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Crowd Cymru wins the 2026 ARA Archive Volunteering Award — Archives & Records Association

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‍‍Crowd Cymru has won the 2026 ARA Archive Volunteering Award. The judges said of this project: ‍“An amazing project that shows what can be done with ambition and gaining necessary funding. The project really shows the enhancement of access to archives (and related cultural materials) that can be a

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Crowd Cymru wins the 2026 ARA Archive Volunteering Award - Archifau Cymru

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Imagine starting a new job and winning an award in the first few weeks… I’m Steph, the new #CrowdCymru Digital Volunteering Project Officer working alongside Jen Evans, who many of you will know from past blogs. And we were thrilled to share that Crowd Cymru has won the 2026 ARA Archive Volunteering Award! It’s been a whirlwind! […]

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News from #CrowdCymru – digital volunteering with the archives of Wales - Archifau Cymru

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Hello everyone, it’s Jen here, #CrowdCymru Digital Volunteering Project Officer with lots of news to share! Project extension and a new face! Firstly, I am delighted to share that Welsh Government has extended our funding until 31 October 2026, giving us another seven months of transcribing documents and tagging images from our nine partner organisations […]

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#CC online social 23.04.2026 [names erased]

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We've joined Instagram! come say hi @crowdcymru

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Create an account or log in to Instagram - Share what you’re into with the people who get you.

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Online social 13.01.2026

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#CC online social 13.01.2026 [with names erased]

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P. 38-39

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#CrowdCymru – digital volunteering with the archives of Wales

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I last contributed to this blog back in February 2024 [read it here] when our project was nearing the end of its first year. It began with funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund in the wak…

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Image 5. University College Magazine, Jan 1888 [held at Cardiff University Special Collections and Archives]
Other collections currently being tackled by our volunteers include an early 20th century photographic collection of atmospheric images of south Wales taken as a basis for postcards and a 19th century Logbook of St David's College, Lampeter (the oldest degree awarding institution in Wales, now University of Wales Trinity Saint David). However, one particular collection of early minute books from a south Wales Women's Institute group led to our discovery of a very interesting character who, with a bit of detective work, was subsequently found to be recorded in two other archive repositories, both helping us to learn more about her.

Blanche Baker-Gabb became known to us via her sterling work that's documented across the pages of early Llanwenarth Women's Institute Minute Books held by Gwent Archives. The volunteers loved transcribing these books as they opened a vivid window into a past world devoid of the overwhelm and immediacy that modern technology has landed on us today. A little bit of research brought to light the Baker-Gabb family archive held at the National Library Wales, this archive includes two volumes of handwritten meteorological (thermometer, barometer, and rain gauge) readings recorded at the Baker-Gabb residence, The Chain, in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, during the period 1881 to 1947. The weather readings appear to have been recorded by Blanche's older brother, Richard Frederick, as other members of the family are mentioned in the third person. We learn more about Blanche in these registers, as along the bottom of each of the intricately detailed tables is a tiny diary entry recording the daily life of the family. From these excerpts we learn that Blanche, being from an affluent family, was able to enjoy a comfortable, carefree, and vibrant social life visiting London regularly, lunching out with a long list of friends, playing lots of sport and frequent trips abroad.

Image 6. Blanche Baker-Gabb passport photograph 1920 (image courtesy National Library of Wales)
However, there was much more to Blanche than high society living; she was a suffragette, regularly attending meetings and listed as a member in Women's Suffrage: The Common Cause of Humanity from as early as 1914. She was an active member of many societies including being Secretary of the Abergavenny branch of the Girl's Friendly Society and regularly attending national society meetings in London. She also sat on the local Eisteddfod committee, and from 1915 onwards, she attended meetings of the British Red Cross, Women on the Land, and the War Agricultural Committee.

Finally, Blanche's name was found on a remarkable petition along with another 400,000 signatures of Welsh women who pledged to champion everlasting world peace after the horrors of the First World War. The petition was organised by the Welsh League of Nations Union (WLNU) and served as a plea from the women of Wales to the women of America to persuade their US President to join and lead the newly established League of Nations. Women in Wales appealed to America 'from home to home' and from 'hearth to hearth' in a powerful call for 'LAW NOT WAR'. This campaign was a remarkable Wales-wide effort involving almost every household, with peace activists going door to door to advocate for new signatures. A Welsh delegation, led by WLNU Chair, Annie Hughes-Griffiths, travelled from Wales to America in March 1924 to formally present the petition and embark on a two month 'Peace Tour' of the United States.

Image 7. Blanche Baker-Gabb signature on the Welsh Women's Peace Petition 1923 (image courtesy National Library of Wales)
Archives are full of characters like Blanche, perhaps unexceptional in the grand scheme of things but whose stories tell us much about the time in which they lived. Here we have an example of archives at their most accessible best, signposting our own journeys through heritage collections and history, to ignite new connections so vital to bring stories together. I have already shared Blanche's story via a blog post here and gave a talk at the Women's Archive Wales Conference in Aberystwyth in October 2025.

As Project Officer, my core job is to support our wonderful group of volunteers and to keep them engaged because there are so many other amazing volunteer projects out there! I do this primarily by keeping in touch and sending out a monthly email. I'll always begin with relevant news, background information on new collections with any updated guidelines, and a list of the outreach activities I may have been up to. I end with a list of links to news items of possible interest - related articles and blog posts to be savoured over a cuppa and a slice of cake.

All new volunteers are offered an online training session and additional refresher sessions if needed. Every now and again, I'll also hold an online social where I invite our volunteers to gather to chat and get to know each other, wherever we are based in Wales or the world. This can be an important activity as many volunteers, when asked what they'd like to get out of digital volunteering, tick the "to meet new people" option. These sessions are also important for me personally as I largely work from home and my regular daily human interactions are pretty limited!

Another popular activity has been One Minute Wonders, where our volunteers were invited to select their favourite document, and write a short piece to tell us why. This activity was inspired by the One Minute Wonders display of art in Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, where each artwork links to a story written by a volunteer. We ran this activity back in 2023 and as it was so popular we ran it again a few months ago; these lovely submissions have been uploaded onto the project's digital platform.

Image 8. #Crowd Cymru One Minute Wonder submissions

Over the past few years, we have endeavoured to keep our profile visible via social media, recently moving from X to Bluesky, guest posting on blogs including this one for the WCVA, and old school in-person engagement, presenting to interested community groups and events because there's nothing quite like connecting with a room full of people, bouncing ideas of each other and delighting in a shared interest.

We also believe in sharing knowledge and best practice and have to date published two project reports, the first was published at the end of our NLHF phase and the second was recently published after our first year of Welsh Government funding - both can be found on our project website here: #CrowdCymru | Gwent Archives

So, what does the future hold? Hopefully lots of exciting things! Our current funding phase comes to an end in March 2026, but we have high hopes of obtaining further funding - watch this space!

As mentioned previously, we are now a growing partnership of nine institutions bursting with fascinating collections to share with Wales and the world - our core aim has always been to improve collection descriptions, amplify access to digital collections and ignite new research today and in the future: while in turn, improving the knowledge of the vast collections of the partner organisations. And what better way to achieve these aims than an exciting new collaboration between #CrowdCymru and People's Collection Wales, the free website dedicated to bringing together Wales's heritage. Established in 2010, they're a small Welsh Government funded team with three leading partner institutions: Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales, National Library of Wales and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales. They are passionate about celebrating and sharing Wales's culture and heritage , believing that everyone has a piece of the jigsaw that weaves the rich story of Wales - be it a memory, a letter, an old photograph or a sound recording. Their aim is to capture and share these often-untold stories on the website for future generations to enjoy. We are very much looking forward to working with this organisation while continuing to share our own fascinating collections and stories.

If you'd like to join our vibrant team of #CrowdCymru volunteers, or if you're already part of a community group you think might be interested, please get in touch with me as, I'm eager to come and talk to you and we can run training sessions online or in person.

Jennifer Evans

Digital Volunteering Project Officer

Website: #CrowdCymru | Gwent Archives

Email: jennifer.evans@gwentarchives.gov.uk

Phone 01495 742450

This article titled #CrowdCymru - digital volunteering with the archives of Wales by Jennifer Evans is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image 5. University College Magazine, Jan 1888 [held at Cardiff University Special Collections and Archives]
Other collections currently being tackled by our volunteers include an early 20th century photographic collection of atmospheric images of south Wales taken as a basis for postcards and a 19th century Logbook of St David's College, Lampeter (the oldest degree awarding institution in Wales, now University of Wales Trinity Saint David). However, one particular collection of early minute books from a south Wales Women's Institute group led to our discovery of a very interesting character who, with a bit of detective work, was subsequently found to be recorded in two other archive repositories, both helping us to learn more about her.

