NRS-18714 | Minutes [Maritime Services Board]

This series consists of the minutes of the Maritime Services Board of New South Wales. Originally the Board met twice a week. It appears to have met weekly from February 1939, fortnightly from April 1969 and monthly from March 1985. (1) Meetings were held in Sydney but also at Newcastle and Port Kembla.The minutes were created under Section 3(16) of the Maritime Services Board Act, 1935 (Act No.47, 1935) which required the Board to 'cause minutes of all its decisions to be kept upon the official papers, and cause minutes to be kept of its proceedings at formal meetings'. The minutes are typed and signed by the President/Chairman or deputy. From 1935 to 1942 they are bound annually. From 1943 onwards they are bound in multiple years. The series includes duplicate volumes of minutes from 1971 to 1980 which are not signed.The minutes document the decisions and resolutions made by the Board. The minutes provide the following information: the date and place of the meeting; the Board members present; apologies from those not able to attend; correspondence and reports received by the Board that required a decision; statement of accounts including account number; and the date of future meetings. Until 30 August 1984, business was recorded on the left half of the page with decisions on the right half of the page. The description of the correspondence, reports and business is brief, but appears to include file numbers.The Board made decisions on items such as appointment, promotion, and retirement of office and senior waterways staff, and the infrastructure of the rivers and ports such as public baths, wharves, depots and good sheds, and cranes and other equipment needed to load and unload cargo. It also made decisions about improvements to navigation such as leading lights, marks and beacons; dredging of navigation lanes, the harbour and shore, rivers and riverbanks; and the removal of wrecks and other obstructions. It called tenders for equipment; recorded charges for licensing infrastructure and waterways; and placed its seal on documents recording leases and resumption of buildings, wharves and waterways.The minutes are indexed by year from 1935 to 1982, providing page numbers. The indexes are located in the front of each year's minutes. When a volume contain more than one year, the indexes are spread throughout the volume.Endnotes1. NRS 18714, 4 February 1936 p.3; 2 February 1939 p.810; 30 January 1940 p.1034.