Oakmere Solutions Ltd

2018-02-28T13:01:00.000+00:00

Oakmere Director Dr Sharon Goddard explores what being a ‘participant’ tells us about heritage

Heritage can grab you from many different directions. My professional life for the past 18 years as a Heritage Lottery Fund advisor and mentor has taken me to many amazing heritage sites and enabled me to meet so many committed and interesting people. Oakmere Solutions champions the ‘people and community’ benefits of heritage projects and the value of widening participation and engagement with heritage. But until recently I had never been involved myself as a participant in a heritage project. This all changed when I was contacted by a volunteer researcher with the Soldiers and Sailors Rest archive project, researching the stories behind the service people passing through Peterborough East Railway Station at the height of the Great War who had signed a visitors’ book at the temperance tea stall. Two visitors’ books covering 1916-17 are held by Peterborough Archives Service run by Vivacity. These diligent researchers were wading through the 590 entries in the books trying to track down relatives. My grandfather, Roger Tyrrell Hazelwood signed the book on 21 June 1916, the project team tracked me down through my family history entry on Ancestry, and I became a ‘participant’!

So what impact did being a participant in a heritage project have on me? On reflection I think there were three:

· I developed my skills and knowledge and got to know more about the man who was my grandfather by researching his story. It’s unlikely I would have done this without the prompt of being involved in the project. I found long forgotten photographs, talked to other family members about their memories, and found his naval record on line. He had joined HMS Ganges training station in Suffolk as a boy rating in 1912 aged 17 years and served as an able seaman on HMS Warspite from April 1915 – 19

· I researched the history of HMS Warspite and found out it was involved in the Battle of Jutland (31 May – 1 June 1916) where it was torpedoed four times and holed 150 times. After repairs, Warspite re-joined the Grand Fleet at Scarpa Flow and saw action in the North Atlantic. It was likely that Roger passed through Peterborough having returned from the Battle of Jutland while Warspite was being repaired

· I was able to contribute to the project, sharing family stories and photographs to provide context to what was just a signature in a visitors’ book. I felt part of a larger endeavour, with volunteer researchers, relatives of other signatories, and the project team, contributing to a beautiful and moving exhibition telling the back story of all those people who headed off to the Great War through Peterborough Station.

In addition, my belief in the power of archives to inform and inspire future generations was reinforced. Roger died in 1970 and through this project, I feel a new reconnection with him all made possible by tea ladies in 1916 thinking to have a visitors’ book, archivists looking after it for 100 years, volunteers researching its secrets, and the Heritage Lottery Fund providing financial support.

Notes:

The stories gathered through the project are available online at www.peterboroughww1.co.uk

The project exhibition is at Peterborough Museum until 15 April 2018: https://vivacity.org/whatson/heritage/the-soldiers-and-sailors-rest-exhibition/

More details of Roger’s and other stories are told in the Vivacity Momentum Magazine: http://www.themomentmagazine.com/virtual-magazine/january-2018-issue-43/ page 46-48

Value of heritage

2016-06-16T18:47:00.001+01:00

The concept of ‘heritage’ is contested and problematic.

Yet, internationally there is evidence to suggest that economic, social and demographic trends are leading to a strengthening of interest in, support for and expenditure on the heritage. Alongside this, public interest and expectations are changing resulting in increasing demands on the heritage, and heritage organisations to deliver value through the resources the heritage consumes. However, the determination and articulation of such ‘value’ is also problematic. For whilst the heritage is anecdotally acknowledged to make a valuable contribution to society through its positive impact on national identity, economic development and individual and collective well-being, specific and robust causal evidence of actual impact is limited. This limitation is important given the increasing costs of securing and maintaining the heritage and the intensity of alternative calls on available public and private resources. In this context the search for effective measures of value transcend issues of research methodology to impact directly on the position of the heritage as a public policy priority.

Given this the absence of a grounding theory regarding the value of the heritage, and more specifically the value of investment in the heritage is a concern. This absence limits both the potential for research replication and the claims of authority and insight made by research and evaluation. It also leads to unproductive and unacknowledged duplication of effort.

However, noting this concern does not of itself make research and evaluation redundant. Rather it suggests that the value of existing research on heritage value lies in the:

impressions and interpretations it offers and how these can be explored and reused;
opportunities it offers to shape specific service assumptions about heritage value and how these are developed in practice and subsequently tested;
stimulus and support it provides to presenting a coherent and validated case for new or continued resource funding.

Together, this suggests that despite concerns and issues regarding existing research and evaluation evidence the currently available published research provides an important basis for service development and for continuing to critically review the value of the heritage.

What is 'the heritage'

2015-04-14T13:41:00.000+01:00

In recent years we have worked with many organisations that are unsure whether an explicit engagement with 'the heritage' fully reflects their range of activities and focus of attention. For example, we have been working with a regional arts company to explore opportunities and challenges for the future, particularly given current and future constraints on public sector funding and competing demands on the third sector. With sustainability a key issue, the discussion explored the value of a revised focus on ‘the heritage’ as both a catalyst for action and as a way of building on a previous body of work to imagine the future artistically and commercially.