Blanche Baker-Gabb became known to us via her sterling work that's documented across the pages of early Llanwenarth Women's Institute Minute Books held by Gwent Archives. The volunteers loved transcribing these books as they opened a vivid window into a past world devoid of the overwhelm and immediacy that modern technology has landed on us today. A little bit of research brought to light the Baker-Gabb family archive held at the National Library Wales, this archive includes two volumes of handwritten meteorological (thermometer, barometer, and rain gauge) readings recorded at the Baker-Gabb residence, The Chain, in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, during the period 1881 to 1947. The weather readings appear to have been recorded by Blanche's older brother, Richard Frederick, as other members of the family are mentioned in the third person. We learn more about Blanche in these registers, as along the bottom of each of the intricately detailed tables is a tiny diary entry recording the daily life of the family. From these excerpts we learn that Blanche, being from an affluent family, was able to enjoy a comfortable, carefree, and vibrant social life visiting London regularly, lunching out with a long list of friends, playing lots of sport and frequent trips abroad.

Image 6. Blanche Baker-Gabb passport photograph 1920 (image courtesy National Library of Wales)
However, there was much more to Blanche than high society living; she was a suffragette, regularly attending meetings and listed as a member in Women's Suffrage: The Common Cause of Humanity from as early as 1914. She was an active member of many societies including being Secretary of the Abergavenny branch of the Girl's Friendly Society and regularly attending national society meetings in London. She also sat on the local Eisteddfod committee, and from 1915 onwards, she attended meetings of the British Red Cross, Women on the Land, and the War Agricultural Committee.

Finally, Blanche's name was found on a remarkable petition along with another 400,000 signatures of Welsh women who pledged to champion everlasting world peace after the horrors of the First World War. The petition was organised by the Welsh League of Nations Union (WLNU) and served as a plea from the women of Wales to the women of America to persuade their US President to join and lead the newly established League of Nations. Women in Wales appealed to America 'from home to home' and from 'hearth to hearth' in a powerful call for 'LAW NOT WAR'. This campaign was a remarkable Wales-wide effort involving almost every household, with peace activists going door to door to advocate for new signatures. A Welsh delegation, led by WLNU Chair, Annie Hughes-Griffiths, travelled from Wales to America in March 1924 to formally present the petition and embark on a two month 'Peace Tour' of the United States.

Image 7. Blanche Baker-Gabb signature on the Welsh Women's Peace Petition 1923 (image courtesy National Library of Wales)
Archives are full of characters like Blanche, perhaps unexceptional in the grand scheme of things but whose stories tell us much about the time in which they lived. Here we have an example of archives at their most accessible best, signposting our own journeys through heritage collections and history, to ignite new connections so vital to bring stories together. I have already shared Blanche's story via a blog post here and gave a talk at the Women's Archive Wales Conference in Aberystwyth in October 2025.

As Project Officer, my core job is to support our wonderful group of volunteers and to keep them engaged because there are so many other amazing volunteer projects out there! I do this primarily by keeping in touch and sending out a monthly email. I'll always begin with relevant news, background information on new collections with any updated guidelines, and a list of the outreach activities I may have been up to. I end with a list of links to news items of possible interest - related articles and blog posts to be savoured over a cuppa and a slice of cake.

All new volunteers are offered an online training session and additional refresher sessions if needed. Every now and again, I'll also hold an online social where I invite our volunteers to gather to chat and get to know each other, wherever we are based in Wales or the world. This can be an important activity as many volunteers, when asked what they'd like to get out of digital volunteering, tick the "to meet new people" option. These sessions are also important for me personally as I largely work from home and my regular daily human interactions are pretty limited!

Another popular activity has been One Minute Wonders, where our volunteers were invited to select their favourite document, and write a short piece to tell us why. This activity was inspired by the One Minute Wonders display of art in Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, where each artwork links to a story written by a volunteer. We ran this activity back in 2023 and as it was so popular we ran it again a few months ago; these lovely submissions have been uploaded onto the project's digital platform.

Image 8. #Crowd Cymru One Minute Wonder submissions

Over the past few years, we have endeavoured to keep our profile visible via social media, recently moving from X to Bluesky, guest posting on blogs including this one for the WCVA, and old school in-person engagement, presenting to interested community groups and events because there's nothing quite like connecting with a room full of people, bouncing ideas of each other and delighting in a shared interest.

We also believe in sharing knowledge and best practice and have to date published two project reports, the first was published at the end of our NLHF phase and the second was recently published after our first year of Welsh Government funding - both can be found on our project website here: #CrowdCymru | Gwent Archives

So, what does the future hold? Hopefully lots of exciting things! Our current funding phase comes to an end in March 2026, but we have high hopes of obtaining further funding - watch this space!

As mentioned previously, we are now a growing partnership of nine institutions bursting with fascinating collections to share with Wales and the world - our core aim has always been to improve collection descriptions, amplify access to digital collections and ignite new research today and in the future: while in turn, improving the knowledge of the vast collections of the partner organisations. And what better way to achieve these aims than an exciting new collaboration between #CrowdCymru and People's Collection Wales, the free website dedicated to bringing together Wales's heritage. Established in 2010, they're a small Welsh Government funded team with three leading partner institutions: Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales, National Library of Wales and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales. They are passionate about celebrating and sharing Wales's culture and heritage , believing that everyone has a piece of the jigsaw that weaves the rich story of Wales - be it a memory, a letter, an old photograph or a sound recording. Their aim is to capture and share these often-untold stories on the website for future generations to enjoy. We are very much looking forward to working with this organisation while continuing to share our own fascinating collections and stories.

If you'd like to join our vibrant team of #CrowdCymru volunteers, or if you're already part of a community group you think might be interested, please get in touch with me as, I'm eager to come and talk to you and we can run training sessions online or in person.

Jennifer Evans

Digital Volunteering Project Officer

Website: #CrowdCymru | Gwent Archives

Email: jennifer.evans@gwentarchives.gov.uk

Phone 01495 742450

This article titled #CrowdCymru - digital volunteering with the archives of Wales by Jennifer Evans is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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#CrowdCymru - digital volunteering with the archives of Wales - Archives & Records Association

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Jennifer Evans , Digital Volunteering Project Officer for #CrowdCymru contributes this guest blog for the ARA Website: #CrowdCymru - digital volunteering with the archives of Wales Phew, what a difference a few years make! I last contributed to this blog back in 2023 [read it here ] when our p

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Crowd Cymru table at History and Heritage Fair, National Waterfront Museum, Swansea 27.09.2025 [2]

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Crowd Cymru (@crowdcymru.bsky.social) — Bluesky

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Welsh Government services and information

Arts, culture and sport
Sport Wales, museums and historic environment

Building and planning
Planning permission, building regulations, local development plans

Business, economy and innovation
Business support, city regions, tourism, digital, broadband and mobile, science

Children and families
Flying Start, childcare, help for families, children's rights

Communities and regeneration
Money and financial inclusion, communities facilities programme, third (voluntary) sector

Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Advice and support on coronavirus

Digital
How we will use digital, data and technology to improve your lives

Education and skills
Schools, further and higher education, skills and vocational training, student funding

Employment and work
Help to get people into work, fair work and trade unions

Environment and climate change
Recycling, circular economy, flooding, pollution and emissions

Equality and human rights
Domestic abuse and sexual violence, diversity

Farming and countryside
RPW Online, rural payments, animal movements, animal health, forestry

Health and social care
Health conditions, NHS management, social care

Housing
Letting your property, help to buy a home, home improvement loans

International and EU
European Structural and Investment Funds, transition period (Brexit).

Justice and law
Justice policy, prisoners and probation

Marine and fisheries
Marine planning, maritime and fisheries fund, fishing licences, marine conservation

Public sector
Local government, public bodies, procurement, open government and transparency

Transport
Bus passes, road improvements, local transport plans, cycling and walking

Welsh language
Welsh Language Tribunal, promoting the Welsh language

Organisations

This includes Welsh Government public bodies, advisory groups and companies.

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Welsh Government services and information Arts, culture and sport Sport Wales, museums and historic environment Building and planning Planning permission, building regulations, local development plans Business, economy and innovation Business support, city regions, tourism, digital, broadband and mobile, science Children and families Flying Start, childcare, help for families, children's rights

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Help us to transcribe the Edward Thomas letters as part of the Crowd Cymru project.

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Letters from the American Civil War - National Library of Wales

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View digital versions of Letters from the American Civil War (NLW MS 22421D). This collection of letters at the National Library of Wales show that Welsh immigrants were directly involved in the conflict.

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 Family letters written by brothers Edgar & Norman Atkinson home to their family whilst serving in the armed forces, providing fascinating insights into their lives in France and Palestine during both World Wars. 

