Stars in low-mass dwarf galaxies show a larger range in their chemical properties than those in the Milky Way halo. The slower star formation efficiency make dwarf galaxies ideal systems for testing nucleosynthetic yields. Not only are alpha-poor stars found at lower metallicities, and a higher fraction of carbon-enhanced stars, but we are also finding stars in dwarf galaxies that appear to be iron-rich. These are compared with yields from a variety of supernova predictions.

The observational evidence for kinematic substructure in Local Group dSphs is reviewed. The properties of these substructures are consistent with their being disrupted star clusters. The persistence of cold substructure argues strongly against the presence of dark matter cusps in the haloes of dSphs. A formation scenario for dSphs is described involving the merger of star clusters in the potential well of a low-mass dark matter halo.

We present a preliminary analysis of a deep colour-magnitude diagram of NGC 1831, a rich cluster in the LMC. The data were obtained with HST/WFPC2 in the F555W and F814W filters, reaching m555 ⋍ 25 mag. Efficient use of the two-dimensional distribution of data was made by comparing the observed colour-magnitude diagram with model ones. We discuss the process used in accounting for field star contamination and sampling incompleteness in the data. We also describe the algorithm used in building artificial diagrams from model isochrones and the statistical method used in comparing model and data colour-magnitude diagrams. From these comparisons we infer a metallicity Z = 0.008 and a low value, fbin ⋍ 0.25, for the global binary fraction of NGC 1831. We also rule out ages τ ≲ 500 Myr and mass function slope values α ≳ 2.