At the very heart of this project are the club’s archives, and with hundreds of items available there are endless opportunities for volunteers to participate in heritage learning.
Training and volunteering opportunities are now being offered that will allow the club’s archives to be compiled, catalogued and digitised, so that this important slice of hidden history in the South East is not lost.
If you would like to get involved please email: volunteer@floatingmemories.co.uk
LAUNCH EXHIBITION
Jubilee Library Foyer, Jubilee Square, Brighton
September 26 – 30 2011
This mini-exhibition will include posters, leaflets, images and original objects and artefacts. The exhibition aims to present the project to a wide and diverse audience and invite people to participate. Volunteers will act as ambassadors and invigilators.
Volunteers roles required: Project ambassadors, events assistants
ARCHIVE DIGITISATION
East Sussex Records Office (dates tbc)
Volunteers will be trained in digital archive photography and digital scanning so that the archives can be used on the project website as well as being reproduced within the catalogue, exhibition and film. Design Archives at the University of Brighton will host a one day seminar on the 7th December 2011.
East Sussex Records Office will also oversee and support volunteers working to digitise the archives, introducing methods for conservation cataloguing.
Brighton Museum & Art Gallery
An opportunity has arisen for a volunteer interested in archive digitisation to be trained by the Curator of Local History at Brighton Museum to document the archives of Brighton Swimming Club currently held there, and to add this information to their collections management system. This material once digitised would then be added to the swimming club archives.
Volunteers roles required: digital photography, scanning, lighting, research, cataloging, technical skills, photo blogging.
ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEWS (dates tbc)
Oral History Society Officer Alan Dein (The Guardian, BBC Radio 4) will train a group of volunteers to record members of the Swimming Club recalling their memories.
Starting in October, a series of recordings will be made with members of Brighton Swimming Club, some of whom are elderly, and people associated with the sea front about their swimming routines and memories. Interviews will be made with members that document the last seventy years of the club.
Volunteers will use the sound recording studios at the University of Brighton, and get the chance to learn sound production methods in order to digitize the material for use on the Floating Memories website and film.
Volunteers roles required: recording oral histories, transcribing interviews, digital audio production, editing audio.
MEMORY DAYS
WALKING TOURS
TALKS
A series of memory day events at the Old Slipper Baths and East Sussex Records Office, historical research visits to the Rare Books Archive at Jubilee Library, Brighton Local History Centre and the James Gray collection at Regency Town House will provide inspiration to develop content for use in a series of walking tours and talks, which will take place as part of Brighton Festival Fringe 2012.
The themes for these will connect the swimming club and the history of the British seaside as a holiday destination and how it has evolved over the years. Photographs, images and films collected from the archives will be selected by volunteers to be used to illustrate the talks.
Volunteers roles required: picture research, historical research, planning, lecture presentation, research, photography, planning, map reading, town planning research, researching local building history, education, speaking to the general public.
WEBSITE
The Floating Memories website will contain extracts from the archive, oral history interviews, images and texts, providing a snapshot of the club’s historical archive.
Volunteers roles required: digital photography, picture research, copyright, writing, awareness of social networking and photo blogging.
PUBLICATION
The Floating Memories publication will include photographs and documents from the archives as well as new material gathered throughout the projects’ duration, such as texts transcribed from the oral history interviews. Working with award winning designer Paul Farrington (Studio Tonne) volunteers will have the opportunity to learn about the publishing process, developing picture research, copywriting and design skills.
Volunteers roles required: picture research, copyright, writing, design, producing content, administration, project management.