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Collection held at Conwy Archives

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Cofnodion Ysgol Gyfun Rhydfelen Records

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From the Richard Burton Archives, held at Swansea University, specifically the South Wales Coalfield Collection, containing significant material relating to the Spanish Civil War and the part played by Welsh volunteers.

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Notebook created by Jack Roberts whilst at the International Brigade Officers' Training School, Tarrazona, Spain in 1937 (Ref. SC/269)

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Notebook created by Jack Roberts whilst at the International Brigade Officers' Training School, Tarrazona, Spain in 1937 (Ref. SC/269)

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Spanish Civil War - Richard Burton Archives - LibGuides at Swansea University

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Presentation to GFHS [Bridgend branch] 15.02.2025

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Log book of St David's College, Lampeter, Minutes, Sept 1875-1886

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Log book of St David's College, Lampeter, Minutes, Sept 1875-1886

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Rolls family (Barons Llangattock), of The Hendre, documents [c. 1617]-1952GB0218.D361

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James James of the parish of Llanvihangel-Ystern-Llewern, Monmouthshire, settled in London and acquired a valuable estate in Southwark, Surrey. He purchased several farms and parcels of land in Llanvihangel-Ystern-Llewern and Llangattock-Vibon-Avel between 1639 and 1648. In his will of 1677 he left his estate to his only surviving child, Sarah, wife of Dr Elisha Coysh, a London physician. Their daughter married William Allen, who also bought land in Monmouthshire. William Allen’s daughter and heir married her cousin Thomas Coysh. They were succeeded by their son Richard Coysh, who was succeeded by his sister Sarah (d. 1801), the eventual sole heir of the families of Coysh, Allen and James. Sarah married John Rolls (1735-1801) of the Grange, Bermondsey, and of the Hendre, Monmouthshire, sheriff of Monmouthshire 1794, bringing him much property both in Monmouthshire and London. John Rolls died the day after his wife. John Rolls was succeeded by his son John Rolls (1776-1837) of the Hendre, who was succeed by his son John Etherington Welch Rolls (1807-70), sheriff of Monmouthshire 1842. He was succeeded by his son John Allan Rolls (1837-1912), sheriff in 1875 and MP for Monmouthshire, 1880-1885, created Baron Llangattock of the Hendre, 1892, who was succeeded by his son John Maclean Rolls (1870-1916, dsp.), 2nd Baron Llangattock, sheriff in 1900. He was succeeded by his sister Eleanor Georgiana (d. 1961), wife of John Courtown Edward Shelley. Charles Stewart Rolls (1877-1910, dsp), a younger son of John Allan Rolls, was one of the founding partners of the Rolls-Royce aero engine and motor car manufacturers.

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Edwin Miles Photographic Collection comprising of black and white photographic glass negatives of scenes from Bridgend and the Vale of Glamorgan taken by Edwin Miles for the production of postcards, …

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Edward Thomas (1878-1917), poet and writer, was born in Lambeth to Welsh-born parents on 3 March 1878. He was educated at St Paul's School, London, and Lincoln College, Oxford.

He was encouraged in his early literary ambitions by the critic James Ashcroft Noble, with his first book, The Woodland Life, appearing in 1897. Thomas married Noble's daughter Helen (1877-1967) in 1899, graduated from Lincoln College in 1900, then made his living writing literary reviews for the Daily Chronicle as well as essays, anthologies, guidebooks and folk-tales. He published further books, including The Heart of England (1906), The Happy-Go-Lucky Morgans (1913), The Icknield Way (1913) and In Pursuit of Spring (1914) and biographies of several literary figures. It was only in 1914 that Thomas wrote his first 'real' poem; over the next two years he wrote over one hundred and forty.

In 1915 Thomas joined the Artists' Rifles, was commissioned second lieutenant in 1916 and volunteered for service overseas. He was killed in action on 9 April 1917 during the battle of Arras. His Poems (1917), Last Poems (1918) and Collected Poems (1920) therefore all appeared posthumously. His wife Helen wrote of their time together in As It Was (1926) and World Without End (1931).

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Learn more about the Edward and Helen Thomas manuscripts held at The National Library of Wales.

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Photographs of academic schools, buildings, staff, students, and views of the estate

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CC online social 30.01.2025 [publisher] with names deleted

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Bringing Wales’ past into the 21st century - WCVA

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Jen Evans at Crowd Cymru tells us how their digital archive project lets volunteers all over the world delve into Wales’ rich history.

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Connections through digital archives: the life of Blanche Baker-Gabb as seen through Crowd Cymru, National Library Wales Archive and the Welsh Women’s Peace Petition.

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The life of Blanche Baker-Gabb as seen through Crowd Cymru, National Library Wales Archive and the Welsh Women’s Peace Petition.

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Hello! My name is Jen and I'm Digital Volunteering Project Officer for CrowdCymru.

This digital archives volunteer project launched back in 2022 with funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. This first phase of the project ended in November 2023 and looking back, I am still awed at what we manage to achieve. You can access the five blog posts uploaded to the Archives and Records Council Wales website charting this period by entering "Crowd Cymru" in the search box in the top right of the homepage.

But here follows a brief synopsis of a wonderful 16 months!

This project was established to pilot a global crowdsourcing community for Wales via a collaboration between Gwent Archives, Glamorgan Archives, Cardiff University Special Collections & Archives and The National Library Wales. The aim was to build a crowdsourcing platform and community for archives in Wales, a cohesive national approach unprecedented in the UK, to harness the knowledge and time of global citizens to enrich existing basic metadata, amplify the visibility of these primary archive collections, and ignite new research.

The first few months were spent sourcing a pool of volunteers who were happy to work remotely from home and our number currently stands at eighty-seven. Once the group was established, guided by Paul McCann [Research Projects Manager, The National Library Wales] I organised online training sessions to get them familiar with the digital platform upon which all the work would be done.

In the meantime, Paul was also working with Gwent Archives, Glamorgan Archives, and Cardiff University Special Collections & Archives to get their archive collections uploaded to the platform.

The first collection the volunteers were asked to transcribe was a compilation of letters by the WWI war poet, Edward Thomas. This collection, held at Cardiff University, was not an easy start both in terms of sensitive content and difficultly in deciphering his hand-writing. However, it also proved to be one of the most popular with one volunteer using Thomas's story and words as part of her work towards an MA in Fine Art. She used them as the subject of one in a series of handmade zines created as part of an exploration into archive and memory, and the way past lives are preserved and recorded. Another transcription collection followed, the war time diaries of Priscilla Scott-Ellis, Spanish Civil War and WWII volunteer nurse, whose handwriting was so much clearer but whose affiliation with Franco's Fascism split the room!

The partners also provided photographic collections for the volunteers to describe and tag. Glamorgan Archives added the Cardiff Dockland Community Collection, portraits of individuals and groups including women and children, from the Cardiff dockland community, taken between 1900-1920. Gwent Archives added the Newport Rugby & Athletic Archive, charting the history of the club along with a very important collection of ephemera from an early 1980s lesbian and gay group.

We have been featured in numerous publications including Who Do You Think You Are Magazine and the Archive & Records Association Members Magazine [ARC] and also recorded a podcast for The Archives & Records Association. Listen to our episode. We were also featured in Archives Wales's Into the Archives Report 2023 and The National Archives' A Year in Archives 2023.

Managing and supporting a remote team of volunteers can be challenging since our group is quite literally scattered all over the world! Therefore, we have offered online group training sessions and social gatherings, a weekly newsletter and a Facebook group.

We now begin phase two of CrowdCymru with the ending of the National Lottery funding and the commencing of new funding from the National Library of Wales that will take us through to the end of May 2024. This comes as part of the library's work on the Our Heritage, Our Stories project which is linking and searching community-generated digital content to develop the people's national collection.

Therefore, our intrepid volunteers can continue to work on improving access to these collections and move us towards the next steps in our vision for a democratised, connected, and global outlook for hidden archives and new research in Wales.

They are currently working on a collection of early minutes books from the Llanwenarth branch of the Women's Institute [housed at Gwent Archives] and are already clamouring for more! Transcribing what one volunteer coined "a lost world of inter-war life" has captured their imagination and appears to have provided a quiet respite from the uncertainty and turmoil of current times.

As mentioned above, all outputs from our first phase, including a project handbook, on the project page.

More collections are on the way, and I'll post again soon to keep you updated.

In the meantime, if you would like to join our merry band of volunteers, or, if you are part of a community history group and would like me to come and talk to you, please get in touch.

Jennifer Evans
Digital Volunteering Project Officer / Swyddog Prosiect Gwirfoddoli Digidol
Twitter: CrowdCymru
Phone / Ffôn: 01495 742450
Email / Ebost: jennifer.evans@gwentarchives.gov.uk

This blog post titled Welcome to Crowd Cymru by Jennifer Evans is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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Crowd Cymru is a collaborative project to develop an online volunteering community for Wales.

