Welcome to the Summer 2022 edition of the Heritage Hub e.newsletter
We’re off – our plans for the next ten years…..
Over the last three months, I’m delighted to report that Gloucestershire County Council contractors have installed upgraded WIFI across the site (which we hope will provide a better experience for public, partners and staff), given a fresh lick of paint to some staff areas and offices, and installed a new kitchen. We’re looking forward to phase two to complete the work behind the scenes, but there is already far less contrast when walking from the shiny new public facilities to the staff areas beyond!
Just as royal visitors must be used to the smell of new paint, we suspect this did not go unnoticed by our esteemed colleagues Simon McKeon and Tim Powell from The National Archives (TNA) when they visited on 30th June. This was the first official visit from TNA since the completion of our For the Record transformation project so an opportunity to review facilities.
However, their primary objective was to audit the recent accession of magistrates records.
By taking in these Public Records after 20 years instead of 30 years (due to a change in legislation), we became eligible for New Burdens Funding and this needs careful auditing on behalf of central government. We are using our New Burdens Funding to help address our significant cataloguing backlog, as set out in our 10-year plan. We are interviewing for an additional archivist on 1st August. This is only one of many measures to help address collections backlogs and make all the material we hold fully accessible. We look forward to sharing the fruits of our labours in due course. Meanwhile, if you have any ideas on how we can fund or resource further cataloguing or conservation projects we’d be very pleased to hear from you!
We continue to reap the benefits of our lovely community garden – don’t forget to take a look when you next visit the site and perhaps enjoy your lunch break there. Over the next ten years we hope to schedule many more community events and celebrations there.
oooooo
