The twelve months ended 30 June 2006 have represented another successful period for the company, with income and expenditure being largely in line with expectations.   Income was higher than in the previous financial year primarily as a result of an increased use of OTA material by publishers, producers etc. Whilst a proportion of this increased income has been paid out to copyright holders, the overall surplus also shows an increase when compared with 2004-2005.   This surplus will contribute to OTA’s archiving and conservation work over the next few years.

Since January 2004, the company has been registered as a charity.   Its 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 photographic 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 members and other supporters. 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.   During the year under review, the company increased its membership to spread the voluntary workload.

The company has continued its links with Online Video (OV), a leading production house creating transport related video and DVD programmes.   During the period under review, OV has accessed Archive material in some of its releases, including Tramway Exotica No 3, LT single-decker buses 1946-69 and Routemaster Farewell.  OV has a distribution arrangement beneficial to numerous charitable and voluntary organisations in the UK and overseas.  One of OV’s declared objectives is to make its catalogue (in excess of 120 tapes and DVDs) available to transport preservation groups at highly favourable discount rates, enabling them to raise funds.

The company notes with sadness the death of Arnold Richardson, the proprietor of Photobus, in November 2005.   Photobus is the leading provider of copy slides and prints to the bus enthusiast market.   Since January 2003, OTA and Photobus operated an agreement whereby copies of Archive material were made available to the public at large, the company receiving an agreed royalty for every print/slide sold.   This arrangement had worked well and Mr Richardson’s support for OTA cause certainly helped in our development.  Following Mr Richardson’s death, OTA was informed in April 2006 that his family were cancelling the agreement with immediate effect.  OTA noted their decision with regret.

Alternative outlets for OTA photographs are therefore being actively sought.   Small-scale production of PhotoCDs has been tried to test the market.   The first releases, Liverpool Buses and MPTE Buses, have sold reasonably well and further releases are planned.   A distribution agreement has been made with the Merseyside Transport Trust (itself a charity, restoring vintage buses from the Merseyside area) whereby it sells the CDs at bus rallies, with a proportion of the sales income being used for their charitable purposes.   Prints made from the J M Jarvis collection of plate glass railway negatives are made available for sale through one of the UK’s leading experts in the plate glass format.

OTA has retained its close working relationship with a number of book publishers in the field and has contributed material at agreed reproduction fees to publications.   During 2005-2006, these have included Ian Allan, Capital Transport and Middleton Press. 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. Several OTA directors have given illustrated public lectures using material from the Archive, including early experiments with digital imaging and projection.

During the year under review, the Archive has received further important film and photograph collections/material from among others: E C Bennett, M de Beer, J Canfield, N Knight, P Matthews, D Norman, C Orchard, W R Stillman and Ken Thorpe.  In spite of OTA doing its utmost to spread the word about the importance of will writing to ensure the preservation of film and photograph collections, important historical archive material continues to sadly slip through the net.  On the credit side, significant numbers of major photographers have indicated they intend to leave their collections to OTA to ensure its preservation in perpetuity.   The provision of rented secure premises was delayed through circumstances outside of OTA’s control.   However, the issues have now been resolved and the company is in a position to begin to equip the premises with appropriate storage and reproduction facilities.  This will allow for a major consolidation of collections.

The company’s financial reserves remain comfortable.   2005-2006’s surplus leaves the Archive in a strong position to fund the movement of material to the new premises and for appropriate fitting out.   The directors are confident that they have acted in a way to minimise financial risks.

The establishment of a main storage centre, and negotiations to ensure that material continues to be made available after the cessation of certain arrangements in the year under review, will ensure that 2006-2007 will see OTA continue in its role as one of a handful of leading UK archives for transport related photographs and moving images.