Nobody can read the future, and you are making yourself a hostage to fortune if you try to. With this caveat, I unearthed the Heritage Trust’s rather Stalinist sounding Five Year Plan for 2010. How do you think we got on?
Where I’d like the HT to be in 5 years time:(October 2010)
1 Premises: Suitable museum premises accessible for visitors and research.
After several false starts, Red Herrings and cul de sacs, we are delighted to have space in the forthcoming, brand spanking new Bristol Aerospace Centre, currently being built at the foot of the Filton runway. This will be the home of Concorde, as well as every imaginable product of Bristol Aeroplane Company and its many successors and derivatives. The Collection ranges from the sublime to the frankly terrifying. Somewhere between the two – geographically and conceptually – will be our dissected Bristol 403 rolling chassis display, for which we are collecting parts and funds right now. Think about any spare 2 litre parts cluttering up your shed,(or money cluttering up your bank account) and please get in touch if you like to find out more.
2 Personnel: Archivist funded who has been through the archives, catalogued and rationalised the whole collection.
The archives have massively increased in size during this time thanks to an active acquisition program and a large bequest of thousands of items of Bristol memorabilia – including our Holy Grail, his 1940s racing helmet, from the estate of Tony Crook himself. It took a convoy of fully laden estate cars to transfer the archives into its present home, in the Brabazon Hangar. The small collection we started with has now grown almost out of recognition.
Students and post graduates have been employed for cataloguing and data entry, and as I write we are completely up-to-date.
Besides our brochures (into the thousands), photos and glass slides (also into the thousands) and some priceless correspondence, we have over 500 original magazines with Bristol related articles, going back to the 1940s.
The massive task of digitizing all our collection will, DV, finish this month.
3. Income : Sales of posters, prints, DVDs, publications and other printed matter and collectibles based on HT material up and running, bringing healthy income to HT.
We have now catalogued sundry duplicate pamphlets and brochures, and it will be helpful to our fundraising drive to sort through and offer the supernumerary ones for sale. We hope to make a start on this soon. Copyright has been established and Bae Systems have been most helpful
4 Stabilised income from BOC, BODA and ?Aussie club, enabling 1,2.
It is not possible for a legally registered charity such as the BOC Heritage Trust to be run by another body, e.g. a club. In view of this, the BOC decided that we should become financially independent from them. This does mean that we need to replace our £5 per BOC member income.
We have made a good start with this, but more annual donations are needed. Please get in touch if you would like to become a Supporter.
5 Shows ; Regularly organised erudite lectures and events , though complementary to BOC/BODA activities and within the aims of the Trust.
We have run annual lecture days at Gaydon, Sparkford, the Shuttleworth collection, Woodhall Spa, Bicester Heritage, Brooklands, and the new Aerospace Bristol at Filton, where possible dovetailing with events from either Bristol club.
We try to include a speaker from an aero-engineering background to celebrate our Bristol cars’ fine aero-heritage. Audience sizes range from 50 to 120, and DVDs are available of some of these events – please ask for stock details.
The Heritage Trust has also arranged Autumn Classic days at Castle Combe circuit, where we were able to watch trustee Peter Campbell circulating at high speed amidst the field of 1950s competitors, deftly avoiding some very expensive smashes.
Supporters have enjoyed guided 3 hour visits to the remarkable contents of the Brabazon Hangar, at its time the largest building of its kind containing 1,000,000 m³, where our archives are safely stored.
This is not open to the public but is a working collection where volunteer Bristol Aero Collection engineers are preparing many “Large Objects” for exhibit in the Bristol Aerospace Centre centre next year. These tours have ceased as the Collection prepares itself to move into the new Bristol Aerospace Centre
6 Donations: Paypal used for online payment and donations, with Giftaid built in.
We are now able to accept payments online via PayPal. All donations are Giftaided.
7 Legacies; Well established and publicised flow of legacies, gifts, donations to fund larger scale activities.
Our most major donation of material has of course been very kindly made by Tony Crook’s executors, to whom we are most grateful. And our rolling chassis presentation project has been very well kickstarted by splendid donations of £3000 and £2500 and other large sums from generous donors.
8 Cars; Interesting or historic Bristols accessible for public
viewing,attracting more of 6,7 from all sides.
We have a display space for one car in the Bristol Aerospace Centre. Initially we had hoped to display a rotating series of borrowed Bristols, perhaps for six months or so at a time. However, the internal architecture of the 1911 Belfast Hangar where the timeline of the Bristol Aeroplane Co is being displayed does not permit “large objects” to be easily wheeled in and out, without a couple of days work dismantling internal structures. So our rolling chassis lies in goodly company, alongside such elegant 50s Bristol specialities as the Sycamore helicopter, Bloodhound missile, and Harrier jumpjet.
A “ Barnfind” Type 403 has been blastcleaned, fettled, reassembled, partly stripped for display of its Superleggera anatomy then painted to a very high standard by apprentices, volunteers, and retired artisans – all masterminded by Peter Campbell of Spencer Lane-Jones. b
9 Interviews; a good body of interview work to be completed, resulting in several DVDs , “The Bristol Story” and a feature on TV.
We now have c 20 video recordings of key people associated with Bristol cars right from the start. The list includes Sir George White, Tony Crook, Syd Lovesy, Richard Hackett, Brian Morelli, Jeff Marsh, a racing engine line fitter, paint shop crew, an electrician, apprentices, racing drivers, a 450 team member, the first Spares Handbook’s industrial artist, and others.
Member Matt Wenner, a professional video editor, has finished this very big editing job for us. No success quite yet with a TV feature, but our archived interviews may be made available online or via the website.
All BODA and BOC members have been sent a free 60 minute DVD of Sir George White describing his family’s involvement with planes and cars (and even boats..)
10 Clearly established and generally understood position, independent from other clubs and bodies but on good terms with all.
You, the reader, are the best judge of this! Please get in touch with your suggestions, contributions for the website, spare parts for the display chassis project, and not least of all, that little Standing Order. Just contact your bank to set one up, payable to the BOC Heritage Trust account.
Our Bank details are:
CAF Cash Account 00027340
Sort Code 40-52-40
And – I wonder what you would like us to put in our next 5 Year Plan?
Yours in Bristol
Stefan Cembrowicz
Chair, BOC Heritage Trust
Stefan@cembrowicz.co.uk
Bristol Owners Heritage Trust 