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In this guest post, Jennifer Evans, Digital Volunteering Project Officer for #CrowdCymru gives an overview of this crowdsourced digital archive project.
Hello there, I'm Project Officer on a very exciting digital archives volunteer project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and run jointly by Gwent Archives, Glamorgan Archives and Cardiff University Special Collections & Archives.

The idea for the project was born from a need to demonstrate that these project partners were endeavouring to taking a swift, proactive, and collaborative approach to modernise their services to meet the ambitious roadmap of the Welsh Government's Digital Strategy of Wales which aims to "improve the lives of everyone through collaboration, innovation and better public services". Moreover, the pandemic has forced archive services to revisit their purpose, reach and value, and adapt their services within a broader local, national, and international context. This project will equip more people with the digital skills they now need to remain well-connected across their communities and to develop these skills to take full advantage in seeking opportunities in the workplace and for wellbeing. We also aim to transform opportunities for archives services to develop new models for remote volunteering without the need to travel that support the Welsh Government's ambition to reduce our carbon footprint.

All the work our volunteers do is accessed via a crowdsourcing platform established by those very clever people at the National Library Wales. This fully bilingual online platform enables remote volunteers to tag and transcribe the digital heritage collections held within these repositories.

Archive services across Wales hold millions of irreplaceable records, but many are only minimally catalogued and therefore difficult to identify and find. This project is harnessing the knowledge of individuals in communities across Wales and beyond to enrich our collective heritage for the benefit of current and future generations - locally, nationally, and globally.

Our volunteer numbers currently stand at ninety and although the majority come from Wales, we also have sign-ups from USA, Canada, Australia & South Korea! The work they have so valiantly been ploughing through began with transcribing handwritten documents and now they've moved on to tagging and describing photographs. The project partners were careful to ensure that the collections put forward would be varied and interesting enough to keep everyone engrossed and they have kept true to their word with some absolute corkers!

Cardiff University Special Collections & Archives started the ball rolling with two wonderful collections for transcription. The first was the Edward Thomas Literary Archive, just under 500 letters written by Thomas to his friends and family. Poet, critic, and biographer, Thomas wrote all his poetry over a brief three-year span, 1914-17. During the second year of WWI, he enlisted and was killed two years later in the Battle of Arras. Even though everyone struggled with Thomas's handwriting, they smashed through this collection within a few months, many finding the content powerful and moving.

The next collection was nine war time diaries written by Priscilla Scott-Ellis, daughter of the 8th Lord Howard de Walden. Brought up in the luxury of Belgrave Square, London, and Chirk Castle, in Wexham, what makes Priscilla exceptional is that she volunteered as a nurse during both the Spanish Civil War and WWII. Moreover, whereas her Spanish Civil War diaries were posthumously published in 1995 as The Chances of Death: Diary of the Spanish Civil War, her WWII diaries have never been published, making this a very important transcription project. Fortunately for everyone, Priscilla's handwriting is much easier to read, and they've pretty much finished this collection also. As well as transcribing these letters and diaries, the volunteers have also been tagging names and places, to make searching these documents much easier in the future.

Glamorgan Archives offered up our first photographic collection with the Cardiff Dockland Community Collection. These portraits of individuals and groups including women and children, from the Cardiff dockland community, were taken between 1900-1920. This area was commonly known as "Tiger Bay" and became one of the UK's first multicultural communities with people from over 50 countries, including Somalia, Yemen, and Greece, settled here by the outbreak of the First World War, working in the docks and allied industries.

Gwent Archives added the Newport Rugby & Athletic Club photographic archive charting the history of the club and containing images of groups, teams, committee members, sports days and some wonderfully random early 1900s images of children playing in snow, men in plus fours skating on frozen lakes and scantily clad lads diving into dangerous canal locks!

For these collections, the volunteers are tagging anything they see in the photograph and describing the image.

The next collection about to be added from Gwent Archives is a series of "Letters Books" related to the Poor Law Act of 1834. All correspondence carried out between the local Poor Law offices and the main Head Office in London was re-written into letters books as legal copy. Gwent Archives have chosen the letters books from the Abergavenny Board of Guardians for this project. This transcription task will be a challenge indeed as the pages on which the letters were re-written are very thin and there is a lot of bleed-through. Fortunately, only a synopsis of these letters is required as opposed to a full transcription, so volunteers need only read through and type up a summary.

One of my core jobs as Project Officer has been to promote the project and this has been achieved using several methods. We have an active Twitter [X] account to promote progress, highlight these great collections and foster support for other archive, library, museums, and heritage accounts. We had live listings on websites such as Adult Learners Week Wales , Black History Wales and World Digital Preservation Day. We have been featured in numerous publications including the January 2023 issue of Who Do You Think You Are Magazine and the March/April 2023 issue of Archive & Records Association Members Magazine [ARC]. We have been supported by the Archives and Records Council Wales, with invitations to speak at their Annual Forums and to contribute a series of blog posts to their website reporting on our progress [enter CrowdCymru in the home page search box to find them]. We recorded a podcast for The Archives & Records Association, who have recorded lots of fascinating interviews from people who work with archives for their Outside the Box series. As part of Volunteer Week, they recorded some volunteer specials and Crowd Cymru was one of them, you can listen to the episode here.

We've also ventured out into the community, both in person and online, to spread the word and encourage people to sign up. We presented to organisations including Digital Communities Wales, U3A Wales, Newport City Council [Community & Regeneration and Community Arts], Aberystwyth University [Online and Distance Learning, Information and Library Studies and Lifelong Learning Genealogy Groups] and Glamorgan Archives and Gwent Archives as part of their series of online public talks.

Interestingly it was the presentation to Gwent Archives that sparked a very productive tangent as the talk was attended by the Dementia Voice Lead on Amgueddfa Cymru's Museums Inspiring Memories Project. This three-year project in partnership with Alzheimer's Society Cymru and funded by the National Lottery Community Fund began back in April 2022. The projects aim is to work with people living with dementia, unpaid carers, carer sector staff, heritage sector colleagues, and related communities and organisations, to deliver practical ways to engage with and improve the quality of life of people affected by dementia, through access to museum resources and sites. After the talk, the Lead made contact and a dialogue was initiated around the benefits of transcribing and tagging as memory work for those with conditions like dementia. We were then invited to attend their Dementia Awareness Day, run in conjunction with Dementia Action Week at St Fagans Museum of National History in May 2023. Our meet and greet table was in amongst a host of other organisations including Alzheimers Society Cymru, Ty Hapus, Welsh Ambulance Services, Dewis Cymru and Age Cymru. This extremely productive day was spent learning about the work these organisations do while also interacting with individuals and groups brought from care homes by showing them the photographs on our table and asking questions. One very elderly lady with bad eyesight was understandably dismissive when shown one of the Cardiff Dockland Community photographs but once her carer had explained the issue, the image was described in detail to her. She immediately brightened and began to talk about how she remembered the immigrants who arrived in Tiger Bay and how they were seen as different in how they dressed and spoke. She remembered animosity and suspicion but more so that her mother went out of her way to be friendly and kind, telling her to do the same in the school playground. This moving interaction really was a highlight of the day.

This train of thought then lead to contact with Cardiff Council Wellbeing Support Service, established to boost the health and wellbeing of the community and ease some of the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their aim is to provide opportunities to help those experiencing mental health challenges, social isolation and loneliness and anxiety around leaving the home as this number has risen significantly since the pandemic. This incredibly supportive and accommodating team have embraced Crowd Cymru as an opportunity for socialising and learning for their clients. This has led to a series of in person workshops in hubs and libraries around Cardiff which have been great fun.

Our project ends on November 30 and thoughts of review reports and output tables now need to be considered. But, on a more personal level, one of the most enjoyable aspects of this project for me has been recruiting and getting to know our wonderfully diverse group of volunteers. I email them every week, provide online training sessions, and manage a closed Facebook Group for us all to chat to one-another. Their friendliness, experience, and enthusiasm to support the work of archives services has been a joy and I know that the next three months are going to fly by, so I intend to make the most of every minute.

I have also been overwhelmed by the sheer generosity of this heritage archives environment and sector. This project has been met, at every request, with offers of help and support and a true sense of working together supporting individual endeavours for the greater good of the whole sector. How wonderful to be part of such a great community.

Jennifer Evans

Digital Volunteering Project Officer

Twitter: @CrowdCymru

Phone: 01495 742450

Email: jennifer.evans@gwentarchives.gov.uk

This blog post titled #CrowdCymru by Jennifer Evans is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

In this guest post, Jennifer Evans, Digital Volunteering Project Officer for #CrowdCymru gives an overview of this crowdsourced digital archive project.
Hello there, I'm Project Officer on a very exciting digital archives volunteer project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and run jointly by Gwent Archives, Glamorgan Archives and Cardiff University Special Collections & Archives.