But concerns were raised: “… isn’t heritage just about the past, is it relevant to today and tomorrow?” said one. Another was concerned that a “focus on the past might alienate new audiences”. This raised the question – ‘what is heritage’?

An interesting perspective on this comes from Dr Rodney Harrison of the UK Open University who writes: “Many people would be surprised to hear me say heritage has very little to do with the past, but is actually more about how we conceptualise the future. Objects of heritage are the things we pay attention to because they’re still meaningful to us, not always because they tell great stories about the past but because we use them to tell stories about ourselves. Practices of heritage are customs and habits which, although intangible, also inform who we are as groups, and help to create our shared social memory.

We use objects of heritage (artefacts, buildings, sites, landscapes) and practices of heritage (languages, music, community celebrations) to shape our ideas about who we are as nations, communities, and individuals. What we define as ‘heritage’ is constantly changing in the light of the present as we look to the past to imagine our future.”

So, from this we might conclude that 'the heritage' is changing, contested and about “how we conceptualise the future”. It’s about who we are and who we want to be. It’s about how today links with yesterday to help form tomorrow. And, it’s about stories and memories as well as artefacts, archives, buildings and landscapes. As such 'the heritage' offers a rich and diverse context for artistic creation, writing and performance.

Heritage and the common good

2014-11-27T16:24:00.001+00:00

Investment in the heritage is often seen as supporting some concept of the 'common good'. As such it is contentious. Nonetheless Etzioni encourages us to think beyond the pure economic return on heritage investment to explore the more intrinsic, personal and community impact and value heritage generates. Can this be measured or can it only be implied? Is the comparison with fundamental research valid, and if so can we use methodologies and metrics employed to assess the value of such research in calculating the value of investment in the heritage?

Understanding the meaning and value of heritage

2014-07-10T15:15:00.000+01:00

What is heritage? A simple question with a complex answer.

Heritage can be seen as a contemporary activity with far-reaching effects. It is both local and particular and global and shared, and as a concept throws up competing perceptions, understandings and narratives. These are important as the way we value heritage depends on how we understand it.

Heritage can be seen as a continuum of inherited traditions, buildings, objects, and cultures. As importantly it is also the contemporary activities, meanings, and behaviours that we take from them. So, it includes preserving, excavating, displaying, and restoring things. Heritage is both tangible and intangible, and there is a debate around the relative importance of the intangible (oral histories, storytelling, songs, ephemera) when competing for resource against the tangible (buildings, monuments, ships, industrial artefacts).

For many the value of the heritage comes in helping us understand ‘how we got to where we are’. In one recent project we were working on it was helping a local community understand why a Grade 1 listed redundant church was ‘built where it was’. However, it would be reasonable to suggest that the dominant institutional narrative in the recognised ‘heritage sector’ is a focus on ‘professionalised preservation’ – retaining the tangible because of its inherent value as determined by those professionals who define such value.

These understands of what constitutes heritage informs the decisions we make about how we spend resource. If heritage is predominantly seen as tangible, and policy focused on preserving the tangible, there is a real danger that resources spent will do little to generate the cultural, attitudinal and behavioural changes necessary to realise the (asserted but contested) long-term social and economic benefits linked to investment in the heritage, particularly the building of social capital and the promotion of individual wellbeing and social coherence.

This is not to suggest that preservation of the tangible is somehow ‘wrong’ – it’s not, it’s essential. Rather, that the relative balance of resource spend between investment in the preservation and contemporary uses of the tangible and intangible needs to be under constant review to ensure that the community focused and everyday activities which support the transfer, use and reuse of the stories and cultural capital of the past are themselves supported. In part this links to a deeper set of questions about ‘who owns the heritage’ and ‘whose heritage is it’.

So, active engagement in the defining and valuing of the heritage by individuals, groups, communities, and nations should be a valuable facet of public life. We all have a part to play in determining ‘what is worth saving’, ‘what memories we should capture’ and ‘what we should forget’. As such defining ‘what is the heritage’.

Time to ‘rethink parks’

2014-03-03T22:48:00.000+00:00

Recently we have been working with a number of Trusts and local authorities to explore innovative uses and futures for parks and green open spaces. Nationally there is an issue of future funding for parks and an associated search for new uses and audiences to make existing facilities sustainable.

In its 2013 report ‘Rethinking Parks: New business models for parks’, Nesta found that:

many of the UK's public parks face an uncertain future with a reduction of up to 60 per cent in public subsidy looming, putting their management and maintenance at risk;
while public subsidy will remain a big part of the funding picture, new approaches to the management and maintenance of parks are needed;
whilst there is evidence of parks struggling there are also examples of successful parks business models in the UK and internationally;
these include new models of management, funding, organisation and governance, often involving community, social and private enterprises;
the most promising areas worthy of further exploration for ensuring parks continue to thrive are: changes in park management and maintenance, new organisational structures, more diverse funding sources, and identifying new uses for parks.

