meet our deadline. They did a sterling job.

The outcome says a lot about the spirit of our town. When assistance was so badly needed the community stepped up to ensure the archives have a permanent home.