Founder and Chairman of Islands Memories, Jim Burton Retires

Founder and Chairman of Islands Memories, Jim Burton, support by his wife Joan, retired from organising the monthly meetings at Toowong Library on Friday 7 April 2017 after 10 years.  Jim said that 120 continuous meetings had been held with 104 guest speakers and Jim filling in the other 16 meetings with stories of his life in the Pacific. Max Quanchi was the inaugural guest speaker 10 years ago – other speakers have included Sean Dorney and Max Uechtritz.  Many of the talks were recorded by Jim.

Jim’s collection of Pacific personalities is a huge tribute to his time, his patience and his friendship to all.  Jim has shown us that the Australians who explored the Pacific are a unique group of people that contributed in a diverse way to Australia’s history.  Collectively they have taken Australia to the Pacific, opening opportunities and vision for Australia. We just hope that Jim’s papers can be kept together, ideally in a community centre for the Pacific such as the proposed Australian Community Centre for Pacific Nations.

To commemorate Jim and Joan’s last day organising ‘Islands Memories’ attendees happily showed their appreciation and enjoyed a delicious cake and morning tea.