It has only taken five years to get there …. but the immense work done by Tony Rudgard and others has now come to fruition. Well, almost.

In the Spring Newsletter we advertised for someone, probably a student, who might spend time during the summer vacation, indexing the Club’s records. The response was gratifying; spoilt for choice, I invited Becky Hilbert (daughter of members Pippa and Stewart) to do the job. Becky continued the noble work done a couple of years ago by Chris Cairns.

To see the results of their labours, visit the Archives section of the website. Put a name or topic in the Search cell at the top right, browse Tag Cloud or click on Archive in the top menu for a full list of available entries. Then carry on clicking the relevant links…

Records, of course, come in different forms. Many are paper, documents, photographs, books &c,  but for a decade or so, most have been created digitally, on the Club website, the raw material for Newsletters, even official papers are composed on computers. The internet is now the cheapest form of storage so we have loaded a large number of files onto a database attached to the Club website while photos are stored in an internet ‘gallery’.

 Paper documents are stored in one of two places. Most are in a filing cabinet in the Managing Secretary’s office which has its own numbering system to help you locate the correct document. Others are stored at the Hampshire Records Office and reading them will entail a trip to Winchester.

Between them, Chris and Becky have indexed a vast number of documents and digital files. Tony Rudgard has spent a decade sorting a vast array of paper records and putting them into categories and filing cabinets. I have been through six years’ content on the website and sifted past editions of the Newsletter; I have also  sorted a host of digital photos. Chris and Becky did the rest.

It hasn’t been easy second-guessing the editor or historian of the future. I have encouraged Tony to be ruthless in discarding ephemeral information in which future researchers are unlikely to be interested, for fear of overwhelming the system. (If one thing is certain, it is that Sod’s Law will apply and we shall have discarded exactly the material they do require.)

There is still work to be done. I am leaving it to the Juniors Organiser and the Ladies editor to decide what they want to archive and hope that they will be able to index their own material.

Please let us know about any bugs you find in the Archive so that we can put them right. And if any of you have records of the Club which you feel should be included, please do send or give them to Tony or me.

/-- Liphook Archive Information --/
#Medium:Document#
#Location:Website#
#Date Of Event:October 2010#
#Date Item Created:#
#Author:Michael Blakstad#
#Copyright:#