Progress is being made quickly on the archive project, because now we have got an Archivist!
This is Robert, hard at work going through a folder. This is the first stage of the archiving – he is cataloguing what he finds in the various boxes and files we have got everywhere, then the rest of us will look and establish the principles of what can be thrown away. We have lots of duplicates of things – newsletters, minutes, cassette tapes – and also there are things which, while they might be interesting, aren’t necessarily interesting enough to keep forever. Like old invoices and things like that. So what we keep is a discussion to be had. (I wonder how much of it will spark joy…).
Robert says that what is interesting about the archive is the wide variety of projects HPCA has done over the years. This is true, we have done all sorts: from newsletters/ collections of writing like Peak People, to all the art we’ve produced (mosaics to giant willow rabbits…), to plays like Tin Hats and Telegrams. On the list of documents there are a number of things which sound intriguing: what was T’ai Chi ‘n Green Tea? And what was Who Shot Big Ted? (And who did Shoot Big Ted?). One of the things I would like to find is a quilt that was made as part of an awareness-raising project about AIDS. Rumour has it it was last spotted in the cupboard behind the Yurt, so I am looking forward to that reappearing.
The next stage is to start transporting the boxes down to Derbyshire Record Office in Matlock and fitting what we decide to keep formally into their cataloguing system. We will also be creating a digital archive (scans/ photos of some of what we find), and organising some information workshops in Spring/ Summer, so watch this space for more information about those.
