National Trust Festival 2009
 ‘Our Place in Space – Under the Southern Cross’
4 – 19 April 2009

Welcome to the 2009 National Trust Heritage Festival. We invite you to celebrate our rich cultural heritage by being part of one of the longest running community festivals in New South Wales.

The theme of this year’s festival is ‘Our Place in Space’ and it will be celebrated at hundreds of fantastic events across metropolitan and regional NSW from Saturday 4 April to Sunday 19 April 2009.  These events will include a wide range of community activities including star gazing, discovery tours, art exhibitions, walks, talks, awards, photography displays and community fairs.

In 2009, it will be 400 years since the Italian scientist Galileo Galilei turned a telescope the heavens. The International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009), a global celebration of astronomy and its contributions to society and culture, will mark this event.

With 90% of Australia's infrastructure for Astronomy lying inside the borders of NSW, which includes the major radio observatories (CSIRO's Parkes, Narrabri and Coonabarabran Observatories, and the University of Sydney's Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope) – its not hard to see why some 20,000 people across the country own their own telescope to observe the night sky.

This year’s Heritage Festival theme is about Australia’s history and place in the numerous discoveries we have made in the world of Astronomy – one of Australia’s most highly cited sciences.

The National Trust established the Heritage Festival 29 years ago to remind people to care about their built, environmental and cultural heritage. These concerns remain as relevant today as they were then. The National Trust continues to advocate for the conservation of our cultural heritage and historic landscapes, and we continue to rely on your support to achieve these goals.

To read more about our work and for Festival updates please go to our website www.nsw.nationaltrust.org.au. We hope you will join us in celebrating ‘Our Place in Space’. We also hope you will tell your friends, neighbors and colleagues about the Festival and encourage them to share in the fun.

Thank you and best wishes.