Cheshire Record Office, Monday 23 September 2002

Present: Dennis Baxter (FFHS)

Clare Connor (Libraries North West)

Jim Grisenthwaite (ACALG) Chair

John Hodgson (SCONUL)

Marion Hewitt (Film Archive Forum)

Roy Hughes (Historical Association)

Bruce Jackson (Society of Archivists) Secretary

Kevin Mulley (Greater Manchester Archivists Group)

Jonathan Pepler (NW County Archivists Group)

Dawn Routledge (Resource)

David Stoker (Merseyside Archives Liaison Group)

Ian Taylor (NWMS)

Janice Taylor (NW Regional Archives Development Officer)

Caroline Williams (LUCAS)

1 Apologies for Absence

Alan Crosby (BALH), John Gurney (HMC), Richard Hoyle ( Royal Historical Society), Chris Lewis (BRA), Lesley Owen-Edwards (BAC); Colin Philips (co-opted), Francis Thomson (CURL)

The chairman (JG) welcomed Dennis Baxter to his first meeting as representative for the Federation of Family History Societies).

2 Minutes of last meeting and matters arising

The minutes of the meeting of 15 July were agreed and signed.

The following matters arising were raised:

2 (2.6.2) SNAPSHOT project. LUCAS had made 13 recommendations to Resource on the more coherent gathering of sectoral data. Resource will now provide some overview guidance on this.

2 (2.9.2) Civil Registration . A regional scooping study was being considered, and a further consultation paper was expected at the end of the year from ONS.

2 (6.5) Regional Film Study. A meeting had taken place involving JG, David Stoker (DS) and Chris Watson (NW Film Archive) and NW Vision, at which a brief had been agreed for a consultancy on the provision of film archives in the region. Outline results are expected by early December. JG remarked that the consultancy was really an audit of problems and options rather than looking to provide firm solutions.

2 Minutes of last meeting and matters arising (Cont)

4 NW Sound Archive. The Secretary (BJ) reported that in the light of the impending national review of film and sound archive provision, the Council of the NWSA had decided to postpone any further steps to extending the operations of the Sound Archive throughout the region. Contact had been made with the people involved in the national review.

6.1 It was agreed that the new procedural regulations would be considered for formal adoption at the next RAC meeting.

6.2 Jonathan Pepler (JP) reported that arrangements were proceeding for the Edgehill seminar in 2003. Mike Winstanley (Lancaster University) had agreed to participate and had also suggested Bridget Williams (Sainsbury’s Archive) who has been involved in a major digitisation project. A speaker would also participate form the regional Learning and Access Support Unit (RLASU).

7.1 Dawn Routledge (DR) updated the meeting on the establishment of the Archives Task Force. An announcement of the membership would be made in early October, with the first meeting in November. 5 initial "thought" papers had been commissioned ob the five main topics and these would be posted on the Resource website as they become available. Small seminars would take place (by invitation) before Xmas, with the main consultation taking place early in the New Year.

[At this point in the meeting Karen May (KM) and Shirley Little from the NW Regional Development Team of the Heritage Lottery Fund arrived at the meeting. KM made a short presentation which covered the following points:

KM also outlined the main grant programmes, and the forthcoming "Young Roots" programme.

After discussion it was agreed that a key area for the future was to ensure close co-operation between the RAC and HLF regional Office to ensure that the domain expertise helped to bring forward ne projects with a good chance of success.

3 Single Regional Agency for the North West – Progress Report

Three meetings of the Shadow Board of the Single Regional Agency (SRA) had now taken place. It had been agreed that minutes of the SRA should be circulated to members of the RAC with future meetings papers

The Shadow Board had now agreed terms of reference, and the intention was to recruit the Chief Executive and Board members of the new agency with a view to the new Board being formed by April 2003.

The business planning process was underway in accordance with guidelines form Resource, and consultants would be employed to carry out the initial groundwork. The Shadow Board was also supporting the production of a regional Library Strategy, again using external consultants.

4 Archive Development Officer (ADO) – Progress report

4.1 The second regional A2A bid had now been submitted. Support was also being provided for three other related bids to A2A from within the region – by GMCRO, Bolton and British Waterways. 11 repositories in the region were taking part on the next National Visitor Survey, due to be conducted in October and November, and again financial support had been provided through the ADO to support this. A workshop to assist offices preparing bids to the HLF "Your Heritage" scheme had been held at Lancashire Record Office in August, organised by the ADO in conjunction with Alison Berwick, the Archive Lottery Advisor.

4.2 The regional seminar on Records Management would now be held on 22 November. The priorities are too inform the sector more fully about Records Management, and to offer an opportunity to win support from senior management.

4.3 Logjam. 30 repositories in the region have agreed to participate. Following a meeting in July, the project plan was amended at a Project Board meeting in August. The appointment procedure is in hand to appoint the Project Manager. HMC and the Full Disclosure Board have been of considerable assistance in getting the project off the ground.

4.4 Collections Mapping Project. The consultant’s report was due today (23 September).

4.5 The RAC website had been updated.

5 Other Regional Issues

5.1 Forward Plan 2003 onwards (copy attached to the minutes). The ADO had updated the plan, and added two new proposed projects. These were:

Updating the Plan will assist in preparing the Business Plan of the SRA, and the revised plan would be brought to the next meeting for formal presentation to the SRA

5.2 NW Archive Festival. This had been identified as an element of the Regional Archive Strategy. Funds have been allocated (£25K) and a secondment from within the sector is also to be funded. Due to the development of the idea of a national archive awareness event to be held in September 2003, the regional festival would now be held in that month, rather than June as originally planned. . The Regional team will provide generic publicity, training etc, and a professional PR/marketing consultant will be used. The main target audience will be those who do not use archive services at present, with a particular focus on the under 16 age group, black and ethnic minorities and Higher Education students. The ADO would be particularly interested to learn of projects addressing these groups. An initial publicity leaflet would be circulated to interested parties in early November.

It was also agreed that BJ would contact the North West Regional Assembly to seek to have a presentation on the current situation of the development of regional government within the NW.

6 Resource

6.1 Dawn Routledge (DR) updated the meeting on progress regarding the establishment of the Archive Task Force, which would be formally announced in the very near future. He also noted that the Review of Education and Training needs in the sector was now under way and a questionnaire had been sent out to employers. RACs would be consulted at a slightly later stage in the process, and it was hoped that the final report would be available in August 2003.

6.2 Resource had now published an International Strategy, which would be distributed in the next few weeks,

6.3 Renaissance in the Regions. A formal announcement of the funding to made available by government in response to the report was due in late October/early November.

6.4 DR announced that this would be her last attendance at a NWRAC meeting as she was moving to Australia. All thanked her for the excellent work she had carried out in her relatively short time in her post.

7 RAC Budget Report

The Treasurer (JP) reported that balances currently stood at £5991.46, of which about £1920 would be required to pat for the production of the RAC Newsletter and attendance of the ADO at the forthcoming Society of Archivists Conference.

8 Any other business

Caroline Williams (CW) informed the meeting that LUCAS was to provide training for the staff of SRAs in awareness of the archive sector. These would be 2–day residential courses.

9 Date of next meeting

The next meeting would be held at Lancashire Record Office on Monday 25 November at 2.00pm. It was also agreed that the subsequent meeting would be held on 3 February 2003.