Join the Friends of BLARS Association

Only Rip Van Winkle could have escaped hearing about Britain’s huge budget deficit in recent months, and the Government’s plans to tackle it through a programme of efficiency savings and cuts. Local services and their clients will share the pain, and the question posed by BLARS’ customers and staff alike is: How bad is it likely to be? The answer at the moment is ‘we don’t know’, but we need to be prepared.

We all know of the value of archives and records - for family and local history, in education, business and for legal research and problem-solving – and we are asking for your help, if and when the time comes, in protecting an award-winning, valuable, and efficiently run service. The Archives Service has already lost three members of staff since 1997, and the signs are that things may get much worse. The problems with a small, specialist and important service such as ours is two-fold; firstly, that we ‘drop under the radar’ and, secondly, that any cuts will cause a disproportionate amount of harm to the Service or, indeed, finish the Service (established in 1913) as we know it today.

Don't worry; we do not want your money! We are writing to you to invite you to join the Friends of BLARS Association. But what do you need to do now? If you or your organisation are already on our mailing list, then you are automatically members (but please let us know if you would like to opt out). If you are not on our mailing list, and would like to support what we do, do please contact us|. We will keep you informed of events and will ask for your support when we know more. We don’t want to be alarmist, but we cannot afford to wait until we know the worst because by then it may be too late. In the meantime, please enjoy using the service as usual and tell your friends and colleagues about us.