April 10, 2015, by Matt Davies

Tea, cakes and lace: Hearts of Heritage project update by volunteer bloggers Laura and Caterina.

Following a DHC meeting with local entrepreneur and craft maker Debbie Bryan in October 2014 (see previous blog) the DHC volunteers began work on the Heart of Heritage project. Supervised by DHC manager Matt Davies, volunteers Emerald, Kelly, Eleri and Research Associate Harriet have been busy digitising a selection of artifacts from Nottingham’s famous Lace industry which Debbie has collected at her shop over the years.

The captivating history and sheer beauty of the artifacts has attracted the interest of more volunteers over the months since and seen the project broaden and progress. So on the 27th February 2015 a second meeting took place, this time in Debbie’s shop which is in Nottingham’s Lace Market. The aims of this meeting were to introduce new team members Laura, Caterina and Philip, review the work done so far, and to decide upon the next move.

The shop now has a lovely Afternoon Tea Room, so over a pot of tea and a selection of cakes, we showed Debbie and her marketing manager Katie some of the digitisation work and research already completed by volunteers. There have been some interesting finds -including a mysterious figure revealed by the digitisation of a lantern slide- and the project is already proving to be a learning curve for all involved including supervisors Matt and Debbie! So much so in fact, that we decided that we should take some more artifacts back to the DHC with us. Debbie produced a range of material including lace samples, drawings, patterns, and lantern slides from which we chose the ones we were most interested in. As previously, volunteers will digitise the pieces and research some of the local history linked to them. It was also decided that we should document not only the research and images produced by the volunteers, but also the process by which we attain them.

Finally, and perhaps most excitingly, Debbie proposed to the volunteers that we could use the shop to showcase the project at the Heritage Open Days which will take place in September 2015. The shop will be one of a number of venues for the event which will also include the Broadway Cinema and Nottingham contemporary. A display will be set up in the café area and volunteers will make occasional appearances to talk about the project.

Keep up with progress and news here:
… you can also follow updates on the project on twitter by using #HeartofHeritage or by following Debbie Bryan or DHC on twitter.

 

by Laura di Stefano and Caterina Moruzzi

(DHC Volunteer Marketing Team)

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