Gloucestershire Archives

'Green Pledge' update

The Green Pledge Project is now well underway. We are so pleased to welcome two more team members to the project this month: Marion Hill is our Community Learning and Outreach Officer and will be creating archive-inspired, sustainability themed, events and exhibitions. Ethan Langfield is our new archives’ apprentice. As well as learning the ropes throughout the archives, he will work specifically with the Green Pledge Project, helping with research and creating guides and toolkits.

Ethan, Marion, Christina, Jenny and Hannah, aka the Green Team

The Green Pledge Project has a broad range of elements, including:

Sustainability-themed events inspired by our county’s heritage.

Travelling exhibitions
Oral histories, recording the stories of local environmentalists
Bringing new environmental records into our collection and cataloguing existing ones
Monthly podcasts and a collection of films
Putting our own house in order with an environmental audit and action plan.- read our 'Greening the Hub' piece to find out how are making our building more sustainable
A range of volunteering roles including; researching the archives, cataloguing, adding to Know Your Place maps, helping at events, gardening in our wildlife-rich community garden

Would you like to get involved with the project? We are currently holding consultations to find out what local people and groups think we should include. Are there aspects of local environmental history we should know about? Which environmental themes do people think we should focus on? Who are the people who have been involved in the environmental movement (locally and nationally) that we should interview?

If you are interested in being part of the consultation or the volunteer programme please do get in touch with our project officer Hannah.Basnett@gloucestershire.gov.uk

Two of our community raised beds

Over our heads

On a cold sunny day in January 2024 we said farewell to the massive air conditioning plant on the roof. This is part of our programme to reduce power consumption and we have freed up space to install solar panels later.

We have been working with expert Nick Grant (Elemental Solutions) to ensure our strongrooms remain at the correct temperature and humidity. Indeed in recent times we found it easier to achieve the correct levels in our passive strongrooms than strongrooms 1 and 7 which benefited from air conditioning. As part of this work we have upgraded the heating in the research room and tracked down the reason for recent rain drips – the resident herring gulls had pecked holes allowing rainwater to penetrate.

Thank you to our researchers and Hub partners for coping with the temporary disruption whilst this work was completed.

Working with schools

Gloucestershire Archives can offer a wealth of resources, built up over many years, to help schools engage their students with local history. Our talented learning and outreach team, John and Jemma, can also work with teachers to deliver tailored sessions. Add into the mix our strong partnership with Voices Gloucester, English Heritage and the Gloucester Heritage Forum and we have much to offer hard pressed teachers. One of the main hurdles we've found is getting this message to the right people.

Enter the schools e-newsletter, which we started just over a year ago in February 2023. Eight editions have been issued to date and the tight half termly schedule helps keeps content fresh and relevant. The e-newsletter now goes out to all schools in the county, numbering some 360 primaries, secondaries, independent and special schools, and includes contributions from Forum members, as well as ourselves and Voices Gloucester.

Typical content includes

upcoming events and offers
a summary of Forum members' education programme
news pieces such as new appointments and programmes, projects, activities, and events.

Very pleasingly, we know that our 'open' rate per newsletter exceeds what is regarded as 'good' for this medium and shows that over 100 schools per edition are reading it.

Over the past year we've been able to share news and updates on some great - and photogenic - projects:

The Great Debate

Heritage Schools training delivered to teachers by Historic England

'Gate Street' primary school project

Lots of school visits.....

...with more projects suggested by teachers under development for 2024.