We have two new aspects for our members to enjoy in 2010.
A New Base
Once again our thanks go to our old friends at the Salem who have agreed for us to use a room in the church as a base. We are currently painting and decorating the room and together with a new carpet and blinds we are hoping for our base to be officially opened by mid January. Opening hours have yet to be confirmed but provisionally we are looking to open to the ‘general public’ on Tuesday mornings and Thursday afternoons until 6pm but to our members we intend to be more flexible and to arrange alternative times. This is of particular importance to any of our ‘distant’ members when they visit their relatives in Cheslyn Hay or any of our member’s friends visiting the area and wishing to indulge in a bit of nostalgia by looking through our photographs. Our main aim is to collate many of our records, currently tucked away in our archives, together with many of the Photograph Volumes that are being stored elsewhere, together in one place. And when you consider that we have now in excess of 5000 photographs with over 7000 individual names there will be much for our members to enjoy that has not been available before. Obviously we will be encouraging potentially new members with help on researches and their family trees and we intend to use the base as a centre to arrange interviews with the more senior residents of the village, as well as cataloguing items of the Hawkins Colliery, Tileries and Brickworks for the benefit of both the Cannock Chase Museum and ourselves plus bringing up to date all the items in our own archives. For this we will be needing volunteers and any help would be appreciated – even to make the tea and coffee for anyone that just turns up.

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