The report can be downloaded at http://www.nesta.org.uk/publications/rethinking-parks-new-business-models-parks.

Innovative and ambitious approaches are needed because parks are an essential part of the social life and fabric of communities across the UK. They are used, much loved and add to the amenities of our towns and cities. Across the UK examples already exist of new ways to think about how to sustain our parks. These include long-term management by ‘Friends Groups’ and enabling charities to provide day to day management in lieu of rent for use of facilities.

There are many challenges in developing and adapting new business models for parks. These include ensuring public parks are integral to, and reflective of the surrounding cultural, socio-economic and physical context. In some contexts private management models for public parks may offer a sustainable financial future, while in other areas cooperative management led by local communities may be a more viable option.

Opportunities exist too for parks to play a long term role in tackling climate change, in helping patients manage long-term conditions, in fighting the obesity epidemic and in providing opportunities for children to learn about food production.

To support innovation Nesta, the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Big Lottery Fund are running ‘Rethinking Parks’ to find and support organisations and partnerships with bold new ideas for using and sustaining the UK's public parks. Through grant funding of up to £100,000 per project and a package of non-financial support, ‘Rethinking Parks’ will back organisations and partnerships to develop, test, scale and share new approaches to help UK parks thrive.

To find out more about ‘Rethinking Parks’ visit http://www.nesta.org.uk/project/rethinking-parks

What is heritage?

2013-12-15T18:53:00.000+00:00

Recently we have been working with a regional arts company to explore opportunities and challenges for the future, particularly given current and future constraints on public sector funding and competing demands on the third sector. With sustainability a key issue, the discussion explored the value of a revised focus on ‘the heritage’ as both a catalyst for action and as a way of building on a previous body of work to imagine the future artistically and commercially.

So, heritage is changing, contested and about “how we conceptualise the future”. It’s about who we are and who we want to be. It’s about how today links with yesterday to help form tomorrow. And, it’s about stories and memories as well as artefacts, buildings and landscapes. As such it offers a rich and diverse context for writing and performance.

Hudd Music Hall Archive: lessons learnt

2013-10-22T15:02:00.001+01:00

Oakmere Solutions has been delighted to accept an invitation from the National Archives (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/) to provide a case study of archiving practice following the success of our work cataloguing the Hudd Music Hall Archive (http://www.suffolk.ac.uk/hudd_music_hall_archive). Producing the case study has been useful in focusing on some of the key issues, challenges and learning derived from the project which, in the spirit of sharing experience and practice we outline below.

Summary of activity: Hudd Music Hall Archive project. The project was designed to investigate, catalogue and make available the Music Hall and Variety archive collected over 50 years by the renowned writer, actor and comedian Dr Roy Hudd. The archive comprises a nationally significant collection of song sheets, posters, monologues, programmes, photographs and ephemera that tells the story of Music Hall and Variety in the United Kingdom from around 1850 – 1970s. As such it makes an important contribution to understanding the lived culture and social history of the period.

Volunteers were recruited and trained to research and catalogue the archive, items were conserved and repackaged, selected items were performed, people’s memories of music hall and variety were recorded, a touring exhibition celebrating the archive was produced along with an exhibition blog and the catalogue and archive images were made available on-line.

The Hudd Music Hall Archive project was led by heritage consultants Oakmere Solutions Ltd, directed by Suffolk New College and supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). The project worked closely with the Suffolk and Norfolk Record Offices and the East Anglian Film Archive.

Challenges or opportunities faced. Specific challenges included: securing professional advice and support to assess the condition of the archive and immediate actions to safeguard it; recruiting and sourcing appropriate training for volunteers, for example in safe handling; developing a suitable database for the catalogue; presenting the archive both through exhibition and on-line; gathering memories of Music Hall and Variety and making these available.

Specific opportunities associated with the project included: accessing and making available a unique and extensive archive of material and the stories and social histories it tells; actively engaging volunteers in research, performance and the management of the project and design of the project web presence and exhibition; working with young people to explore the contemporary relevance of the archive material; working with the BBC to bring the archive alive.

Our response to the challenges and opportunities faced. In respect to the specific challenges identified: professional advice and support was sought and provided by the National Archive and the Suffolk Records Office; appropriate training in the handling, storage and use of archive materials was provided by the Suffolk Record Office; a suitable database which could be integrated in future into a professional catalogue was developed following advice from the Suffolk Record Office and informed by HLF guidance; wide-ranging networking with heritage organisations provided examples of good practice which informed the design and content of exhibition and on-line material. Volunteers were recruited through local theatre volunteer groups, Museum Friends and Record Office volunteers. The pool of volunteers brought an expertise, experience, know-how and passion that provided an invaluable core set of competences to support the project and address challenges.

In respect to the specific opportunities identified: physical access to the archive was made available by Roy Hudd and Suffolk New College provided a large serviced office space which allowed plenty of room for cataloguing, repair and associated research. The project volunteers were a major asset not only in undertaking cataloguing work but also in supporting and leading on research, exhibition design and performance. Work with young people included encouraging a greater awareness of the importance of Music Hall in contemporary popular culture and an identification with place given the project focus on local Music Hall venues in Norfolk and Suffolk. An exhibition blog, updated daily in the exhibition space, was a great success in sharing visitors’ memories, finding answers to questions and prompting further donations to the archive.