The idea for the project was born from a need to demonstrate that these project partners were endeavouring to taking a swift, proactive, and collaborative approach to modernise their services to meet the ambitious roadmap of the Welsh Government's Digital Strategy of Wales which aims to "improve the lives of everyone through collaboration, innovation and better public services". Moreover, the pandemic has forced archive services to revisit their purpose, reach and value, and adapt their services within a broader local, national, and international context. This project will equip more people with the digital skills they now need to remain well-connected across their communities and to develop these skills to take full advantage in seeking opportunities in the workplace and for wellbeing. We also aim to transform opportunities for archives services to develop new models for remote volunteering without the need to travel that support the Welsh Government's ambition to reduce our carbon footprint.

All the work our volunteers do is accessed via a crowdsourcing platform established by those very clever people at the National Library Wales. This fully bilingual online platform enables remote volunteers to tag and transcribe the digital heritage collections held within these repositories.

Archive services across Wales hold millions of irreplaceable records, but many are only minimally catalogued and therefore difficult to identify and find. This project is harnessing the knowledge of individuals in communities across Wales and beyond to enrich our collective heritage for the benefit of current and future generations - locally, nationally, and globally.

Our volunteer numbers currently stand at ninety and although the majority come from Wales, we also have sign-ups from USA, Canada, Australia & South Korea! The work they have so valiantly been ploughing through began with transcribing handwritten documents and now they've moved on to tagging and describing photographs. The project partners were careful to ensure that the collections put forward would be varied and interesting enough to keep everyone engrossed and they have kept true to their word with some absolute corkers!

Cardiff University Special Collections & Archives started the ball rolling with two wonderful collections for transcription. The first was the Edward Thomas Literary Archive, just under 500 letters written by Thomas to his friends and family. Poet, critic, and biographer, Thomas wrote all his poetry over a brief three-year span, 1914-17. During the second year of WWI, he enlisted and was killed two years later in the Battle of Arras. Even though everyone struggled with Thomas's handwriting, they smashed through this collection within a few months, many finding the content powerful and moving.

The next collection was nine war time diaries written by Priscilla Scott-Ellis, daughter of the 8th Lord Howard de Walden. Brought up in the luxury of Belgrave Square, London, and Chirk Castle, in Wexham, what makes Priscilla exceptional is that she volunteered as a nurse during both the Spanish Civil War and WWII. Moreover, whereas her Spanish Civil War diaries were posthumously published in 1995 as The Chances of Death: Diary of the Spanish Civil War, her WWII diaries have never been published, making this a very important transcription project. Fortunately for everyone, Priscilla's handwriting is much easier to read, and they've pretty much finished this collection also. As well as transcribing these letters and diaries, the volunteers have also been tagging names and places, to make searching these documents much easier in the future.

Glamorgan Archives offered up our first photographic collection with the Cardiff Dockland Community Collection. These portraits of individuals and groups including women and children, from the Cardiff dockland community, were taken between 1900-1920. This area was commonly known as "Tiger Bay" and became one of the UK's first multicultural communities with people from over 50 countries, including Somalia, Yemen, and Greece, settled here by the outbreak of the First World War, working in the docks and allied industries.

Gwent Archives added the Newport Rugby & Athletic Club photographic archive charting the history of the club and containing images of groups, teams, committee members, sports days and some wonderfully random early 1900s images of children playing in snow, men in plus fours skating on frozen lakes and scantily clad lads diving into dangerous canal locks!

For these collections, the volunteers are tagging anything they see in the photograph and describing the image.

The next collection about to be added from Gwent Archives is a series of "Letters Books" related to the Poor Law Act of 1834. All correspondence carried out between the local Poor Law offices and the main Head Office in London was re-written into letters books as legal copy. Gwent Archives have chosen the letters books from the Abergavenny Board of Guardians for this project. This transcription task will be a challenge indeed as the pages on which the letters were re-written are very thin and there is a lot of bleed-through. Fortunately, only a synopsis of these letters is required as opposed to a full transcription, so volunteers need only read through and type up a summary.

One of my core jobs as Project Officer has been to promote the project and this has been achieved using several methods. We have an active Twitter [X] account to promote progress, highlight these great collections and foster support for other archive, library, museums, and heritage accounts. We had live listings on websites such as Adult Learners Week Wales , Black History Wales and World Digital Preservation Day. We have been featured in numerous publications including the January 2023 issue of Who Do You Think You Are Magazine and the March/April 2023 issue of Archive & Records Association Members Magazine [ARC]. We have been supported by the Archives and Records Council Wales, with invitations to speak at their Annual Forums and to contribute a series of blog posts to their website reporting on our progress [enter CrowdCymru in the home page search box to find them]. We recorded a podcast for The Archives & Records Association, who have recorded lots of fascinating interviews from people who work with archives for their Outside the Box series. As part of Volunteer Week, they recorded some volunteer specials and Crowd Cymru was one of them, you can listen to the episode here.

We've also ventured out into the community, both in person and online, to spread the word and encourage people to sign up. We presented to organisations including Digital Communities Wales, U3A Wales, Newport City Council [Community & Regeneration and Community Arts], Aberystwyth University [Online and Distance Learning, Information and Library Studies and Lifelong Learning Genealogy Groups] and Glamorgan Archives and Gwent Archives as part of their series of online public talks.

Interestingly it was the presentation to Gwent Archives that sparked a very productive tangent as the talk was attended by the Dementia Voice Lead on Amgueddfa Cymru's Museums Inspiring Memories Project. This three-year project in partnership with Alzheimer's Society Cymru and funded by the National Lottery Community Fund began back in April 2022. The projects aim is to work with people living with dementia, unpaid carers, carer sector staff, heritage sector colleagues, and related communities and organisations, to deliver practical ways to engage with and improve the quality of life of people affected by dementia, through access to museum resources and sites. After the talk, the Lead made contact and a dialogue was initiated around the benefits of transcribing and tagging as memory work for those with conditions like dementia. We were then invited to attend their Dementia Awareness Day, run in conjunction with Dementia Action Week at St Fagans Museum of National History in May 2023. Our meet and greet table was in amongst a host of other organisations including Alzheimers Society Cymru, Ty Hapus, Welsh Ambulance Services, Dewis Cymru and Age Cymru. This extremely productive day was spent learning about the work these organisations do while also interacting with individuals and groups brought from care homes by showing them the photographs on our table and asking questions. One very elderly lady with bad eyesight was understandably dismissive when shown one of the Cardiff Dockland Community photographs but once her carer had explained the issue, the image was described in detail to her. She immediately brightened and began to talk about how she remembered the immigrants who arrived in Tiger Bay and how they were seen as different in how they dressed and spoke. She remembered animosity and suspicion but more so that her mother went out of her way to be friendly and kind, telling her to do the same in the school playground. This moving interaction really was a highlight of the day.

This train of thought then lead to contact with Cardiff Council Wellbeing Support Service, established to boost the health and wellbeing of the community and ease some of the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their aim is to provide opportunities to help those experiencing mental health challenges, social isolation and loneliness and anxiety around leaving the home as this number has risen significantly since the pandemic. This incredibly supportive and accommodating team have embraced Crowd Cymru as an opportunity for socialising and learning for their clients. This has led to a series of in person workshops in hubs and libraries around Cardiff which have been great fun.

Our project ends on November 30 and thoughts of review reports and output tables now need to be considered. But, on a more personal level, one of the most enjoyable aspects of this project for me has been recruiting and getting to know our wonderfully diverse group of volunteers. I email them every week, provide online training sessions, and manage a closed Facebook Group for us all to chat to one-another. Their friendliness, experience, and enthusiasm to support the work of archives services has been a joy and I know that the next three months are going to fly by, so I intend to make the most of every minute.

I have also been overwhelmed by the sheer generosity of this heritage archives environment and sector. This project has been met, at every request, with offers of help and support and a true sense of working together supporting individual endeavours for the greater good of the whole sector. How wonderful to be part of such a great community.

Jennifer Evans

Digital Volunteering Project Officer

Twitter: @CrowdCymru

Phone: 01495 742450

Email: jennifer.evans@gwentarchives.gov.uk

This blog post titled #CrowdCymru by Jennifer Evans is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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#CrowdCymru digital archives volunteer project - Archives & Records Association

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In this guest post, Jennifer Evans, Digital Volunteering Project Officer for #CrowdCymru gives an overview of this crowdsourced digital archive project. Hello there, I'm Project Officer on a very exciting digital archives volunteer project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and run joi

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View all posts by Archifau Cymru Archives Wales

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Hello all, it’s Jen here, Digital Volunteering Project Officer for CrowdCymru. Here follows an update and conclusion of the National Lottery Heritage funded phase of our digital archives volunteeri…

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Llanwenarth Women's Institute Minutes from 1919

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Llanwenarth Women's Institute Minutes from 1919

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Collection held at Gwent Archives

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Established in 1986, the Gwent Lesbian and Gay Group wanted to offer an alternative to the Cardiff gay scene and organised monthly discos, newsletters, meetings, trips and writers' groups. They also worked to disseminate information on HIV and AIDS and struggled to find venues due to prejudice about the AIDS crisis.

