Craig Fees
Planned Environment Therapy Trust, Archive and Study Centre, Church Lane, Toddington, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire GL54 5DQ
Telno: 01242 620125
Email: Craigtfees@aol.com

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Garry Tregidga

CAVA, Institute of Cornish Studies, University of Exeter in Cornwall, Tremough Campus, Penryn, Cornwall, TR10 9EZ
Telno: 01736 371 888/891
Email: g.h.tregidga@exeter.ac.uk

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Marilyn Tucker
Wren Trust, 1 St. James Street, Okehampton EX20 1DW
Telno: 01837 53754
Email: marilyn@wrenmusic.co.uk

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Gloucester

2006-2007 has been a normal Network year for Gloucestershire – a number of queries, largely by phone, but one or two by email, with several requests for feedback and support on HLF grant applications and proposals. The example of other regions shows that our 'normal' is fairly quiet, however, and that there is scope for considerable development in networking and other activities. I'd be very pleased to hear from others working within Gloucestershire and the near Southwest who would be interested in developing a more assertive programme of mutual awareness and support. Perhaps this time next year we could even be preparing for our first regional conference!

Outside the Network, it has been a crowded year around oral history in one form or another. I was External Evaluator for the exciting, video-based HLF-funded community oral history project ‘Generations Talking’ being conducted by local charity Wild Rose Heritage and Arts of Hebden Bridge. In my day job as archivist for the Planned Environment Therapy Trust Archive and Study Centre I continued to oversee the oral history recording programme, lending several sets of recording equipment over the course of the year, taking in recordings, and making a number of audio and video recordings myself. The Archive and Study Centre hosted a third in its annual series of residential archive long-weekends with members of the Wennington School Old Scholars Association, who worked on the archives of the school held at the Archive, and recorded interviews as part of the event.

In an exciting development, the Planned Environment Therapy Trust has joined with the Centre for the History of Medicine in the Medical School of the University of Birmingham to establish a new Institute for the History and Work of Therapeutic Environments (IHWTE) as a research and study centre of the University of Birmingham, hosted by the Trust. One of our first activities has been to set up a PhD studentship on the history of a particular therapeutic community, in which oral history will play a key role. A second studentship, also involving oral history, is on the way. In a related development, a major investment of time has gone into the creation of RadioTC International, an online 'radio station' devoted to therapeutic community, where audio and video recordings from the Archive and Study Centre oral history collection can be uploaded alongside specially recorded interviews and other contemporary programmes by professionals, clients, and others involved with the field of therapeutic environments.

Within the Oral History Society, I have been re-elected a member of the Committee, am a member of the Trainers Group, maintain the Virtual Network (the email discussion group for Regional Networkers), chaired a session of the 2007 Oral History Society annual conference, and made a series of recordings for the Society's ‘Oral History of Oral Historians’ project.

Craig Fees

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Devon

At Wren we are a community and folk music organisation and oral history is a major tool in our community and cultural development tool kit, and an easy companion to folk song collecting.

As a Networker, I have advised and visited the Appledore arts video oral history project. The interviewing team is experienced in TV filming etc and were delighted to discover a more intimate people centred approach. Another potential project I have advised on is the oral history and song recording for a local Baptist church, linking the oral testimony with other family history such as gravestones etc. I have also worked with Newton Abbot Museum, to help them with inducting their new volunteers.

My direct involvement during the year has been with the Okehampton Community Play, we are at stage of defining our in depth research topics, which will include the impact of two waves of Polish immigration.

At Wren we are hoping to establish a new folk song collecting project for a new wave of song collectors, and to digitise our existing collection.

Marilyn Tucker

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Cornish Audio Visual Archive

Over the past year the Cornish Audio Visual Archive (CAVA) has been involved in a series of outreach and research initiatives. In March 2007 the archive’s annual conference was held at Saltash Guildhall on the subject of border identity in the Tamar Valley. This event marked the conclusion of a successful oral history project supported by the European Social Fund and the Tamar Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) Service which resulted in new oral history interviews, video recordings and research working papers.

In June a delegation from CAVA visited La Cinematheque de Bretagne and the University of Western Brittany in Brest. The aim was to highlight areas for future collaboration, and a symposium was organised by the Breton and Celtic Research Centre focused on oral history, folklore and film representations.

This year also saw the launch of a public education programme. A series of workshops on oral history, film studies, storytelling and music was organised by the CAVA team at the Tremough Campus of the Combined Universities in Cornwall. The series proved popular and there are plans to organise similar events in the future. In addition, a bi-monthly seminar series has been held by the archive. This included a presentation by Paul Thompson entitled ‘Jamaican Hands Across the Atlantic: the Changing Families and Identities of Migrants’ in September.

A new project exploring Cornwall’s family traditions through oral history recordings started during the summer thanks to a grant of £45,600 from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Entitled ‘Narratives of the Family’, this initiative is supported by the Cornwall Family History Society, Royal Cornwall Museum and Cornwall County Council’s Ethnicity & Diversity Service. A team of volunteers will use historic photographs, existing oral history interviews and new audio-visual recordings to create an education programme based on a travelling exhibition, CD-ROMs and Internet presentation. A public conference at County Hall in Truro will mark the end of the project in the second half of 2008.

Garry Tregidga