What were the outcomes? The project recruited and trained 19 volunteers who catalogued in excess of 20,000 song sheets, 900 theatrical posters and a wide collection of diaries, scrapbooks and other memorabilia. During the cataloguing process damaged items were repaired and the collection organised using archive quality folders and materials and 300 song sheets and posters were scanned at high resolution and made available to support learning and research - 140 of these are included in an on-line image gallery on the project web pages. Over 2000 hours of volunteer time was donated to this activity.

The catalogue was subsequently uploaded to a searchable database and made available to the public on-line. In addition, an exhibition was designed and held at Ipswich Town Hall in August 2013.This was visited by 3,000 people and key elements of the exhibition tour to Lowestoft, Bury St Edmunds, Norwich and to Ipswich Record Offices during autumn 2013 and spring 2014. To support the exhibition an on-line blog was created to support the capturing and sharing of Music Hall memories.

A one hour documentary “Song and Supper” was produced and broadcast by BBC Radio Suffolk featuring the archive and including newly performed versions of a number of songs located in the archive.

What we learned from the project. Working with volunteers brings new expertise and enthusiasm. We recruited volunteers through existing networks linked to the project topic and invested time in helping them to ‘own’ the project. Top tips: plan activity dates in advance and don’t changed them, this will enable each volunteer to contribute as much and when they want. Include regular social events and establish a ‘exit strategy’ as a successful volunteer team will need end of project support to ‘withdraw’.

Creating an exhibition is very time consuming. We underestimated the time needed to create, review and revised content and wasted time scanning images in unsuitable low definition. Top Tips: get as much feedback on mock up exhibition panels as possible and work closely early on with designers and printers to ensure images are saved in appropriate formats.

Cataloguing a large number of items is a challenge. Our cataloguing fields changed as we progressed. Each song sheet had a unique identifier, alphabetically and sequentially A through Z. This worked well but we ran into problems when additional song sheets had to be inserted. In retrospect it would have been better to have separate identifier sequences for each letter. Top Tips: do some pilot cataloguing and testing. Do some ‘what ifs’ - how will additional items be added, how will multiple copies be catalogued?

How will this work be developed in the future? The catalogue and on-line exhibition and blog developed through the project is available at http://www.suffolk.ac.uk/hudd_music_hall_archive.

An essential element of the project has been a shared intention that the archive should be ‘used’ rather than simply safeguarded and stored. As such to establish a plan for a ‘living archive’ that can effectively ‘tell its stories’ through performance, engagement and research and which retains the integrity of the archive as a whole.

This intent has informed the development of a sustainability plan for the archive which reflects Roy Hudd’s willingness to donate it to an organisation able to:

retain the totality and integrity of the archive recognising that it reflects the collector and his passion for the Music Hall;

safeguard the archive and make the material available so that it can be used by and inspire future generations;

accept the archive on a planned basis possibly starting with an early donation of the posters and certain other items with the substantial collection of song sheets following on an agreed timescale.

Given the public profile of Roy Hudd and the current prominence of the archive it is anticipated that additions to the collection will be achieved through donations and bequests.

Combined these would ensure the sustainability, development and future use of the archive and as such ‘bring it to life’ in ways consistent with the owner’s wish to leave a ‘living archive’.

Initial discussions with potential receiving organisations have been held and these will be further developed post-project. We anticipate that a decision on this will be reached before the end of 2013 with the development of an initial action plan by Spring 2014.

For more information:

Web: http://www.suffolk.ac.uk/hudd_music_hall_archive

Contact: Dr Sharon Goddard, Oakmere Solutions Ltd. E: sharon@oakmeresolutions.co.uk; T: 07733974487; W: www.oakmeresolutions.co.uk

Hudd Musical Hall Archive project exhibition to tour

2013-09-24T17:20:00.000+01:00

Following a highly successful three week residency at Ipswich Town Hall, the Hudd Music Hall Archive project exhibition will go on tour in Suffolk and Norfolk from October. Whilst details are being finalised current tour dates/venues include:

Lowestoft Record Office - dates to be confirmed

Bury St Edmunds Record Office - 4 November - 30 November 10am - 5pm

Norfolk Record Office - December 2013 - January 2014, dates to be confirmed

Ipswich Record Office - February 2014, dates to be confirmed

Suffolk New College - March 2014, dates to be confirmed.

