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The twelve months ended
30th June 2004 have represented a successful period for the
company. The principal development during the year has been
the obtaining of charitable status. This had been a target of
the directors since the company was formed in 2000 and
reflects the long-term vision for the Archive, to ensure a
secure future for historically valuable collections of films
and photographs.
The company’s stated
object, as registered with the Charity Commissioners, is:
“... to advance the
education of the public, particularly but not exclusively, in
the history of railway, tramway, road, air and water transport
through the collection of film, colour slides, photographic
negatives and prints, videotape, electronic images in all
formats and other artefacts.”
Its activities can be
summarised as:
- care and administration
of transport-related film and photograph collections
- conservation work
relating to these collections
- assistance to bona fide
researchers in the field
- availability to
bona-fide publishers thereby ensuring that the collections are
made available to the public at large
Corporate governance is
provided through a board of directors each of whom has
standing in the fields of transport heritage, photography and
film making. The directors each take an active role in
furthering the company’s aims and they are assisted in this
by a number of volunteers. The directors are appointed by the
members of the company, all of whom are encouraged to bring
skills in support of the Archive’s work.
The company has
contractual agreements with a number of organisations which
the directors feel benefit it in enabling it to achieve its
object. Notable amongst these are Photobus and Online Video (OV).
The latter is a video production house for videos and DVDs on
transport related subjects. During the period under review, OV
has accessed Archive material in some of its releases, most
notably Steam on the Speyside Line, Memories of the
Réseau Breton and A Classic London Bus: the Story of
the RT Family. OV has a distribution arrangement
beneficial to numerous charitable and voluntary organisations
in the UK and overseas. These include the Light Rail Transit
Association, the LCC Tramways Trust, the Merseyside Tramway
Preservation Society, the London Tramway Preservation Society,
ASVi (Belgium), Joko-Video (Germany) and the Seashore Trolley
Museum (USA). OV makes its video releases (over 110 titles)
available to those bodies at an advantageous rate in order
that they may raise funds. Photobus provides a photographic
reproduction service through which copies of Archive material
are made available to the public at large, the company
receiving an agreed royalty for every print/slide sold.
The company has developed
close working relationships with a number of book publishers
in the field and has contributed material at agreed
reproduction fees to publications including Streets of
Glasgow, Streets of Brighton, British Trolleybuses in Colour,
London Buses in Exile, Double-deck Trams of the World and
Glory Days of Clyde Steamers. Likewise, film material is
made available to broadcasters and producers; this acts as a
valuable source of revenue in support of the Archive’s
conservation activities.
During the year under
review, the Archive has received an increasing number of
historically important collections of films and photographs
the most notable being the Braun Brothers’ film collection
(USA), the Joseph M Canfield slide collection (USA), part of
the Wally Higgins slide collection (Japan), the films of Derek
Norman, plate glass negatives from the J M Jarvis collection,
the Harry Luff collection of negatives and the F K Farrell
collection. Cataloguing and preservation of these collections
is currently in progress. The company forwards a 3 page
document to all those expressing an interest in the Archive.
This presents the aims and objectives and also explains
procedures for ensuring that the long-term safety of
collections is covered by the terms of a will. Furthermore, it
details the situation with regard to copyright and the
legacies. The company has established a website (onlinetransportarchive.org)
which is assisting it with regard to raising its profile
amongst potential donors and users of material in the archive.
The company plans to
continue with its activities in the forthcoming year. The
directors have identified that a balance needs to be struck
between seeking new material, cataloguing and restoring
material which is now in its possession, and publicising the
archive to publishers, researchers and video producers. An
increase in the number of members and greater use of volunteer
help will relieve the pressure on the directors in this
regard. Currently the Archive is able to house material
through the assistance of supporters but recognises that a
more permanent series of locations must be sought in the near
future. Steps are currently being taken to facilitate this.
Through the generosity of
several benefactors, the company’s financial reserves are
slightly higher than had been predicted within the business
plan, but are still at a level which can be justified on the
basis of providing a contingency against unforeseen
circumstances. On advice from the company’s bankers,
reserves over and above a working capital level are
transferred into a higher-rate interest bearing account. This relieves
the company of any financial risk.
In
summary, the directors are confident that the company will
maintain the good progress it has made during the last four
years and, in the words of its mission statement,
preserve”... for posterity photographs and moving images of
transport.”
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Transport Archive 