Welcome to the Autumn edition of the Heritage Hub e-newsletter
Mission accomplished - the end of the Green Pledge Project
For the past two years, Gloucestershire Archives has been running the Green Pledge Project, thanks to a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. We’ve featured various aspects of the Team’s work in previous editions of the Heritage Hub newsletter. However, the key aims of the project were to raise awareness of ‘green issues’ and to catalogue and showcase environmental collections through learning and outreach. As the project comes to an end, we can safely say that these objectives have been achieved. There have been talks, podcasts, banners, involvement at the Cheltenham Science Festival, other external and internal exhibitions and numerous events both on and off site and online.
The following infographic poster neatly sums up the achievements of the project:
It has changed our Service provision in longer lasting ways too. We now have solar panels on the roof, EV chargers in the car park and a thriving vegetable garden supporting the local community and producing food, overseen by two local charities, ‘Project Grow’ and ‘Wigglies’, all in line with the County Council's commitment to tackling climate change.
We also have a ‘green toolkit’ and new research guides on all aspects of this subject to help future researchers and a monumental amount of maps (over 10,000) from the Environment Agency's collection held at Gloucestershire Archives have now been listed and added to our online catalogue.
To celebrate the end of the project, the Green Team and supporters held a celebratory event at the Heritage Hub on Saturday 25th October. Christina Wheeler, Project Lead commented "What a day! The Team stood together and talked about their work and the achievements of the project. It was so powerful to hear all the stories and sense the amazing reach and breath of the project".
Therefore, as the Green Pledge Project closes, we hope that its effects will continue to shape our way going forward and indeed, two of the Green Team are remaining with us; Ethan Langfield, Archives Assistant and Jenny Rutland, Cataloguing Archivist.
Christina Wheeler speaking at the celebratory event, flanked by Jenny Rutland (left), Archivist, responsible for cataloguing green collections and Marion Hill (right), Learning and Outreach Officer.