Exhibition and fuller project details are available at http://www.suffolk.ac.uk/hudd_music_hall_archive. Be sure to also have a look at the exhibition blog at http://huddmusichallarchive.wordpress.com/ and download the online exhibition brochure available at http://www.suffolk.ac.uk/hudd_music_hall_archive/exhibition

Feedback and media interest from the three week residency at Ipswich Town Hall has been fantastic. The project, which was directed by Suffolk New College, led by heritage consultants Oakmere Solutions Ltd and supported by funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) currently features on the HLF home page at http://www.hlf.org.uk/Pages/Home.aspx with a link to the hews item at http://www.hlf.org.uk/news/Pages/ExcitementatlaunchofHuddMusicHallArchiveExhibition.aspx

Commenting on the exhibition, writer, actor and comedian Roy Hudd said: “I have been collecting the archive for over 50 years. Each item, each song sheet or poster tells a unique story which is as relevant today as when it was performed. I want the archive to live and to be enjoyed; this exhibition will make that happen.”

Stuart Hobley, Development Manager at the Heritage Lottery Fund East of England, said: “This extraordinary archive uses music hall and the delight of being entertained to bring a different and unique perspective on our social history. It has also given young people the opportunity to get actively involved, from volunteering and performance, and for the first time, the wider public can enjoy this heritage through exhibitions and events.”

Through its portrayal of both the everyday and historically dramatic the heritage and artefacts of the Music Hall paint a vivid picture of how people lived and found comfort and solidarity in laughter, story and music. Indeed the Music Hall and its successor Variety were the life-blood of popular entertainment from the mid nineteenth century until television established itself in the fifties and sixties. The Hudd Music Hall Archive project, generously supported by the HLF has sought to bring the story and content of the Music Hall to people in new and interesting ways.

2013-08-13T14:20:00.000+01:00

Hudd Music Hall Archive Exhibition looking great and ready to go - open from 14 - 31 August at Ipswich Town Hall. The culmination of 18 months cataloguing and researching by the wonderful band of project volunteers who have given their time and shared their knowledge and enthusiasm. Find out more about the work carried out, search the archive and see some images on the webpages and share YOUR Music Hall,Variety and Local Theatre memories on our blog.

Celebrating the Britten Centenary

2013-08-04T13:20:00.000+01:00

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) is widely regarded as the most celebrated British composer of the 20th century. Britten was born in Lowestoft, Suffolk and his centenary is being marked by special events all over the world.

In Suffolk celebrations have focused on his music, inspired by the landscape, sea and big skies of the coast and in particular in Aldeburgh where he lived and at the Snape Maltings Concert Hall – the home of the international Festival, which he founded. The centenary has also inspired the enhanced safeguarding and presentation of his legacy. The latter through the re-presentation of the Red House, the home Britten and his partner Peter Pears shared for nearly two decades and a new purpose-built home for the composer's unique and comprehensive archive.

Aldeburgh Music's centenary programme has included a unique production of Peter Grimes on the Aldeburgh beach – an atmospheric opera performed in its theatrical location with the tide lapping, the moon ascending and a sea mist drifting over the set and audience.

However, alongside these artistic triumphs and enhanced heritage offers what has been impressive is the commitment of local people and organisations to engage in the celebrations. For example, pupils from the Benjamin Britten School in Lowestoft have contributed a series of excellent paintings and illustrations of the operas and characters which feature prominently in the exhibition at the Red House and along the Lowestoft seafront. So, through careful activity planning opera, which can at one level be distant and elitist becomes a source of inspiration for local young people, developing awareness, promoting learning and ‘pride in place’.

At Oakmere Solutions we have been delighted to play a small part in the development of the proposals which secured Heritage Lottery Fund monies for the Red House. We have also been privileged to attend a number of centenary events. We look forward to the climax of the centenary in November – Britten’s birthday - and the longer term engagement with his legacy through initiatives such as the Britten trail.

2013-06-30T11:02:00.001+01:00

Trees at Epping Forest

Our mentoring work at Epping Forest as part of HLF grant provides fantastic learning opportunities for us! As well as the good work being undertaken at the new View visitor centre, resurfaced walks, learning programmes for schools, archive cataloguing - we have learned about the ancient pollarded trees receiving loving care and attention to keep them going for a few hundred years more by the skilful forest conservators. 50,000 old pollarded trees, half of them beech and oak in the forest (80% of UK's ancient beech trees), at risk from nitrogen pollution. Crown reduction work is helping re-invigorate them. The team are researching and publishing their findings to help international understanding - great stuff!

Cook Memorial Museum in Whitby

2013-05-01T16:32:00.002+01:00

Fascinating visit to the Captain Cook Memorial Museum in Whitby. Cook lodged at the house between 1746-49 when he was apprenticed to Captain John Walker. Later Cook’s ships the Resolution and the Adventure were built in Whitby before being fitted out in Deptford and Sheerness. They were used together in the second of Cook’s great voyages of discovery (1772-75), and the Resolution sailed alongside the Discovery in the third (1776-80). The first (1768-71) was made on the Endeavour, a full size model of which was built in Fremantle and forms part of a rich heritage associated with Cook in Western Australia. It would be difficult to overstate the importance of these voyages both for science and the arts.

Cook explored Canada and is believed to be the first man to have crossed both the Artic and the Antarctic circles. His achievements and aspects of his life are well recorded in the museum and there is also an impressive statue to Cook overlooking the sea in Whitby.

