A new level of accessibility
Staff at Gloucestershire Archives are particularly excited by a new venture under development called ‘Reading the Records’, which aims to open up our collections to blind and visually impaired customers. On 10th June we ran a successful pilot session with representatives from the Sight-loss Council and Gloucester’s Talking Newspaper. There was a touch tour of the ‘tools of the trade’, a description of our oldest document with an explanation of seals and a tour of the facilities. We were even joined by Heidi the very beautiful guide dog - perhaps the first dog ever to enter an archive strongroom! 
So what are we hoping to achieve?
Well, obviously we want to open up our service to a new group of users but beyond that we hope to become a social venue for their families, friends and carers. As a service we are always on the look-out for alternative ways to highlight our collections. This objective ties in with the motto of our service which is to 'gather, keep and share' in a bid to 'educate, enrich and empower'. Crucially though, we hope that Gloucestershire Archives can act as a trailblazer and show other archive services how records can be used differently for a wider appeal. We also plan on adding an online aspect, to share our collections with people who may be house bound, supplementing the excellent work already undertaken by the Talking Newspapers.
We have 5 on-site sessions scheduled to start in October specifically tailored to visually impaired users. For two of these sessions we will also be working with our partners, the Gloucestershire Family History Society and the Gloucestershire Police Archives. If you are interested or know of someone who may be eligible, please get in touch with us at archives.gloucestershire.gov.uk, Title the subject of your email 'VI sessions' and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
A fond farewell but watch this space!
For the past two years Jemma Fowkes, Community Heritage Officer for Gloucestershire Archives has run the Heritage Ambassadors programme, funded by Historic England and Voices Gloucester. The Heritage Ambassadors are a group of young people, aged 15-17 years old, from Gloucestershire, who meet several times a year to share their love of history. Last week she bid a fond farewell to the latest group.
'I left the final Heritage Ambassadors' meeting, feeling giddy from the glut of heritage and history we'd experienced! Visiting firstly, St Nicholas' Church, and then popping over the road to The Folk, our Ambassadors experienced two very different historic buildings.
Thanks to the CCT's Isobel, for her thoughtful tour of the church. There was much to love. Especially the door knocker showing the Devil dragging a drunk woman to hell! Isobel drew attention to the difficulties involved in looking after churches, whilst challenging the students to consider how they could be used. A silent disco was my favourite suggestion! At The Folk, knowledgeable guides, Richard and Andrew, led us around the gorgeous timber-framed building. They enthused the Ambassadors with the importance of memory and stories, the narrative weaving through different times and events and including Gloucester's most notorious individuals. I was saddened this was the last of our meetings. This year's cohort have been a joy! Thank you to all the Ambassadors for their love of history and heritage. Also thanks to Hundred Heroines, Canon Photography, The Folk, the CCT and Gloucester Civic Trust for providing the inspiration!'
However, there is good news! The Heritage Ambassadors programme will be restarting in November. If you are or know anyone aged between 15-17 with a love of heritage, please get in touch with Jemma directly by email on Jemma.fowkes@gloucestershire.gov.uk
Sounds of the South West - listen and learn...
Sounds of the South West aims to preserve our region's valuable audio heritage by digitising at risk recordings, ensuring that local history is saved for the future. This has given us a chance to spend time listening to some of the fascinating and revealing audio recordings which have now been digitised from our collections at Gloucestershire Archives. We wanted to find ways to share it extracts and full-length recordings with you. To create the short illustrated or digital stories, a group of volunteers came along to a workshop. They were provided with short audio clips and images from the archives. Thanks so much to all the volunteers for their hard work on this. We love what you’ve done!
To hear what’s been published so far - click Sounds of the South West - Gloucestershire Archives
Stories so far include Agnes Davis, born in 1897 talking about life in the Forest of Dean (illustrated with beautiful drawings by children from Coleford Local History day); H J Massingham poetic talk on woodland bird, from around 1930s; Roger Staley’s reflections on the impact of foot and mouth disease on his farm in Thornbury (2001) and Mr Leslie Workman’s memories of life growing up in Sheepscombe.
Coming soon:
Mr Charles Smith talks about his memories of Hardwicke Court where his mother was second nanny to the Lloyd-Bakers.
Deryck Huby, on salmon fishing on the Severn.
Jack Cale – basket maker of Quedgeley
All of these stories have been made possible, thanks to funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Have a listen and see what you think!
The Green Pledge Project
In October 2023 we started on our latest major lottery funded project, the 'Green Pledge Project' having been awarded £246,800 to focus on cataloguing large environmental collections and developing community-led collecting initiatives whilst reducing the carbon footprint of our service.
The Green Pledge project will continue into Autumn, but the list of achievements is impressive.
Over 9000 maps and plans deposited by the Environment Agency have been catalogued and are now searchable for the first time. 
A series of thought-provoking podcasts on environmental matters has been produced - https://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/archives/our-projects/the-green-pledge-project/podcast/
Solar panels have been installed on the archives building.
Our in-house accredited conservators have also been leading the way, working with the National Archives, in the testing and development of passive storage to create safer and more stable environments for our archive strongrooms.
From January 2024 onwards, we have been working with Project Grow CIC and the Wiggly Charities to grow fruit and vegetables in the Gloucestershire Heritage Hub community garden, empowering local people.
At the beginning of June, the work of the Green Pledge Project was further showcased in the Cheltenham Science Festival with 5230 people, many of them school children, visiting our display, appropriately erected in a shed which is now part of the garden at our local school, Kingsholm Primary.
Our outreach officer, Marion Hill, has been giving inspiring talks about our area’s green heritage. When she visited the Wotton Area Climate Action Network, audience member, Sam Munton, decided to come to the archives for a first visit, do some research of her own and has written up the experience in a wonderful blog about how local archives reveal landscape change and highlight the impact of grassroots efforts to support nature. You can read this here Digging Into the Past to Shape a Greener Future
The Green Pledge Project will be drawing to a close in terms of delivering events at the end of September but watch out for our end of project celebration! We hope that the legacy of our work will carry on well beyond and we are currently developing online exhibitions which will stay on the website alongside the podcasts and tastes of the collection. To see all of these as well as the up-coming events please visit https://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/archives/our-projects/the-green-pledge-project/.
All of this work has been possible thanks to funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.