May 2005
The Archive Awareness Campaign 2004 impact assessment and review is now available. The link with the BBC programme Who do you think you are? was very successful. Planning is underway for the 2005 and 2006 campaigns, which will feature some time-specific activities, plus a continuing, all year round campaign. Lucy Fulton at TNA is continuing work on AAC. A short story competition for children aged 7-11 and centred on Victorian childhood experience will be run in schools in the autumn term 2005.
NCA has confirmed the election of Elizabeth Hallam-Smith as the new chairman, to replace Nick Kingsley. Jonathan Pepler of Cheshire Record Office has been elected as the new vice chairman. Elections will be held for a new secretary and treasurer in the autumn. The incoming chairman paid tribute to the work of Nick Kingsley in leading the NCA and helping the archive community as a whole to make progress.
The NCA's new Policy and Development Officer is Ruth Savage. The NCA has paid tribute to the great contribution made to the NCA by Katie Norgrove, the outgoing Policy Officer.
The Linking Arms bid to HLF was rejected. The NCA will be involved in any future plans to take forward the ideas within the bid in another way. NCA are concerned about the MLA strategic and operational reviews and the need to ensure that archives maintained an equal place alongside libraries and museums in future, and the need to improve the representation of archives on the MLA Board and to secure the future of Regional Archive Councils.
Archive Awareness Campaign (AAC) impact assessment was published in March. It showed that 45-50% of visitors to events were new to archives, among other data. AAC is increasingly central to the work of the NCA and of the archives domain, and NCA needs to take a long-term view for greater success. The next campaign, in the autumn of 2005, will focus on 'Beginnings' and on a short story competition for children in 7-11 years age group (Key Stage 2) on the theme of Victorian childhood. In 2006, AAC will be linked with the second series of BBC2's 'Who do you think you are?' programmes. In 2007 the theme will be freedom and liberty, linked to the anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade.
The Business Archives Council is planning to appoint a strategy development officer for two years, in partnership with TNA and MLA.
Discussion on new records and archives legislation for Northern Ireland has been postponed until 2008.