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Gwent Lesbian and Gay Group [newsletters and ephemera from the 1980s] 

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Gwent Lesbian and Gay Group [newsletters and ephemera from the 1980s] 

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Collection held at Gwent Archives

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Image shows tennis players, Heather Brewer and Jennifer Middleton, circa 1950. Collection held at Gwent Archives.

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Cardiff's docklands community photographs - Glamorgan Archives

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Below you will find unidentified photographs of individuals, family groups, and groups, from Cardiff's docklands community.

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Wartime diaries of Priscilla Scott-Ellis, 1937-41 - Cardiff University and NHS Wales Libraries

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https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/special-collections/explore/archives/edward-thomas-archive

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April 2024

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Northern Ireland and Wales - Archives sector

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Public Record Office of Northern Ireland CollabArchive is a partnership project between the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) and Nerve Centre, supported by National Heritage Lottery Fund. The project aims to encourage a focus on developing digital skills. The project developed volunteer programmes based on themes of women’s history, migration, LGBT history and […]

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P. 32-33

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#CrowdCymru is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and run jointly by Gwent Archives, Glamorgan Archives and Cardiff University Special Collections & Archives.

We are a PILOT digital archives volunteer project, everything our volunteers do is online via a bilingual, digital, crowd sourcing platform.

This platform, established by the National Library Wales, allows remote volunteers, anywhere in the world [as long as they have online access/device] to work on the digital collections that the project partners are providing.

Archive services across Wales hold millions of irreplaceable records, but many are only minimally catalogued and therefore difficult to identify and find.

This project will harness the knowledge of individuals in communities across Wales and beyond to enrich our collective heritage for the benefit of current and future generations - locally, nationally, and globally.

If you'd like to take part please contact:

Email: jennifer.evans@gwentarchives.gov.uk

Tel: 01495 742450

Website: https://www.gwentarchives.gov.uk/en/partnership-and-projects/crowdcymru/

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CrowdCymru is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and run jointly by Gwent Archives, Glamorgan Archives and Cardiff University Special Collections &amp; Archives. We are a PILOT digital archives volunteer project, everything our volunteers do is online via a bilingual, digital, crowd sourcing platform.

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Celebrating the Sporting Heritage of Wales

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Pages 35-38

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Crowd Cymru Digital Archives Volunteering Project

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🎄Cylchlythyr mis Rhagfyr / December Newsletter

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Beth am gymryd cam yn ôl i'r gorffennol a hel atgofion am y Nadoligau a fu trwy bori casgliad Nadolig yr Archif Cof. O bartïon Nadolig a dramâu Nadolig yr ysgol i ganu carolau a dadlapio anrhegion, mae hyd yn oed ffotograff o lowyr yng Nglofa'r Bers, Rhostyllen, Wrecsam yn canu carolau Nadolig o dan y ddaear ym 1950.

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Apêl i ddarganfod ‘miliynau o straeon arbennig’ mewn archif ddigidol newydd

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Mae partneriaid prosiect #CrowdCymru yn dweud bod "miliynau o gofnodion unigryw a straeon arbennig" i’w darganfod.

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Presentation to ARCW Forum [Archives and Records Council Wales]

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Presentation to ARCW Forum [Archives and Records Council Wales]

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https://edward-thomas-fellowship.org.uk/edward-thomas-fellowship-study-days/

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Lively Crowd Cymru workshop at Whitchurch Library, Cardiff, South Wales, run in collaboration with Cardiff Wellbeing Support Service [14 September 2023].

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Lively Crowd Cymru workshop at Whitchurch Library, Cardiff, South Wales, run in collaboration with Cardiff Wellbeing Support Service [14 September 2023].

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Workshop at Capel i Bawb, Cardiff 29/06/2023. Organised by Cardiff Wellbeing Services.

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Dementia Information Day St Fagans Museum of National History [May 2023].  

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Crowd Cymru Digital Archives Volunteering Project

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Our first event! Meet and greet table at Glamorgan Archives [30 November 2022].

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Hello all, it's Jen here, Digital Volunteering Project Officer for CrowdCymru. Here follows an update on the progress of our amazing digital archives volunteering project. We are funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and run jointly by Gwent Archives, Glamorgan Archives, and Cardiff University Special Collections & Archives.

This is the fourth in a series of posts, to read the previous three, just go to the Archives and Records Council Wales website and pop CrowdCymru in the search box.

Well now, what a busy time we've had, here at CrowdCymru HQ! Firstly, we have been extended! Our initial 12-month run was due to end mid-July, but we successfully applied for an extension and will now continue through until the end of November. We are all thrilled with this extra time and plan to do great things so watch this space.

Our volunteers smashed through the Edward Thomas Literary Archive, transcribing just under 500 of his letters in a few months and are currently transcribing nine war time diaries written by Priscilla Scott-Ellis. Daughter of the 8th Lord Howard de Walden, Priscilla was brought up in the luxury of Belgrave Square, London and Chirk Castle, Wexham. As mentioned in the last post, what makes her exceptional is that she volunteered as a nurse during both the Spanish Civil War and WWII. Moreover, whereas her Spanish Civil War diaries were posthumously published in 1995 as The Chances of Death: Diary of the Spanish Civil War, her WWII diaries have never been published, making this a very important transcription project.

Our volunteers are also working through two photographic collections, tagging, and describing the images. The Cardiff Dockland Community Collection consists of portraits of individuals and groups including women and children, from the Cardiff dockland community, taken between 1900-1920. This area was commonly known as "Tiger Bay" and became one of the UK's first multicultural communities with people from over 50 countries, including Somalia, Yemen, and Greece, settled here by the outbreak of the First World War, working in the docks and allied industries. The Newport Rugby & Athletic Archive charts the history of the club and contains images of groups and teams, committee members, sports days and early 1900s images of people skating on frozen lakes and diving into the Fourteen Locks Canal!

#CrowdCymru community numbers are growing, we now have 90 volunteers on the books and in June celebrated Volunteers Week with a series of online socials where we talked about the project and generally put the world to rights.

I've been out and about spreading the word and in June spoke at the Monmouthshire Antiquarian Association AGM which was held at The Church of St. Stephen & St. Tathan in Caerwent, possibly the prettiest location yet.

I also conducted a few Cardiff based workshops that went very well indeed. They were organised by Cardiff Wellbeing Support Service who were established to boost the health and wellbeing of the community and ease some of the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their aim is to provide opportunities to help as many people as possible as since the start of the pandemic more people are experiencing mental health challenges, social isolation and loneliness and anxiety around leaving the home. When I contacted them asking if they might be interested in the project as something their members might enjoy, they were very enthusiastic. Their Volunteer Coordinator [the wonderful Emma] arranged everything, even down to providing refreshments and joining in with the workshop herself. The care they take to ensure their members wellbeing is outstanding and I'm very happy that we are currently organising more workshops.

I also attended two events, the first was a Dementia Awareness Day at St Fagans Museum of National History back in May. It was run in conjunction with Dementia Action Week and organised by Amgueddfa Cymru's Museums Inspiring Memories Project and attended by lots of brilliant organisations including Alzheimers Society Cymru, Ty Hapus, Welsh Ambulance Services, Dewis Cymru and Age Cymru. I spent the day with representatives from these organisations learning about the work they do and was also able to interact with some groups brought from care homes by showing them photographs and asking questions. I met one very elderly lady with bad eyesight who understandably was dismissive when I held one of the Cardiff Dockland Community photographs out to her. But once her carer had explained, I described the image to her. Her face immediately brightened, and she began to talk about how she remembered the immigrants who arrived in Tiger Bay and how they were seen as different in what they wore and how they spoke. She remembered animosity and suspicion but more so that her mother went out of her way to be friendly and kind, telling her to do the same in the school playground. That really was a highlight of the day.

My second event was at Insole Court's Heritage Day back mid-July. Footfall was a little quiet, hampered by torrential rain coupled with the Wimbledon Ladies Singles Final but it was still a great day. Lots of curiosity in all the photographs on my table and a few new volunteers signing up there and then on the spot! I also got to walk around the mansion and gardens and learnt some of the fascinating history of the Insole family.

Oh, and I recorded my first podcast! The Archives & Records Association have recorded lots of fascinating interviews from people who work with archives for their Out the Box series. As part of Volunteer Week, they recorded some volunteering specials and Crowd Cymru was one of them, you can listen to the episode here.