Not surprisingly Whitby is twinned with many of the ‘new worlds’ Cook and his contemporaries discovered, including East Fremantle.

“Amazing artefacts on display”

2013-03-24T16:58:00.000+00:00

The ITFC Supporters Club summary of its Supporters Day on 16 March 2013 makes clear the importance of the Clubs heritage and the work being undertaken as part of the HLF supported Ipswich Town Football Archive project. The full text is at http://www.itfcsupporters.co.uk/News.html but here is an extract:

“The Charitable Trust’s Archive Project had some amazing artefacts on display from across many decades of Town’s history, organised by Dr Peter Funnell, and we were delighted that both Dave Muller, Chair and Terry Baxter, CEO, of the Trust joined in the post-match chat. Fans had crowded around the rarely-if-ever displayed cups, trophies and other memorabilia. Club legend Pat Godbold was also telling stories from the insider’s perspective – she was secretary to Sir Alf and Sir Bobby, and is still so closely involved with maintaining and promoting the club’s heritage.
It’s not just about heritage – many of our younger fans took part in a football game on a Nintendo WII, with prizes awarded to many. But for me a highlight was seeing a dad, with his young son, pointing out the players from the 1981 team on a poster, and talking about his own heroes. It proves to me that our heritage is as much about our future as our past”.

2013-02-21T22:47:00.000+00:00

20,000 songsheets and counting…

Work to catalogue the songsheets that make up a key element of the Hudd Music Hall archive started early in 2012 and to date a team of volunteers have catalogued a staggering 20,000 and there are still more to do! Amongst the gems are

Songs celebrating national events such as:

· “Amy” a 1930 song commemorating the England to Australia solo flight by Amy Johnson;

· “That's how I found the Pole”, 1908. A comic ‘patter’ song inspired by Sir Ernest Shackleton's Nimrod Expedition;

Songs which give voice to Britain during the First World War for example:

· Recruiting songs such as “Your king and country want you”, 1914. Sales of the song sheet raised money for Queen Mary's "work for Women Fund” which provided employment for women whose husbands were fighting overseas;

· Sarcastic takes on different war experiences, for example: “War Office Cuthbert”, 1918 – a wry look at people who had ‘cushy’ office-based war jobs while other people were up to their necks in the fighting;

Songs which give social or political comments about society including:

· “While London’s fast asleep”, 1896. A serious sad song which outlines the big differences between the haves and the have not’s in the capital city:

“There's a lot of wealth and happiness in London

There's lots of starving misery as well”

And of course lots and lots of innuendo! “With my little wigger wagger in my hand” (1909) a particular favourite!

The team have also unearthed some interesting links to East Anglia, such as the prolific songwriter Clifford Grey who led an extraordinary life - writing many popular songs including: “If you were the Only Girl in the World” (1916). In 1920 he went to America and invented a new persona – Tippi Grey – and won gold medals in the 1928 and 1932 winter Olympics as part of a five man bobsleigh team! He then went on to Hollywood and made films between 1939 and 1941. He came back to the UK during the Second World War, having joined the Entertainment National Service Association (ENSA) and was performing in Ipswich in 1941 when a bomb raid brought on a fatal heart attack. He is buried in Ipswich Cemetery.

The cataloguing work is being carried out as part of the Hudd Music Hall archive project which is aiming to bring the glory days of Music Hall and Variety alive by cataloguing and organising the unique archive and collection of memorabilia assembled by the Suffolk based actor, performer and writer Roy Hudd.

Commenting on the archive Roy Hudd said:

“I have been collecting the archive for over 50 years. Each item, each song sheet or poster tells a unique story which is as relevant today as when it was performed. I want the archive to live and to be enjoyed; this project is making that happen.”

The project is being led by Suffolk based heritage consultants Oakmere Solutions Ltd on behalf of Suffolk New College and is being supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. The cataloguing work is being undertaken by a team of up to 19 volunteers recruited and trained by Oakmere Solutions with support from the Suffolk Records Office.

Oakmere director Dr Sharon Goddard said:

“The project has benefitted enormously from the contribution of a dedicated, knowledgeable and highly efficient band of volunteers who have worked tirelessly to discover the rich resources of the archive and begin the process of making these available for use and enjoyment”.

The project will make the catalogue available on-line and will hold an exhibition in late summer 2013. Planning to make the archive more publically available in the future is also underway.

The importance of interpretation

2012-12-22T12:39:00.001+00:00

Sometimes you have to be at a distance to see the real value of the obvious. For example, effective interpretation of heritage sites and artefacts is essential to support learning and engagement. It’s obvious. Without effective interpretation an ancient site of genuine interest and historical relevance can simply be a blot of the landscape or a pile of stones. What we need is to understand why it’s there, why it’s important, what people did there and how they lived their lives, and perhaps most important of all why it’s relevant to us today. Sadly much heritage is poorly interpreted. Often it’s couched in technical language, assumes the audience has a profound knowledge of the classics and of the relevant historic period at least to undergraduate level. The real shame about poor interpretation is that it alienates its audience. It suggests that heritage is not for them, that the stories it tells have no relevance. It constrains understanding and limits the building of social capital and social cohesion.

