DHN 2014 AGM Chairman’s report
You may be forgiven for a sense of déjà vu today with our return to the Dorset History Centre for the 2014 AGM and What’s New in Dorset History Day. We decided to repeat the format that worked so well last year, when there was the buzz of networking throughout the day and especially in the open session with a description of the BeaminsterMuseumFlax and Hemp Projectand news of an individual member’s research into the impact of the threat of French invasion on Civilian Dorset in the Napoleonic War.
We enjoyed fascinating presentations by speakers on a range of aspects of Dorset’s history.Roger Hills of the Castles Research Group and Lillian Ladle of the East Dorset Antiquarian Society provided reports on their archaeological excavations at Lulworth Castle and Druce Farm Roman villa.
Vicky de Wit, Museums Advisor for Bournemouth, Dorset and Poole again showed that the Dorset Museums are active in a number of areas working with their local communities.
Cassandra Johnson, Dorset Archives Service Digital Preservation Archivist gave us pause for thought on future historical resources in a digital world. She explained what the Dorset Archives Service is doing to ensure the future of archives where much can be lost at the touch of a button or formats become unreadable and what we can all do to help. Also from the Dorset Archive ServiceMaria Gayton, the Community Engagement Officer told us of the work that she is doing with Dorset’s diverse communities using the Dorset History Centre collections to enhance many community projects and encouraging the collection of oral history and community archives for future generations.
We were extremely pleased to welcome our keynote speaker, Brian Bates, author of Dorchester Remembers the Great War who inspired, moved and delighted us with stories of that he had discovered about Dorset’s soldiers in the First World War. If you have not read Brian’s book or heard him speak I would urge you to take the opportunity to do so.
Our other event of the year came at the end of March, on a balmy, sunny day (a welcome sign of spring following the winter gales), a full house explored the industrial past of Corfe Castle and the Purbecks at Corfe Castle Village Hall at the invitation of the Corfe Castle Town Trust and the Purbeck Mineral and Mining Museum.
I reported on the progress of Dorset History Centre’s bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund for Home and Abroad a project to catalogue theBankes archive together with many education and outreach events. This project is in its development stage in partnership with the Priest’s House Museum and the National Trust aimsand aims to bring to light the records of this important East Dorset estate including demonstrating its importance to the local landscape and industry.
Grace Jones, of Bournemouth University explained the origins of Iron Age and Roman pottery around Poole Harbour.
Clare RandallCurator of the Purbeck Mineral and Mining Museum set the scene for our afternoon visit to the Museum with an absorbing description of the rise and fall of the industry and its affect on the landscape. This was also useful preparation for our post lunch walk with Pam White, National Trust Education Officer who guided us around some of the sights left in the landscape and enthralled us with stories associated with the area. The afternoon was capped off by the Swanage Railway steam train arriving at the Norden terminus as we arrived there.
In May we again teamed up with the Dorset Archives Trust here at the Dorset History Centre for their AGM highlighting the history of Sherborne with speakers on the history of the Almshouses, Sherborne Castle and Sherborne School.
The DHN membership for this year stands at 28 organisations and 20 individual members. This number has varied slightly over the years but is broadly comparable with previous years. We are always keen to welcome new members and this year the Dorset Castles Research Group and Dorset Diggers Community Archaeology Group have joined DHN. If you know of any other history or archaeology groups around the county that could join DHN please let us know through the e-mail address or please give them details of the web site. The bigger the network the more we can do to promote and support history and heritage in Dorset.
The web site and the associated e-mail address continue to be an important means of communication with members. All 28 member groups now have a presence on the site through their own page of information. My thanks to Sarah Harbige who as web master constantly updates this information and has provided new pages as requested on the World War One Commemorations by Network members and Publications from Network Members which details books and research papers published by Network Members. These last two pages are not as well used as we would hope so please have a look at them on the site and send in your contributions.
Sarah also masterminded the set up for our recent newsletter distribution. She wrote the content and organised its distribution through a system called Mail Chimp. This enables us to compile a newsletter fairly quickly linking it to articles on the DHN, your own or other web sites bringing your events and news to a wider audience across the county. Please forward the email to your own members. They can also now easily sign up for their own copy if they are interested in receiving the newsletter directly.
This makes it even more important that you send your news, events and updates to us so that we can update the web site and add information into the Newsletter. This needn’t be too onerous if you add the e-mail address to your mailing list so that we get the news of your events and/or your newsletters.
We have also commissioned a new pull up banner for the Network to take out to other venues and an information board to be put up here at the Dorset History Centre to advertise the Network to all the users of the History Centre. I have proofs of these here today for you to see.
My thanks to the committee for their support and commitment during the year and especially to Sarah and Martin for their help with our events. Maureen Stollery does a great job as minutes secretary in ably summarising what can be long winded discussions during our committee meetings and recording all the important bits. Diana Trenchard as Treasurer enables us to keep a track on the finances for these events and running the web site. Katherine Barker and David Tucker continue to provide support and representation in some of the further flung parts of the county. During the year,after doing a great job Louise Haywood, the membership secretary resigned and we have been operating without a membership secretary since April. This is not terribly time consuming with some 50 members but we need to recruit someone to the committee who is willing to take on this task and ideally help us to grow the membership. In addition I know that Diana Trenchard will to do one more year as Treasurer so we will need a new Treasurer in 12 months time.
So what are our plans for next year? With your help we want to continue to maintain and develop the website and newsletter and take delivery of the pull up banner and information board. In addition, with the help of a new membership secretary we would hope to increase the membership and get the message about the Dorset History Network out across the county. We will take the opportunity to get involved in the development of the Dorset Cultural Strategy, to ensure that heritage and the valuable work that you and our member societies do is not overlooked.
With regard to events after the Corfe Castle event we sent out a feedback form to the people who attended to find out what had worked about that event. We will do the same after today’s event. For that event many people came from the east of the county but they were interested in the history / geography / architecture of the local areas of Dorset. They liked the format (i.e. talks and walks) of a local area perhaps based around a visit to a museum, site or building and for the most part they liked the idea of spreading the meetings around the county including towns such as: Dorchester, Poole, Wareham, Sherborne, Shaftesbury and local areas such as Kimmeridge, Lulworth. The idea of networking and visiting, meeting and hearing about other similar organisations also mentioned. This chimes with aims that the Network has had from the beginning and to do it successfully we need your group to help us by offering your venues and your time and knowledge to plan and hold a DHN event to promote your organisation and projects and showcase your area, we look forward to hearing from you.