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  • Twilight Talks 2025, Season 3, Spring Season | Into the Dragon’s Den, The Chinese community in Bendigo

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    BMI - Humffray Room, level 2 117-119 Sturt Street, Ballarat Central, VIC, Australia

    17/09/2025 @ 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm $9.73 – $13.83 Bar open at 5pm $9.73 – $13.83 Humffray Room Get tickets Saving Dragons: The Life and Times of Russell Goldfield (Louey Yeung Man) Jack by Dianne Dempsey Russell Jack, the visionary founder of the internationally renowned Golden Dragon Museum, spent his life breaking barriers and preserving the history of the Chinese Australian community. Growing up…

    $9.73 – $13.83

  • Twilight Talks 2025, Season 3, Spring Season | Gold! Gold! Bendigo – Ballarat

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    BMI - Humffray Room, level 2 117-119 Sturt Street, Ballarat Central, VIC, Australia

    24/09/2025 @ 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm $9.73 – $13.83 Bar open at 5pm $9.73 – $13.83 Humffray Room Get tickets Gold! Gold! A comparison between the Ballarat & Bendigo Goldfields. An overview of the production of gold and its implications from the goldrush era of the 1850s up until today in both the Ballarat and Bendigo regions. Historian Dr Phil Roberts will provide a…

    $9.73 – $13.83

  • Twilight Talks 2025, Season 4, Remembrance Day | A Surgeon Commander & A Leading Cook – Ballarat Connections to HMAS Sydney 2 in 1941

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    BMI - Humffray Room, level 2 117-119 Sturt Street, Ballarat Central, VIC, Australia

    29/10/2025 @ 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm $9.73 – $13.83 Bar open at 5pm $9.73 – $13.83 Humffray Room Get tickets A Surgeon Commander & A Leading Cook - Ballarat Connections to HMAS Sydney 2 in 1941 HMAS Sydney 2 Crew, 1934 It is nearly 84 years this November that the mighty pride of the Royal Australian Navy was lost together with 645 crew in…

    $9.73 – $13.83

  • Twilight Talks 2025, Season 4, Remembrance Day | Recent War Memorabilia – from WW2 to Afghanistan, Presented by David Wright.

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    BMI - Humffray Room, level 2 117-119 Sturt Street, Ballarat Central, VIC, Australia

    05/11/2025 @ 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm $9.73 – $13.83 Bar open at 5pm $9.73 – $13.83 Humffray Room Get tickets Recent War Memorabilia – from WW2 to Afghanistan. Left to right - Australian Service Medal - Afghanistan Medal - International Force East Timor Medal - Australian Service Medal for Korea - Iraq Medal - Vietnam Medal.On ANZAC, Vietnam Veterans and Remembrance Days each year…

    $9.73 – $13.83

  • Twilight Talks 2025, Season 5, Recent Years | Ballarat’s Her Majesty’s Reinvention, Presented by Richard Nicholson

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    BMI - Humffray Room, level 2 117-119 Sturt Street, Ballarat Central, VIC, Australia

    19/11/2025 @ 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm $9.73 – $13.83 Bar open at 5pm $9.73 – $13.83 Humffray Room Get tickets Her Majesty's Renovation This talk will examine the recent renovation of Her Majesty's Theatre and explore the challenges, rewards and outcomes for the community that accompany transformational change to a treasured Heritage Building in the heart of the City of Ballarat. Speaker: Richard Nicholson…

    $9.73 – $13.83

  • Twilight Talks 2025, Season 5, Recent Years | Ballarat Arts Foundation: 25 Years Old, Presented by Paula Nicholson

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    BMI - Humffray Room, level 2 117-119 Sturt Street, Ballarat Central, VIC, Australia

    26/11/2025 @ 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm $9.73 – $13.83 Bar open at 5pm $9.73 – $13.83 Humffray Room Get tickets Ballarat Arts Foundation: 25 Years Old The Ballarat Arts Foundation (BAF) has been supporting the emerging artists of Ballarat for 25 years. The Foundation is completely community funded and supports artists from any genre, with an alumni group numbering over 500 artists who have…