And finally, do you remember me telling you about Liz Davis in my last post? Liz is one of our volunteers who was so inspired by the Edward Thomas and Priscilla Scott- Ellis collections that she included them in her work towards an MA in Fine Art at Hereford College of Art [HCA]. Volunteering for Crowd Cymru has been part of her exploration of archive and memory, and the way past lives are preserved and recorded. Since I last posted, Liz invited me to join her in presenting her work to her local Women's Institute [Llandenny & District Group] meeting. After I had explained about the project to the group, Liz introduced her art project as being sparked into life through working on Crowd Cymru and looking back into her own personal family archive. Combining this volunteering experience and trying to work out how to tell her own family stories by creating her own "archive" she decided to create a series of zines, a way of self-publishing used through the last century by fans and anarchists, feminists, and others to communicate shared interests and passions.

Her art practice, interest in archives, and involvement with Crowd Cymru serendipitously coalesced in the creation of her first zine, driven by material from the life of Edward Thomas [and his wife, Helen] and Priscilla Scott-Ellis. The theme of the evening was 'From Archive to Zine' and covered what Liz had learned from volunteering specifically concerning the authors of the work contained in the collections she had transcribed and the practices of the archivists who select, conserve, and protect these physical objects. She invited the group to consider the decision process around what material makes it into the hallowed perpetuity of an "archive". ​​ Next, we explored zine making as an alternative method to get our memories heard, our own personal collections, our photographs and family ephemera. ​​

Liz had created three beautiful A4 size paper zines and one of them tells the story of her maternal and paternal grandparents and while we looked through the pages of these beautiful objects, she told us their stories. A workshop followed where each person was given a sheet of paper with eight questions to answer concerning one of our grandmothers. Once we answered the first question, the page was folded so that answer was hidden, and we passed the sheet to the person on our left. Then we answered the second question [from the sheet of paper handed to us from that person on our right] folded the page so that answer was hidden and passed it on, and this continued until all questions had been answered. Once completed, there were 27 sheets each containing eight answers from multiple sources. ​Liz explained that the object of this exercise was to create new archival material for her next zine that will be based around the idea of a "universal grandmother". Liz's work was also displayed as part of the Futures Unknown Exhibition [in celebration of the MA in Fine Art HCA] at the Canwood Gallery in July 2023.

It's difficult putting into words how impressed, proud, and moved I was by the whole evening. Liz and I had been discussing her work via email for weeks but only by listening to her speak and watching her interact with the group was I able to fully appreciate the scope and depth of her project. Moreover, it inspired me to consider my own family archive and some creative projects I might implement in the future.

That's all for this round-up, make the most of these last days of summer, we'll be in the depths of winter before we know it!

Jennifer Evans
Digital Volunteering Project Officer / Swyddog Prosiect Gwirfoddoli Digidol

Twitter: CrowdCymru
Phone: 01495 742450
Email: jennifer.evans@gwentarchives.gov.uk

This blog post titled #CrowdCymru: Project Update by Jennifer Evans is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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Hello all, it's Jen here, Digital Volunteering Project Officer for CrowdCymru. Here follows an update on the progress of our amazing digital archives volunteering project. We are funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and run jointly by Gwent Archives, Glamorgan Archives, and Cardiff University Special Collections & Archives.

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Hello all, it's Jen here, Digital Volunteering Project Officer for #CrowdCymru!

Here follows an update on the progress of our amazing digital archives volunteering project. We are funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and run jointly by Gwent Archives, Glamorgan Archives, and Cardiff University Special Collections & Archives. This is the third in a series of posts, the first is available to read here and the second here.

After a few technical issues, our digital platform was launched in February and I spent a very busy few weeks conducting online training sessions for our impressive community of local, national, and global volunteers. We had to accommodate time differences between international time zones as we now have members in the USA, Canada, Australia, and South Korea!

Most sessions were arranged in small groups, but I also offered one-to-one sessions and also carried out a few over the phone. Fortunately, thanks to the National Library of Wales, the platform is nicely user-friendly, and our volunteers had no trouble getting to work on our first collection, the Edward Thomas Archive. One of the main challenges has been deciphering his handwriting, but our valiant team has persevered and almost completed the entire collection of 474 letters/pages!

This rich personal archive of one of the lesser known First World War poets includes correspondence, original manuscripts, and typescript poems. Edward suffered acute depression throughout his life and letters to friends articulate his mental anguish in great detail. He enlisted in the British Army in July 1915, despite being a mature married man who could have avoided enlisting. Edward was killed in action soon after he arrived in France at the Battle of Arras on Easter Monday, 9 April 1917.

Thomas's story has resonated with the group and members of our dedicated Facebook Group have been busy sharing information and related links concerning his life and work. Our volunteer Liz Davis discovered a geographical connection with the poet as her son manages a public house in Steep, Hampshire, where Edward lived. She has shared her knowledge of this with her son and he is now in touch with a local historian discussing ideas on how to celebrate this connection through Edward's poems and the local walks he loved to take. All thanks to the project!

Liz has been kind enough to write up her experience of the project so far:
Being a volunteer with Crowd Cymru One reason I joined Llandenny Women's Institute was to get involved in the wider world after the isolation of lockdown and my own propensity to avoid social events and meeting new people. That sounds a bit mad as I had spent my working life meeting people every day and often in difficult circumstances - but somehow that was different. When I saw the opportunity to get involved with Crowd Cymru - the project to transcribe and review the archives of people with a connection to Wales I thought it might be fun. The opportunity also gave a different perspective to the curation and fine arts course I was doing at Hereford College of Arts. It is early days for Crowd Cymru, but I am already hooked! I would sum up the experience so far with three 'P's' - patience, passion, and privilege. The first project is transcription of Edward Thomas's archive. A poet and writer, friend of Robert Frost and died in France in WW1. It had taken a while for the team to be ready with suitable technology to make the archive available to us but that pales into insignificance at the need for my technical competence to catch up - that's where the patience came in. But the task of transcribing also requires patience - the handwriting can be impenetrable and often requires a bit of detective work to decipher what is written. I am not known for my patience but suffice to say the words drew me in and I have relished the challenge.

The second P - passion - relates to the context and relationships that archives give us. A window on a world. My passion is to tell the stories of the people whose history is both absent and silent. Whilst many take on the genealogical challenge of tracing their family into the distant past, I have a passion for understanding their lives and livelihoods always with a focus on women. Crowd Cymru and the Edward Thomas archive consists mainly of letters to his wife Helen. I almost immediately disappeared down the rabbit hole of researching her and her life - be warned this work makes afternoons disappear and dinners left unprepared! And that is where the third P comes in - privilege. What a special thing to be able to see into the intimate lives of people, their thoughts and love, their indifferences, and their passions. The first few transcription I have done relates to the mundane - questions about shopping and give us a sense of the 'poverty' but it still feels like a privilege to see them. I am now trying to decipher Edwards' letters from France - written in pencil (now terribly faded) on wafer thin paper. I have not got far but knowing that these may be some of the last words he wrote I am moved and feel a deep responsibility to do the best I can. This early activity has left me asking about archiving in the digital age - we have apparently to rely on exchanges of WhatsApp messages floating in the cloud - will someone someday be able to read and reflect on our archive? Liz Davis [#CrowdCymru Volunteer] March 2023
Thank you so much to Liz for such an interesting and thought-provoking report.

The next collections our volunteers will be working on will most likely be two additional collections from Cardiff University Special Collections & Archives. For transcribing, the war time diaries of the Hon. Priscilla Scott-Ellis who volunteered as a nurse during both the Spanish Civil War and WWII. Her diaries range from 1934 through to 1941 and entries cover time in London during the Blitz. For tagging, the Cardiff University Institutional Memory Archive of photographs charting the history of the institution from 1883. Future collections will be another collection for tagging, the Newport Rugby & Athletics Club Photographic Archive from Gwent Archives.

I've also recently had the pleasure to present the project to lots of fantastic groups and societies including Digital Communities Wales, U3A Wales, Grangetown Local History Society, Glamorgan Family History Society , Newport City Council [Community & Regeneration, Digital Inclusion and Community Arts Departments] and Aberystwyth University [Online and Distance Learning, Information and Library Studies and Life Long Learning Genealogy Groups]. I also presented with Glamorgan Archives and Gwent Archives as part of their series of online public talks. I also attended a fantastic event at the Newport Riverfront Centre to celebrate International Women's Day.

As usual, I've also been busy promoting the project via articles and quite a number have already been published, including Who Do You Think You Are Magazine, Archive & Records Association Members Magazine, Archives and Records Council of Wales, North American Welsh Newspaper [Ninnau], Welsh Society of Manitoba Newsletter, Glamorgan Family History Society Journal and the Newport & Gwent Literary Society.

