Wenz Society News

PAUL WENZ SOCIETY NOW INCORPORATED
31 April 2008

The Paul Wenz Society is now a legal entity, Secretary Sabine Pierard reported today. The Society was formally incorporated as a community association by the NSW Office of Fair Trading on 14 April 2008, registration no. INC9889208.

The PWS Inc can therefore now operate in its own name to fulfil the aims and objectives outlined at its founding meeting.

PAUL WENZ SOCIETY ESTABLISHED
Forbes, NSW, 9 March, 2008

A new cultural organisation, the Paul Wenz Society, was founded in Forbes today to conserve, promote and build upon the literary legacy left by French-Australian writer, Paul Wenz.

Wenz scholar and translator, Maurice Blackman, former head of the French Department at NSW University, was unanimously elected the Society’s founding President, Sabine Pierard its first Secretary and Public Officer, and Andrew Gale its first Treasurer, at a meeting held in the garden of writer Merrill Findlay.

The committee also includes Paris-based Wenz enthusiast Monique Dalamotte; Mark Bennie, a Warroo farmer who represents the Forbes Community Writers Group; Anna Townend, a French teacher at Forbes High School, whose students are expected to benefit from the Society’s programs; and Jill Moxey who now lives at Nanima, the property once owned by Paul and Hettie Wenz.

PWS PATRONS

The two patrons of the Paul Wenz Society are Paris-based author, publisher and Wenz scholar Jean-Paul Delamotte of Atelier Litteraire Franco-Australien (ALFA), and Janet Moxey, dairy farmer and Vice-President of the NSW Farmers Association, who now lives in the house Wenz built on Nanima Station in the 1890s. Janet’s family company, Moxey Farms P/L, purchased Nanima in late 2007 from the Bruce family and operates a large dairy on a nearby property, The Angles, which Paul Wenz would also have known.

See Writer’s Lasting Legacy, Forbes Advocate, 15 March, 2008  >>

PWS AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
The aims and objectives of the Paul Wenz Society are

  • To promote the understanding and knowledge of the literary works of Paul Wenz, along with his life and times
  • To foster, conserve, and extend Paul Wenz’s legacy in the Shire of Forbes (Australia) and La Champagne Ardenne region (France)
  • To promote all kinds of cultural and other relations between the town of Forbes and the city of Reims, and more broadly between France and Australia
  • To foster cultural reciprocity, including educational experiences, opportunities and exchanges for people of all ages and backgrounds in both the Shire of Forbes and La Champagne Ardenne

BOOK PRESENTATION
Forbes, 10 March, 2008

Designer bookbinder and Secretary of the Paul Wenz Society, Sabine Pierard, today presented the Mayor of Forbes, Rhonda Keane, with a hand-bound edition of short stories by Paul Wenz printed on paper made by Euraba Paper Company of Boggabilla.

Forbes Shire Council purchased the book during the Double Bush Binding Exhibition which visited Forbes in 2006 after opening in Sydney. The exhibition later travelled to Japan and to Reims, France, where Paul Wenz was born. The book will be on public exhibition in Forbes and take pride of place in the Shire’s Wenz Collection.

See Forbes Advocate article, Author’s Work Lives On, 11 March 2008 >>

REIMS NAMES STREET FOR PAUL WENZ
Reims, 4 February 2008

The Mayor of Reims, Jean-Louis Schneiter, formally named one of his city’s streets in honour of French-Australian writer, Paul Wenz today.

Wenz was born in Reims in 1869 but lived much of his adult life in Australia where he settled on Nanima, a property on the Lachlan River in central NSW. He died in Forbes in 1939 and is buried in the local cemetery.

Paul Wenz Park in Forbes, NSW, just off Hettie Place in the Wenz residential estate.

Wenz and his Australian-born wife Hettie Dunne have already been honoured in Forbes: a housing estate and park are named for Paul and a street is named for Hettie. The Forbes & District Historical Museum has erected a bronze plaque commemorating the couple in Paul Wenz Park.

People in the Wenz network see the acknowledgement Paul Wenz is now receiving in Reims as yet another step towards forging strong cultural links between the city in which the writer was born and Forbes Shire where he spent some of the most creative years of his life.

Content posted on this site 23 January 2011.
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