What do you do with club history?

[700rpm]

For you guys who are members of a local Model A club, what do you do with your club's history? Our MAFCA chapter is 56 years old and we have had very conscientious historians over that time. A LOT of memorabilia, events photos, members' photos, newsletters, and a huge collection of Restorers has accumulated. Not to be too blunt, but many of the people depicted in these archives have left us, and many of the current members never knew them. And yet, we are in essence an historical preservation entity, so it seems right that we should preserve our own club's history. But for whom?

We are going to appoint an ad hoc committee to review the materials and make a recommendation to the board, but I would be interested in how other clubs of long duration have addressed this, if at all.

[H. L. Chauvin]

Hi Ray,

One way may be to start to organize everything on paper chronologically starting with 1956, and make file folders for each year. (Let the wives do this part, LOL).

Next, copy same to discs. (Let members' very young grandsons do this part, LOL)

Once on discs, if storage space is a problem, discard all the papers you decide are taking up too much space. (Let the old male members do this part at a scheduled beer party. LOL)

[daveymc29]

Our club has a lot of binders full of photos like you mention. Most would be hard pressed to name a lot of them. Saving for the new members? We have a couple or three new ones each year and they are as old as the rest of us. I haven't seen a teen in years, or twenties for that matter. Youngest seem to be late forties and most are approaching their 80's. Small club so I don't see a long future for it. All our new members lately seem to have come over from another larger club that is also dying on the vine. A small few of us keep it going and no-one wants to step up to take over a job. I hear that from other clubs also.

[SeaSlugs]

Another idea is there any town historians that maybe once the club gets to the end of its cycle it could be donated to? Or local automobile museums?

[jimalabam]

We have a huge scrap book for the first twenty years. Then we developed the idea for a club library which is in a members wood shop where we have monthly MATT meetings (Model A Tinker Time). Members are urged to check out Restorers, Model A News, Model A Times, AACA Antique Automobile, and many other publications. Also there are many binders of researched Model A info which also can be checked out for a reasonable time, then returned to the library. Jim Langley...

[Bob Bidonde]

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Scan the important stuff and make jpeg files by year. Scrap the rest.

[J Franklin]

Most every member in the photos has family. Maybe offer the photos to the people closest to whomever was depicted, after digitalizing the history.

[BILL WILLIAMSON]

WHY keep all that junk? No one really cares or remembers! Just a FIRE hazard. Dump anything over a year old.
Bill Hard

[J Franklin]

Why keep any history then?

[denniskliesen]

Scan it and put on USB thumb drives. More can always be added and accessed later. CD's don't last as long, the memory cards do.

[KenCoupe]

Originally Posted by denniskliesen

Scan it and put on USB thumb drives. More can always be added and accessed later. CD's don't last as long, the memory cards do.

I agree with scanning to PDFs and JPEGs what can be scanned. Rather than multiple CDs or multiple thumb drives, I would purchase a 2TB (terabyte) external hard drive and put the scanned items on that. You can purchase 2TB drives for $70 on Amazon or other places. You can organize all the data on the hard drive by year or event or whatever makes sense to your club members. The large hard drive gives you room to expand and include pictures and documents in the future. It also allows you to pass one item to the next historian rather than multiple items.

Ken

[Jim Brierley]

Our Club also has several 8mm movies of Club activities. Quite a few years ago I had them put on tape, now we are thinking of putting them on a disc. Newer members enjoy watching as much as us old guys. 4 ever 4 cyl. Club

[todd3131]

[QUOTE=Jim Brierley;1512306]Our Club also has several 8mm movies of Club activities. Quite a few years ago I had them put on tape, now we are thinking of putting them on a disc. Newer members enjoy watching as much as us old guys. 4 ever 4 cyl.ub[/Q

Why not upload them to you tube you can mark the channels private or public. Another idea is to take the history and put it online

[Greg Jones]

WHY keep all that junk? No one really cares or remembers! Just a FIRE hazard. Dump anything over a year old.
Bill Hard

Mr. Bill W. Hard-Heck, my wife says that about my Model A parts stash! Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I can empathize with the problem of chronicling history. I have been a photographer all my life, and have hundreds of thousands of photographs. Slides, negatives, prints, 35mm, medium format with Hasselblad, 4X5 negatives. It is overwhelming. I am scanning the "good stuff" as color material decomposes fairly rapidly over time. I was scanning some Kodachrome slides I took of a Mt. St. Helens eruption in 1980 that have been attacked by fungus. Something to consider about saving your club history-once the images are gone, they are gone.

[jimalabam]

Bill Williamson: With your suggestion, why keep anything over a day old. With no records, no one would know what happened yesterday...

[BILL WILLIAMSON]

It's like when you visit someone & HOPE they don't drag out their PHOTO ALBUMS---HORRORS!!!
Bill Bored