With apologies for any inconvenience caused by cross-posting; and best wishes for Christmas and the New Year to all A2A's online visitors and contributors. sjas ~~~~ A2A Update, December 2003 As the end-of-year deadline for A2A Phase 3 bids to the Heritage Lottery Fund is approaching, the A2A Central Team is very pleased to announce that several more funding applications have been submitted, and more are on the way. Some smaller self-funded projects will also take place in Phase 3, notably delivered by Lambeth Palace Library and by the House of Lords Record Office - the Parliamentary Archives. A2A Phase 3 therefore looks likely to get off to a flying start in April 2004. December has brought some staff changes in the A2A Central Team. Kirsty McLaughlin, our Systems Support Officer, is leaving us on her travels before her return to Australia. We are very sorry to lose Kirsty, but would like to welcome her successor, Sean McLean. In this season of goodwill, the A2A Central Team would like to acknowledge with thanks all those who have lent financial support to A2A since its inception almost four years ago. Chief among them are the National Archives and the Heritage Lottery Fund, which - through their contributions towards the Central Team and infrastructure and to individual projects - together have met about 75% of A2A's costs. Other funders have included the Invest to Save Budget of Her Majesty's Treasury, which provided essential central funding in the period from April 2000 to March 2002 (a further 20% of the total); the British Library, lead partner with TNA; Resource: the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, which has made grants to the National Council on Archives towards A2A projects in the regions; and (for specific projects) the New Opportunities Fund and the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation. Financial support for A2A projects has also come from A2A's contributor organisations, who deserve special thanks for all their work to deliver catalogue content for A2A. To continue the seasonal theme: you might like to know that the archives described in A2A include the following: * The diary of George Fisk, vicar of Walsall, recording his visit to Bethlehem in 1842 (Walsall Local History Centre, ref 142/2) * A 1950s photograph of a Dr Blandy carving Robin Hood Ward's Christmas turkey at Mansfield General Hospital, among the archives of Harlow Wood Hospital, Mansfield (Nottinghamshire Archives, ref SO/HO/10/5/8/13) * A nineteenth-century image of a 'very large!' snowman in a heavy snowfall at Bowdon in Cheshire, among a collection of photographs originally taken by Joseph Sidebotham, a millowner who was the first secretary of the Manchester Photographic Society (Greater Manchester County Record Office, ref 2157/140) You might like to see what else you can find! Finally, there is no A2A database update this month: the next database update will take place in mid-January 2004. A2A is the English strand in the UK archives network: its database at www.a2a.org.uk already contains the electronic equivalent of over 400,000 catalogue pages describing archives held across England in national, local and specialist repositories and dating from the 700s to the present day. The A2A programme will make a further 300,000 catalogue pages available on the web by March 2004. * * * * * * Sarah J A Stark Regional Liaison Co-Ordinator, A2A The National Archives Kew Richmond Surrey TW9 4DU Tel (direct line): 020 8392 5328 Fax: 020 8487 9211 Email: [log in to unmask] www: http://www.a2a.org.uk * * * * * * This e-mail message (and attachments) may contain information that is confidential to The National Archives. If you are not the intended recipient you cannot use, distribute or copy the message or attachments. In such a case, please notify the sender by return e-mail immediately and erase all copies of the message and attachments. Opinions, conclusions and other information in this message and attachments that do not relate to the official business of The National Archives are neither given nor endorsed by it.