The record offices fight a continual battle trying to keep on top of all the material being acquired for the collections, either on loan or by donation.

Just to give you some idea of the scale of the workload, between 27 November 2023 and 20 February 2024 the Woodhorn office accessioned 38 new collections, including interesting items like five oral recordings made as part of the maternity project; recordings of 22 people, mainly volunteers with associations with Northumberland National Parks; three additional deposits of records of Anglican parishes; records of Haydonian Working Men’s Club and records of the Shaftoe Trust, Haydon Bridge. There remains a long ‘waiting list’ of records to come in.

During the same period, the Berwick office received 20 accessions of documents. These have included some oral histories recorded by the Cornhill Social History Group and Glendale Local History Society. The Berwick office have also been donated the working papers and research of the late Sarah Wilson for her history of the Ingram and Breamish Valleys.

As if that were not enough, outreach activities undertaken in recent months include:

Wise Academies: CPD event Digital inclusion event – Ellingham County Hall talk – Food in the Archives Online talk: Provincial players County Hall talk – Maternity Care Online talk – The Entertaining Delavals Senior Leader Briefing: schools (NCC) Senior Leader Briefing: schools (NCC) County Hall talk – Provincial players Talk to Morpeth WI Online talk – John Cleland and the DelavalsHeadway Group – talkEveryday Life in a Northumbrian Manor (x2)History of Berwick – talkRepackaging WorkshopSenior Leader Briefing : Schools in North ( NCC)Oral History Training – Blossoming CommunitiesNew Horizons – talkMore Than Just Names – Meeting