Report from the chair (October 2024)
Dear all, and welcome to our October newsletter.
It is with great pleasure that I can announce the appointment of our newest trustee, Sukriti Mehta, who was voted in unanimously at our October trustee meeting. Sukriti is going to be accountable for building our volunteer base as well as providing support to the marketing team. Sukriti first came to the archive as part of her studies for her Masters in Marketing at Manchester Metropolitan University and is currently on a one year internship with us. She is already doing fantastic work on our website getting us up the Google rankings, working with external organisations to promote the archive, and liaising with organisations that can help us find volunteers.
Our newest trustee, Sukriti Mehta!
We have picked up two good donations to the archive this month. The first saw Craig and I drive to the Boots Chemists archive in Nottingham to visit their archivist Tom Bell and collect 28 boxes of journals from them. After an introductory chat about their archive (funding, three full-time staff and a purpose-built building on the Boots site) Tom showed us their archive facility. It had all the things we dream of at our archive (roller-cabinets, temperature and humidity control and gas fire-extinguisher system). The archive not only houses all of the company records but contains a large number of Boots-related products and material going back to the early days of the company. There was a fascinating display of their cosmetics range going back to the 1930s plus many other unusual items like a full-size (and very realistic) model dog once used in a shop display.
Victorian Boots ginger beer bottles kindly donated by Tom from the Boots Chemists archive.
Following the tour of the archive Tom showed us round the main headquarters building where they have displays of items from the archive on show. The site itself is fascinating with some beautiful art deco industrial buildings, the first open-plan office block ever built and numerous other building housing over 5,000 staff. As a parting gift Tom presented us with two Victorian Boots ginger beer bottles to add to the archive collection.
Our second foray of the month was to one of our regular donors Glen Smale who lives in South Wales. Following an uneventful journey Craig and I arrived at Glen’s house and over a cup of tea and biscuits caught up on the news. We loaded the car with lots of goodies which included a run of Geneva Motor Show catalogues plus a number of automotive books and journals. Almost full to capacity we headed off home stopping for lunch in Machynlleth.
Following the visit of the Mayor of Stockport we were able to follow up on the link to the Stockport volunteer hub and Sukriti was able to get the archive registered with them and post our volunteer roles on their system. We couldn’t believe how successful it would be until we received 4 applications within the first week and 3 more in the second. We have been busy following up on these and one person came along to our October open evening on the 14th October, had the “grand tour” and is starting volunteering next week. A second person came in a couple of days later and has now become a regular volunteer.
In addition to the Stockport Volunteer Hub we are also registered on a national site and from here we have found three people who are now volunteering on our marketing team. It has been a challenge logistically as all three are not local to Stockport but we have worked out ways in which they can help the archive.
As a Board member of the Society of Automotive Historians in Britain I am responsible for organising their two seminars each year. The latest one was in Bromsgrove and part of the weekend treat for me is getting there as we have all day to get there from Manchester, and Peter and I try to fit in as many visits as we can on route. This year’s trip saw us pick up 100 beer glasses and a 1000 beer mats from Cannock, visit the Book Farm at Astley coming away with a box of books and journals, visit Sims Vintage Antiques (two ginger beer bottles and two advertising paperweights) and finally an unknown antiques centre that we stopped at purely by chance because we saw their sign at the side of the road. The last stop was particularly good as it was full of all things advertising and we had to cherry-pick a few items out of the many that were there. Our haul included a 1950s magazine, 3 wooden wool rules and a really lovely selection of photographs (but only those that had the advert for the studio on the reverse).
Once we arrived at the hotel we took delivery of two boxes of car brochures donated by the Haynes Motor Museum and brought along by our good friend Graham Skillen. On the day of the seminar there was a presentation where SAHB member Jeremy Collins handed over his collection of automotive share certificates which he has very kindly donated to the archive. These are truly fabulous items as they are often used as a showcase of a company to prospective investors and as such can be fabulously detailed, elaborate and colourful engravings.
Please look at the latest acquisitions reports in the rest of the newsletter for more details on all of the items recently arriving.
Take care and all the best.
Richard Roberts and the team at the Richard Roberts Archive
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Collection Statistics
The Richard Roberts Archive collection statistics
Tuesday 29th October 2024
Collection database
Total items 162,498
- of which Magazines 138,221
Product folders
Total folders 173
- circa number of adverts 21,137
Breweriana
Total folders 462
Beermats 28,014
Transport photograph database
Total items 883
Volunteer hours
Total 74,863