Perhaps surprisingly the award of world heritage status does not negate the potential for poor interpretation. A recent visit to the two world heritage sites in Paphos in Cyprus demonstrated how extraordinary sites can be made unintelligible by interpretation based solely on dense, academic analysis. Clearly such interpretation has its place, but it’s questionable whether this will open up a new world of understanding of the Egyptian and Roman worlds for the average site visitor.

Like all good marketing effective interpretation needs to engage its audience and make its content relevant, interactive and fun. It needs to bring the stories of the past alive. In so doing it will help us both understand more about heritage and how it can help us shape the present and the future.

The Olympic legacy

2012-08-12T17:02:00.001+01:00

The London Olympics has been a marvellous spectacle and has presented much of what is unique and best about the UK - the invention and humour of the opening ceremony, the performance of athletes and competitors and the selfless contribution of many thousands of volunteers. Building on this the legacy of the Olympic Games can be seen to be seen in:

• the physical infrastructure - the stadia and travel infrastructure;

• the predicted boast to tourism which should give a medium term economic benefit to many parts of the county;

• the increasing recognition of the importance of physical activity for individual and community health and wellbeing;

• the expansion of volunteering opportunities and a recognition of the key role volunteers play in delivery social benefit and promoting social cohesion;

• the intangible heritage in the stories and memories of spectators and all those others who have contributed to or have been touched by the Games since it was announced seven years ago.

But despite some of the hype the 2012 Olympics is not a panacea - it won't resolve all our ills. But it has clearly demonstrated what we can achieve with effort and planning. So perhaps then the greatest legacy of the Games is the realisation that the UK through its heritage and creativity can still rightfully enjoy a central spot on the global stage.

Churches Conservation Trust Regeneration Team

2012-06-23T18:07:00.000+01:00

Excellent short video showcasing the work of the Churches Conservation Trust Regeneration Team is available at: http://www.visitchurches.org.uk/AboutCCTourwork/Regeneratingcommunities/
Oakmere Solutions is pleased to be currently involved with three of the projects presented: St Nicholas' Chapel in Kings Lynn, All Saints Benington and St Mary at the Quay in Ipswich and have had a previous relationship with St Pauls, Bristol.

Assessing the value of research into heritage value

2012-03-03T18:22:00.000+00:00

The concept of ‘heritage’ is contested and subject to continuous change. Yet, internationally there is evidence to suggest that economic, social and demographic trends are leading to a strengthening of interest in, support for and expenditure on the heritage. Alongside this public expectations and interests are changing resulting in increasing demands on the heritage, and heritage organisations to deliver value through the resources it consumes. However the determination and articulation of such ‘value’ is itself problematic. For whilst the heritage is anecdotally acknowledged to make a valuable contribution to society through its positive impact on to national identity, economic development and individual and collective well-being, specific and robust causal evidence of impact is limited. This limitation is important given the increasing costs of securing and maintaining the heritage and the intensity of alternative calls on available public and private resources. In this context the search for effective measures of value transcend issues of research methodology to impact directly on the position of the heritage in public policy priorities.

In this context a generic concern is the absence of a grounding theory regarding the value of the heritage, and more specifically the value of investment in the heritage. This absence limits both the potential for research replication and the claims of authority and insight made. It also leads to unproductive and unacknowledged duplication of effort.

However it is also important to note that recognition of generic and specific concerns regarding existing research evidence does not of itself make such work redundant. Rather it suggests that the value of existing research on heritage value lies in the:
impressions and interpretations it offers and how these can be explored and reused;
the opportunities it offers to shape specific service assumptions about heritage value and how these are developed in practice and subsequently tested;
stimulus and support it provides to presenting a coherent and validated case for new or continued resource funding.

This suggests that despite the concerns and issues regarding existing research and evaluation evidence the currently available published research provides an important basis for service development and for critically reviewing the value of the heritage.

Hudd Music Hall Archive: bringing to life the stories of the past

2011-11-04T15:50:00.001+00:00

Music Hall, and its successor, Variety, are significant and enduring elements of UK Heritage and popular culture. As artistic forms the Music Hall and Variety continue to inform and inspire contemporary entertainment and social commentary by offering rich insights into the lives and cultural practices of previous generations. The Music Hall in particular, with its origins in the new style pub entertainment of the1830’s, and popularity peak in the period 1850 to 1930, offers through the words and music of the time a singular insight into the past particularly of the urban working class in an area that may be otherwise “hidden by history”. Through its portrayal of both the everyday and historically dramatic the history and artefacts of the Music Hall paints a vivid and resonant picture of how people found comfort and solidarity in laughter, story and music. Indeed the Music Hall and Variety were the life-blood of popular entertainment from the mid nineteenth century until television established itself in the sixties. In 1957 John Osborne, in The Entertainer wrote:

“The music hall is dying, and with it, a significant part of England. Some of the heart of England has gone; something that once belonged to everyone, for this was truly a folk art.”

