Angel Row History Forum
The Angel Row History Forum was launched in January 2011 and met four times during the course of the year. It was established to provide a meeting place for anyone with an active interest in local history and other heritage matters in and around Nottingham. The staff at Angel Row Local Studies Library and also Nottinghamshire Archives have been very supportive and attend Forum meetings as well. What happens at meetings has been determined by suggestions from participants and this approach has worked extremely well.
Prior to the Forum, Nottingham local historians tended to focus on their locality or area of interest and had little contact with other local historians in and around the city. Thanks to the Forum, this is beginning to change. The meetings are open and anyone with an interest in local history will be made very welcome.
Robert Howard,
Angel Row Forum Facilitator
What’s coming up in 2012
The Angel Row History Forum has committed itself to another four meetings during 2012 with a special event on Saturday 12 May to promote local history periodicals, books and volunteering in the Greater Nottingham area. There will be three workshops about self-publishing and printing; how and where to sell locally and the creation of local history (paperless) ‘e-books’ which can be bought online and read using Kindles and similar handheld devices.
In addition, participating groups and organisations will have the opportunity to sign up new members and to recruit volunteers for specific tasks or projects. We want the Angel Row History Fest to be as informal and relaxing as possible for participating staff and volunteers as well as visitors. May is also National Local History Month.
We want the 12th to be an occasion for socialising, the leisurely exchange of information and a chance to find out what others are doing. The Fest will be officially open between 11a.m. and 3p.m., but stalls will be occupied from 10am and emptied by 3.45pm so that we can all have left the Library by the time it closes at 4pm.
More copies of the NLHA Angel Row History Forum News will be printed, so that we can place copies in more libraries in and around Nottingham. In the meantime, we will use the NLHA website to keep you posted about what is happening. If you would like to help, book a spot or take part in any way, please contact Robert Howard, tel: 0115 9700369 or email him. There's no charge. You simply have to commit to attending on 12th May, being ready for the public by 11am at the latest and packed up and away no later than 3.45pm. We look forward to hearing from you.
Other 2012 Forum meetings
In 2011 we arranged the Forum meetings at four different times and those at the December meeting agreed that late-morning meetings (10.30a.m.–12.30p.m.) with refreshments were preferable. We also agreed that the meetings on Thursday 15 March and Wednesday 12 September 2012 would be simple and informal, devoted to information exchange and sharing ideas and interests, with slots set aside for Archives and Local Studies Library staff. The meeting on Wednesday 12 December 2012 has yet to be finalised, but will include historic film from the MACE Archive.
Angel Row History Forum meetings are open to anyone and are free. Being based in Nottingham City Centre, we are no more than a few minutes walk from the furthest bus-stop or the tram. We chose to call ourselves the NLHA ‘Angel Row’ History Forum so that we could blur the edges between ‘city’ and ‘county’. If anyone from the north or east of Nottinghamshire would like to come along and see what we do with a view to starting a NLHA history forum in their part of the county, then please come along or contact Robert direct.
