With the change of month to December it is time now to reflect on the year as it draws to a close. As with last year Covid has had a big impact on us all, but I am very pleased that the success of the vaccine and its rollout in the UK has meant that we can start to get back to normal living. Personally, I feel much happier with my full complement of jabs and am confident to meet and mix socially again.

We are now seeing volunteers getting involved again in the archive and it is great to be able to work with them to achieve our aims. Given that we are getting more and more donations of material our volunteers are essential to us being able to process this material to make it accessible to researchers. I love the fact that our volunteers have their own passions, and it makes our days together fascinating and enjoyable as we each learn things from each other.

The Heritage Open Day event we held in September was brilliantly planned and executed by Angie and was a tremendous success and I look forward to our participation next year. For me the interesting thing I found was that the local people who came had until that point no idea that the archive existed on their doorstep. It was certainly a pleasure to welcome them through our doors and show them round.

In October Peter gave a talk to the Society of Automotive Historians in Britain about the archive with his talk appropriately titled “the Good, the Bad and the Ugly” where he explained the challenges and opportunities, we have in growing the archive in its new home here in Adswood. Out of this talk we have a new volunteer, Paul Niblett who now comes along one day a week to work on the cataloguing of the collection.

Thanks to Craig at Manchester Metropolitan University, we are engaging with our first student placement. If all goes well and we can agree a project this should take place in the spring of 2022. I am looking forward to this project as it will give me a great perspective on how the next generation view the archive and its treasures. I am hopeful that this learning will help us make the archive more attractive to a younger audience.

For a while now the trustees have been discussing the need to add another trustee to our board and following discussions and talks, we voted at our latest trustee meeting to welcome George Mumford as a new trustee. We will soon be adding a profile of George onto the website and look forward very much to bringing George’s managerial and business skills to the benefit of the archive over the coming years.

Our open evenings are getting established again and I hope to see you at our Christmas open evening on Monday 13th December when in addition to our normal tea, coffee, biscuits and cake there will be mulled wine and mince pies.

I would like to say a hearty THANK YOU to my fellow trustees, volunteers, supporters and benefactors who have put so much into making the archive not only a place to preserve this fabulous collection but one where all visitors are made welcome and can feel at home.

My ethos for the archive has always been one where people can feel comfortable and welcome when they visit, and I believe so far, we have achieved this aim.

2022 will be another fantastic year for us as we have several projects in hand to improve the archive and make our visitor experience even better.

Take care, have a wonderful Christmas, and see you soon.

Richard Roberts