Today the legacy of Music Hall and Variety can be found in buildings, texts, photographs, music scores, and memorabilia. However much of the history of the Music Hall and Variety is unrecorded and where it does exist is insufficiently curated, interpreted or accessible. The Hudd Archive Project seeks to address this by creating a living and accessible archive with both national and local elements which has public value whilst making available rich material for contemporary users. The collection offers both intrinsic heritage value and the potential for adding value by the interpretation and re-purposing of the material in a range of media and socially relevant activities.

The core of the project rests with the unique collections of Music Hall texts, scores and memorabilia owned by the actor and historian Dr Roy Hudd. The collection offers a range of performance materials, historical documents and memorabilia which will provide the bedrock of a living exhibition of performance and education resources which both celebrate and employ the creative excellence of the material itself and open up new opportunities to study the social and historical contexts in which it was performed.

The project has receive HLF support and Oakmere Solutions are delighted to have been appointed to provide project leadership and professional curation services to the project. The project will formally launch in January 2012 and will run until summer 2013.

Culture of the Countryside

2011-07-23T19:03:00.003+01:00

Oakmere Solutions Director Sharon Goddard has been a member of the Culture of the Countryside project steering group since its inception in 2008. Commenting on this following the final meeting of the steering group she said:

"It has been a privilege to be a member of the steering group for the Culture of the Countryside project. The project, run by the Sainsbury Centre at the University of East Anglia and funded by the HLF, has been ambitious - using the Centre's world art collection to inspire East Anglians to explore the culture and heritage of their countryside. It’s been a fascinating journey. The project has used objects such as carvings from Papua New Guinea to prompt exploration of local traditions of church carvings and Central American amulets to stimulate discussion about the significance of local charms such as corn dollies. The project has reinforced the value of using objects in learning and has raised intriguing questions about how art from other parts of the world can help us develop new insights and an enriched understanding of our own cultural experiences."

For further information go to: http://www.cultureofthecountryside.ac.uk

HLF consultation launched

2011-02-09T11:19:00.003+00:00

The Heritage Lottery Fund have launched a public consultation on the future of Lottery funding for the heritage from 2013-2019. Given current cuts in the public sector in the UK its interesting to note that the HLF share of Lottery 'good causes' income will increase from 16.7% to 20% by 2012-2013, an extra £50m. This means that from 2013-2019 the HLF will have an annual awards budget of around £300m. Clearly this 'good news' needs to be set against the reductions in central and local government spending on the heritage over the same period. Nonetheless it represents a clear opportunity and Oakmere Solutions will be responding to the consultation.

More specifically HLF seek views on:

what it should be doing;
what it might do differently;
proposals for new initiatives or measures.

Oakmere Solutions will suggest that work to secure and make accessible the heritage has still greater potential to build community cohesion and capacity, promote education and learning and support health and wellbeing. We will propose that these, often intangible and poorly evaluated outcomes become more prominent in grant-giving and that further work be undertaken to establish and refine measures to assess and articulate the social, economic and environmental benefits of investment in the heritage.

You can register and respond to the consultation by 26 April 2011 at http://www.hlf.org.uk/consultation2011

Heritage and the common good

2010-05-12T18:23:00.003+01:00

Amitai Etzioni writing in 2004 suggests: "The common good is much more than the aggregation of all private or personal goods. It includes things that serve no one in particular, like preserving our national monuments, and it serves members of generations not yet born, as for instance does basic research. Contributions to the common good often offer no immediate benefits, and frequently it is impossible to predict on whom such benefits will fall in the long run. Still, we invest... because we consider it a good to be nourished."

Investment in the heritage is often seen as supporting some concept of the 'common good'. As such it is contentious. Nonetheless Etzioni encourages us to think beyond the pure economic return on heritage investment to explore the more intrinsic, personal and community impact and value heritage generates. Can this be measured or can it only be implied? is the comparison with fundamental research valid, and if so can we use methodologies employed to assess the value of such research in calculating the value of investment in the heritage?

2012: creating heritage

2010-03-07T19:19:00.003+00:00

The 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games will create different legacies. One of these will be a lived heritage for those who took part, whether as competitors, administrators, service workers or volunteers. Whilst elements of this will be reported in the media, much will live on in the memories and oral histories of individuals. Capturing and making available these oral histories will be a key task for those interested in establishing a 'lived' legacy of the Games. Maybe something heritage organisations may wish to commission?

Assessing the value of the heritage

2010-02-28T17:17:00.003+00:00

How we assess the value of the heritage is a complex and contested issue. Its not simply that there are different methodologies, but rather that the value of the heritage (whether a work of art, a historic building, a landscape or an oral history) is often implicit rather than explicit. A lived emotion rather than something we purchase (and consequently defined by a monetary value). Yet establishing a common or shared value for a piece of heritage is often a pre-requisite for securing the resources necessary to conserve it, or make it accessible. This challenge of valuing heritage is therefore one which requires a multi-disciplinary approach.