Report from the chair (December 2024)
Dear all, and welcome to our December newsletter.
Firstly I would like to wish a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to our trustees, volunteers and supporters without whose help we would not be able to keep the archive open and accessible.
Following on from last year’s success we have again produced a Christmas Advent Calendar which I hope you have all enjoyed. If you have not seen it yet you can get access to it from the home page of our website.
Our Christmas open evening took place on Monday 9th December and 16 people were entertained with mulled wine and mince pies plus the usual tea, coffee and biscuits. With the decorations and lights up at the archive it certainly gave a festive feel to the evening and with the weather not too cold we were able to enjoy both the reading room and exhibition space. Several people kindly brought along donations with them and our thanks go to Eddie for the engineering books and tins, and to Pat for the Rolls-Royce Enthusiast Club yearbooks (and the 2025 Mayhem Garage calendar).
By the time you read this I will have been down to Kent to pick up a car full of donations that have arrived over the last few months at my daughter Ellissa’s house. Amongst the goodies are beer mats from Belgium, a significant run of Look and Learn magazines, several boxes of mixed magazines and a box of newspapers donated by a hedgehog sanctuary in Hertfordshire.
As a final piece of good news I can now say that we reached the target of raising £100 to purchase a fabulous 1840’s handbill for waterproof coats (pictured above). This unique piece of history now has a permanent home in the archive and I would like to give my grateful thanks to everyone you made a donation towards its purchase.
Look out for the launch in our January newsletter of our next fundraising campaign.
Please look at the latest acquisitions on our donations page for more details on all of the items recently arriving.
Take care and all the best for Christmas and the New Year.
Richard Roberts and the team at the Richard Roberts Archive
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Collection Statistics
The Richard Roberts Archive collection statistics
Tuesday 1st December 2024
Collection database
Total items 164,563
- of which Magazines 140,042
Product folders
Total folders 174
- circa number of adverts 21,237
Breweriana
Total folders 494
Beermats 30,740
Transport photograph database
Total items 883
Volunteer hours
Total to date 76,134
