Volunteering with The Arts Society Henley gives members an opportunity to learn new skills, make friends with similar interests and feel the satisfaction of supporting the arts within our local community:
Progress at Frazer Nash Archives
A Volunteer Challenge
All those original mechanical drawings and blueprints, despite their technical complexity and significance, their worn creases and torn edges, were simple to clean, repair and define. They came clearly dated, systematically numbered and with distinctive headings. In contrast a trunk of personal family memorabilia is a magical mix; frequently unlabelled, each item often totally unrelated to anything above or below it. A hotchpotch of photos, letters, hotel bills, postcards, handwritten notes on the back of something else perhaps or perhaps not relevant, dinner menus, and a myriad of odds and ends and other items. To categorize, list and describe such an eclectic mix is, to say the least, challenging!
Such is the current Heritage volunteers’ task at the Frazer Nash Archives. Even the Trustees , who despite their deep knowledge of Frazer Nash cars, events and personalities have found the intricacies of archive architecture far more challenging than a chain drive power unit.
Both the Trustees and ourselves have the easy excuse that Covid disrupted our learning rhythm, but the reality is that the process is detailed, complex and takes time to master. I think we are nearly there. The difficult bits have naturally been left until last and the project, now we are mastering the alchemy of archiving, may perhaps have a year or two still to run. Hopefully the clarity and precision of our hand written analysis will allow others on continents far from Henley to enter this mass of information into the all-powerful, very versatile computer in the clouds so that petrol heads, FN owners, social and motor sport historians and many others can access it with speed and precision. The chequered flag remains some laps further round the course.
HF 26th Feb 2023