Our social media platforms are going strong, and we now have just under 300 followers on our Twitter account, recently tweeting content for #GirlsandWomeninSportsDay, #NationalLoveYourPetDay, #InternationalWomensDay, #BritishScienceWeek and #InternationalDayofSportforDevelopmentandPeace. We also tweeted for Explore Your Archives #EYAFloraandFauna during March and are currently sharing content for Archives and Records Association Scotland #Achive30 event.

Our closed Facebook Group for registered volunteers stands at 46 members and we've recently been discussing diverse subjects including Victorian Spiritualism, Père Lachaise Cemetery, and the joy of handwritten letters!

I could not have imagined when we started recruiting for this project, just how committed and engaging our group would be. But early on during the training sessions, I was struck how enthusiastic and inspired they were while also being very understanding of unavoidable technical delays. I am also impressed at the phenomenal amount of work they've completed in such a short time around busy lives, and they actively work to block out time to contribute because they believe in the importance of this project. They all have to complete a registration form, before gaining access to the platform, and most, when asked, tell us what you would like to get out of this project, ticked the " to make a difference " box. This is clearly exemplified in their plentiful contributions and inexhaustible enthusiasm.

I have also been overwhelmed by the sheer generosity of this heritage archives environment and sector. This project has been met, at every request, with offers of help and support and a true sense of working together supporting individual endeavours for the greater good of the whole sector. How wonderful to be part of such a great community.

Do please get in touch if you'd like to join our project and a brand-new global community.

Jennifer Evans
Digital Volunteering Project Officer / Swyddog Prosiect Gwirfoddoli Digidol
https://www.gwentarchives.gov.uk/en/partnership-and-projects/crowdcymru/
Twitter: @CrowdCymru
Phone / Ffôn: 01495 742450
Email / Ebost: jennifer.evans@gwentarchives.gov.uk

This blog post titled #CrowdCymru: Project Update by Jennifer Evans is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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Hello all, it's Jen here, Digital Volunteering Project Officer for #CrowdCymru! Here follows an update on the progress of our amazing digital archives volunteering project. We are funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and run jointly by Gwent Archives, Glamorgan Archives, and Cardiff University Special Collections & Archives.

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Hi everyone, it's Jen here, Digital Volunteering Project Offer for #CrowdCymru.

Well, what a busy few months it's been since my introductory blog post [read it here] back in August! Firstly, I've been working hard to get the word out about the project and have already had it listed on Adult Learners' Week, Black History Month Wales and Digital Preservation Coalition websites. We've also been featured online for S4C's Newyddion and will appear in the January issue of Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine.

I presented at the Archives and Records Council Wales Forum on 7 November at Aberystwyth University and received some very positive feedback and interest. Plus, I was able to spend the whole day there and heard some wonderfully inspiring talks from the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, Ceredigion Museum, National Library Wales, and North East Wales Archives.

I am scheduled to deliver online presentations to Digital Communities Wales, Aberystwyth University Archives and Records Management and Genealogy students, and Gwent Archives online speakers' series. I'll also be out and about during Explore Your Archives campaign week; I attended an event at Glamorgan Archives on 30 November, and will be at Carmarthenshire Archives on 6 Dec. Maybe I'll see you there!

We now have a Twitter account, @CrowdCymru, where we promote our progress, highlight collections and foster support for other archive, library, museums, and heritage accounts. So far, we've tweeted for Black History Month, World Mental Health Day, Adult Learner's Week, World digital Preservation Day, Remembrance Day, and #ILoveToWrite Day. One of our tweets featuring a portrait of an exceptionally well-dressed young man called Samuel Sawyer, from the Cardiff Dockland Community Collection, did exceptionally well gaining 116K impressions, 95 retweets and 169 likes.

The project partners have decided to launch the digital platform for the volunteers to begin working on in January. For the remainder of this year, we suspect that most people will be busy during the festive calendar and it was thought they would be more eager and primed to start something new at the beginning of a New Year rather than at the end of one.

So, what digital collections will our volunteers be working on in January? This will be somewhat of a moveable feast; as the project progresses, some collections might appear and then be removed if no interested is generated and replaced with something new.

The first three collections to work on will be from Cardiff University Special Collections & Archives. Firstly, the Edward Thomas Archive, one of the lesser-known war poets killed in action on the first day of the Battle of the Somme and mentioned in the first blog post.

The second collection consists of the war time diaries of the Honourable Priscilla Scott-Ellis (1916-1983); daughter of the 8th Lord Howard de Walden, Priscilla was brought up in Belgrave Square and at Chirk Castle. During the Spanish Civil War, she supported the Nationalist Army fighting the Popular Front government as a volunteer nurse. Editing her diaries, covering this experience for publication was interrupted by WWII during which she volunteered at a Field Hospital in Northern France. Her diaries range from 1934 through to 1941 and entries also cover living in London during the Blitz. Both collections will be made available for transcribing, while the third collection will be for tagging and identification.

This is the Cardiff University Institutional Archive, a visual memory of students and staff going back to 1883, almost 1000 photographs charting university life including sections on staff, students, academic schools, and the interiors and exteriors of buildings.

I'm very much looking forward to getting started with the volunteers in the New Year, I'll be sending out registration forms first and then scheduling in some training sessions for small groups where I can go through the workings of the platform and explain tasks step by step.

In the meantime, I wish you a very happy festive season!

Jennifer Evans
Digital Volunteering Project Officer / Swyddog Prosiect Gwirfoddoli Digidol
Twitter: @CrowdCymru
Phone 01495 742450
Email jennifer.evans@gwentarchives.gov.uk

This blog post titled #CrowdCymru: Project Update by Jennifer Evans is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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Hi everyone, it's Jen here, Digital Volunteering Project Offer for #CrowdCymru. Well, what a busy few months it's been since my introductory blog post [read it here] back in August! Firstly, I've been working hard to get the word out about the project and have already had it listed on Adult Learners' Week, Black History...

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The project will be accessed via the crowdsourcing platform established by those very clever people at the National Library Wales and they'll be on hand to help with technical issues and advice. This project will be of great interest to those who have always wanted to become involved volunteering with South Wales archives but are unable to travel to any of the sites. This project is completely digital, so it doesn't matter where you are as long as you have online access!

The project will create a bilingual online platform for remote volunteers to tag, annotate and describe the digital heritage collections held within these exceptional repositories. Archive services across Wales hold millions of irreplaceable records, but many are only minimally catalogued and therefore difficult to identify and find. This project will harness the knowledge of individuals in communities across Wales and beyond to enrich our collective heritage for the benefit of current and future generations - locally, nationally, and globally.

The project partners plan to make available a very exciting variety of collections for volunteers to explore and work on. Included will be the Cardiff Dockland Community Photographs held at Glamorgan Archives. These are portraits of individuals and groups, from Cardiff dockland community, taken between 1900-1920. Many of them were taken by Fred Petersen of Bute Street, a Danish man (from Copenhagen) who settled in Cardiff some time at the end of the 19th century. Another collection to be made available will be the Edward Thomas Archive, an unusually broad and detailed personal archive of one of the lesser known war poets. Held at Cardiff University Special Collections & Archives, this collection includes personal correspondence, original manuscript and typescript poems, official documents, and photographs.

I'll share more news as the project progresses but if this brief synopsis has piqued your interest do please get in touch.

In the meantime, a little more about myself. I'm currently on a yearlong secondment from Amgueddfa Cymru where I am Assistant Librarian. I started working in the Library in 2001 as maternity cover and fell in love with both the work and the location. The Main Library is right up inside the dome and looks very much as it did when first installed over 100 years ago, right down to the lovely glass wall lights and original 1920s iron roller racking stacks!

Managing and preserving the Library's archive has afforded me an appreciation of the importance of an organization's archive. It is the documented chronicle of its establishment and evolution, a trail leading back to those original hopes and philosophies. In some fortunate cases it contains the handwritten correspondence and minutes that set, in motion those steps, seemingly of no consequence at the time but of proven monumental important in the grand scheme.

If you feel the same way about archives, this is the perfect project for you and together we'll get the chance to access amazing collections! Who knows what stories we'll discover? What mysteries we might unearth? So, if you have online access, a little time on your hands and would like to be part of this project just let me know.

During my free time I am an artist with a passion for folklore and all things Edwardian, especially early Autochrome photography. I am also the proud owner of a rather bad-tempered rescue cat called Bertie.

Jennifer Evans
Digital Volunteering Project Officer / Swyddog Prosiect Gwirfoddoli Digidol
Email / Ebost: jennifer.evans@gwentarchives.gov.uk

This blog post titled Welcome to #CrowdCymru by Jennifer Evans is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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Hello there, my name is Jen and I've recently started work on a very exciting digital archives volunteer project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. It will be run jointly by Gwent Archives, Glamorgan Archives and Cardiff University Special Collections & Archives. The project will be accessed via the crowdsourcing platform established by those...