    $9.73 – $13.83

  • Twilight Talks: Focus on Ballarat – Henry Lawson in Ballarat revisited

    BMI - Humffray Room, level 2 117-119 Sturt Street, Ballarat Central, VIC, Australia

    April 15 @ 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm $9 – $13 Humffray Room Get Tickets Henry Lawson in Ballarat - Revisited Speaker: Hedley Thomson 'Last November Hedley Thomson provided an entertaining and informative presentation about Henry Lawson's 1887 visit to Ballarat to explore the Eureka Rebellion sites. This year he will return to this topic, detailing the impact of that visit and the events of Eureka…

    $9 – $13

  • Twilight Talks: Focus on Ballarat – Ballarat Avenue of Honour

    BMI - Humffray Room, level 2 117-119 Sturt Street, Ballarat Central, VIC, Australia

    April 22 @ 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm $9 – $13 Humffray Room Get Tickets Ballarat's Avenue of Honour & A look behind names on the Avenue plaques Speakers: Amethyst May & Gary Snowden About the speakers Amethyst May Amethyst May is a student at Mount Clear College who has a passion for Australia's war history. She will present a short documentary on Ballarat's women during the…

    $9 – $13

  • Twilight Talks: Focus on Ballarat – Nostalgic memories of Stawell & Ballarat – 1950s and 1960s

    BMI - Humffray Room, level 2 117-119 Sturt Street, Ballarat Central, VIC, Australia

    April 29 @ 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm $9 – $13 Humffray Room Get Tickets Dickie Larsen's Pumpkin & Other Stories Speaker: Geoff Carr, author Spike is a young boy in 1950s Australia, surrounded by sprawling landscapesand a menagerie of animals. Together with his friends Leany and Riddy, they do what all young boys in the bush do: make their own fun. From chooks in outhouses,…

    $9 – $13

  • Twilight Talks: Focus on Ballarat – What We Watched Before Cinema: ‘Entertainments’ at the Mechanics’ Hall, 1863–1919

    BMI - Humffray Room, level 2 117-119 Sturt Street, Ballarat Central, VIC, Australia

    May 6 @ 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm $9 – $13 Humffray Room Get Tickets What We Watched Before Cinema: ‘Entertainments’ at the Mechanics’ Hall, 1863–1919 Speaker: Ellen Becker When the Mechanics’ Hall opened in 1863, the people of Ballarat flocked to see some strange and spectacular contemporary entertainments — mesmerists, automata, waxworks, human curiosities, and the magic of the first moving image technologies. Join Curator Ellen…

    $9 – $13

  • Pressed dried flowering plant specimen with roots on paper

    Arresting the Ephemeral: The Beautiful Usefulness of a Victorian Herbarium

    BMI - Humffray Room, level 2 117-119 Sturt Street, Ballarat Central, VIC, Australia

    July 24 @ 11:00 am - 12:30 pm Free Humffray Room Get Tickets The Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute is custodian of the most intact surviving set of the Educational Collections of Victorian Plants (1874–1876). A herbarium and series of books compiled by the first Chief Botanist of the Colony of Victoria, Baron Sir Ferdinand von Mueller. This presentation reveals the history and significance of this remarkable collection,…

    Free

  • Pressed dried flowering plant specimen with roots on paper

    150 Years of Botanical Communication

    Lending Library Sturt Street, Ballarat Central, Victoria, Australia

    August 7 @ 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm $15 Get Tickets Before digital databases and photography, how did we learn about the natural world? This Biodiversity Week, discover the BMI’s rare set of Ferdinand von Mueller’s Educational Collections of Victorian Plants (1874–1876). Designed to “diffuse information on the native vegetation” across Victoria, this historic herbarium and book collection reveals how early scientific communication cultivated…

    $15