18 June 2020: It is hard to believe where the time has gone since my previous blog. Unfortunately that little thing called ‘life’ intervened and the last 18 months or so have been a bit bumpy for me with other priorities taking precedence over volunteering time and effort.
And now we have something that has caused considerable upheaval to everything around us, including the Friends. Who could have imagined a year ago that the Archives would be shut and the nation locked down. Yet, life goes on and many have found new and inventive ways of maintaining a semblance of business-as-usual through digital connectivity.
The Archives shut its doors in late March ahead of our 31 March voting deadline and the Special General Meeting called to approve the incorporation process and transfer of assets to the new charity. We are frozen in a moment in time and have only very recently been able to gain access to our mail and begin to establish the outcome of the voting process. Everything remains on hold until the situation has improved and we can with certainty make arrangements to conclude the process. We are not publishing our Outreach newsletter for much the same reasons, so this blog provides an update on current activity. Until the situation changes most of the updates will be found here with regular blogs or via the home page of the website.
Yet, for some other aspects it has been business-as-usual. The trustees have held their meetings by telephone conference calls and these have assisted in keeping things moving along. The sessions have been slightly challenging to manage but have worked well and we have achieved a lot. We haven’t yet ventured into video conferencing but I expect it will happen eventually. This is certainly a time for learning new IT skills!
One of the more noticeable developments has been the new logo. The trustees decided not to adopt TNA’s new logo and instead opted for something that was distinctively different to avoid any confusion of identity with TNA and its Trust, yet still clearly defining who we support. The Charity Commission’s guidance makes it clear that charities supporting non-charitable bodies must ensure their identity is clearly distinctive and emphasises the difference between the organisations.
We have stayed in touch with colleagues at the Archives and progressed a number of funding opportunities. We have agreed to revise our research fellowship and move to a 12-month £30k format rather than the inaugural 6-month £15k format. The extra time would enable a more in-depth piece of research without the constraints of time, taking into account induction and training commitments and annual leave entitlements. At the time of writing we are looking forward to an interesting selection of research proposals to consider.
One aspect that has always interested me is the opportunity for the Friends to be more proactive and initiate projects. We are reliant upon funding requests being submitted and sometimes it can be like London buses – nothing for ages and then several all come at once! For some time now we have been in discussion with the Research and Collections Directorate, and the senior archivist (Future Catalogues) in particular, to identify a ‘top ten’ of record series that would benefit from attention either from a conservation need or by unlocking for greater access, or a combination of both.
My thought is that if we could identify a series that also has an interesting ‘back story’, and is also name and place rich, we could develop a crowd-funding project. I am always thinking aloud and looking for news ways of doing things. From an initial list of ten we have narrowed it down to E 318, Sale of Crown Lands 1509-1649. What appeals to me is that it is from a period that we have not generally worked on or been involved with through projects or events. There is still much to do before we come up with a plan of action. At the moment it is still an aspiration and we will keep you updated with progress.
Elsewhere, one of the projects we are currently supporting is making significant progress. We are jointly supporting the First World War Lives at Sea project with the National Maritime Museum, the Society of Nautical Research and the Crew List Index Project. Over 30,000 records are complete and currently searchable online. Overall, the team of volunteers have transcribed over 300,000 records, with around 110,000 cross-checked so far. The project website is: https://royalnavyrecordsww1.rmg.co.uk/ If you are interested in joining the team of volunteers then contact: [email]crewlists@nationalarchives.gov.uk[/email]
We recently approved funding for the completion of MH 106: Admission and Discharge Registers and Medical Sheets for Personnel of Expeditionary and Imperial Forces, 1914-1918. The project was started with funding from the Wellcome Trust but the funding arrangement has now finished. We have agreed to fund the remainder of the project to ensure a successful conclusion. It makes sense to assist getting projects completed, as we did with the long-running Gascon Rolls Project, rather than start something new.
We have agreed funding for the fifth film-making project by the Education team – Rebels in the Archives. We have also started discussions with the Outreach team about possible funding support for a film project showcasing some of the West African textiles found in the BT 52 Design Registers and recording the reactions they stimulate in contemporary audiences.
It is hard to know when any of these funded projects will get underway and I expect everything is likely to slip by a year or so. It will seem very strange as we get back to normal but do wonder how long that will be and how normal the transitional and new normal will be. In the meantime, we will continue to consider ways of adapting to the new reality.