LOOKING AFTER RECORDS

Looking after and preserving WI committee minute books, meeting record books, scrapbooks and annual reports is an important part of recording your community’s history and heritage.  There are many wonderful stories of life through the last century, all recorded by the WI members at the centre of their community life.   Wis are all encouraged to consider putting their records in safe storage at the Gloucester Records Office.  They will be individually catalogued and packaged up, and kept in a temperature-controlled environment, safe from damp, pets and pests.  They will always remain the property of the WI, and can be borrowed back at any time by the WI, with a little warning, for exhibitions etc. 

Even if your WI keeps the records themselves, it is a good idea to keep a list of them all and to ensure they are kept safe from damage.  Mark the boxes clearly.  There are horror stories of a new WI secretary taking over, deciding she didn’t have room for the collection; or of family members clearing a late mother’s house, finding a stash of paper in the loft; and deciding to dispose of what they saw as useless paper.

If you are that secretary with no storage room, or a family member looking at 30-year-old scrapbooks, then there is a safe place for them!  Contact WI House and the WI Archivist will take them off your hands!