2021 CAHG awards are announced
The winners of the 2021 Community Archives and Heritage Group (CAHG) awards have been announced. Congratulations to all the winners including the overall winners below Leavesden Hospitals History Association.
The winners of the 2021 Community Archives and Heritage Group (CAHG) awards were announced on Wednesday 27th October at an online event.
The 2021 CAHG award winners are:
Leavesden Hospitals History Association
Wnner of the Gathering & Preserving Heritage which focuses on the process of collecting heritage and preserving or stewarding heritage.
Leavesden Hospitals History Association was also awarded the overall Winner of the Best Community Archive and Heritage Group of 2021. All entrants are automatically considered for this award.
In assessing the Leavesden Hospitals History Association project, the judges were naturally impressed with the scale of work and effort provided by participants in the project to undertake cemetery restoration. Alongside this, however, was the sheer range of activities and platforms designed to ensure the stories were maintained. It was clear audiences had a wide range of ways in which they could engage with the heritage.
Martin T Brooks, Founder of the Leavesden Hospital History Association, acknowledged all the volunteers whose work resulted in these recognitions saying:
“None of us got into this for the recognition, but for the shared interest we have in gathering, studying, preserving and promoting our local history and heritage. Without all the passionate volunteers we have, along with the support of Three Rivers District Council and the National Heritage Lottery Fund, none of this would have happened. So, all the recognition of these awards is shared with everyone involved.”
Clements Hall Local History Group, York
Winner of the Community Engagement category which looks for novel and successful ways of engaging communities with community archive collections
The judges noted the wide range of activities that the group employ to reach as wide an audience as possible. In this way, the work of the archive is made relevant for a real range of people who engage and it was also noted how well the group continued to maintain their community links through lockdown.
Anne Houson, Chair, said
“We’re absolutely thrilled to receive another national award for our work. We share our stories using a mixture of traditional activity, exploring archives and using oral history, with new techniques, such as smartphone apps and Zoom talks. Following our publicity and engagement efforts, by the end of last year we doubled our membership from around 50 to over 100 in 2021.”
Susan Major, group volunteer said
“During last year and this year we’ve used a variety of ways to keep engaged with our local audiences in the face of the pandemic, and to encourage new people to join in with our local history work. We moved our talks to Zoom, but at the same time we enlisted the help of our local York Press to run features about our researches, for those not online. We adopted a pub, the Trafalgar Bay on Nunnery Lane, to be our ‘local history hub’ for our shops and pubs research, making good use of their beer garden. Our series of books about the history of local shops has proved tremendously popular, attracting new people to our group work. We also created a series of smartphone audio guided history walks for individuals and families to follow, and we’ve continued to work with schools.”
Age Cymru Dyfed – West Wales Veterans Archive
Winner of the Contribution to Wellbeing award which looks at projects or activities which show evidence of running activities that have beneficial impacts on the physical, mental and social wellbeing of individuals and communities
The judges were impressed by the way this project connected the simple act of truly being human and listening to someone's story with the formation of an archive. Participants are made to feel heard and valued while their narratives can connect and reconnect them with families and friends.
Hugh Morgan OBE, Veterans Coordinator Age Cymru Dyfed said:
“Age Cymru Dyfed is delighted and grateful to receive this national recognition from CAHG. The West Wales Veterans Archive has become an increasingly powerful source of mainly older veterans’ memories, providing enormous satisfaction to those veterans and their families who have shared their often hidden and understated stories. But this Archive also establishes a legacy which will inform generations for decades to come.
“Creating and sustaining the Archive during the global pandemic has been a real challenge but Age Cymru Dyfed and its brilliant partners have met this challenge head-on. In so doing we have been able to demonstrate that Archive development is a superb and innovative vehicle for supporting and enhancing people’s wellbeing.
“We have been so grateful for the unstinting support and professionalism of the People’s Collection Wales in the National Library of Wales, the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust and the Armed Forces Covenant in Wales. The Archive has also worked on the ground because of the contributions made by the many volunteers who have given selfless and skilled commitment to the task, and especially to the generosity of the veterans themselves in unearthing memories from experiences in the past. To have received the recognition of this award from CAHG is greatly appreciated”
Jane Golding, Chair of CAHG, comments:
“We would like to congratulate this year’s award winners who have all demonstrated best practice and innovation in their different approaches to community archiving. The judging process for the overall winner was a lively debate as all were worthy winners!
“We would also like to encourage community groups in the UK and Ireland that are CAHG members (i.e .community archives, community heritage groups, community museums and community archaeology groups) to consider entering next year’s awards. If you represent a group that is not already a member of CAHG why not sign up? It’s free to join and makes you part of a much wider network. Perhaps you could be collecting an award in 2022.”
