The NMCT Trustees held their June meeting in Oxford this year, enabling them to visit the new conservation studios in the Bodleian's Weston Library and also to visit the Oxford Conservation Consortium, where various NMCT funded conservation projects are in progress.
West Dean College and the British Library are collaborating to offer short courses: forthcoming topics include pest prevention and photographic conservation.
There is still time to book a place at the fundraising training days being organised as part of the Giving Value initiative, which is supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.
You can find out about some useful fundraising resources by following this link.
Conservators are increasingly spreading the word about their work and providing updates on their project using the blogosphere. You might like to look at some of the blogs that feature projects that are currently being funded or have been supported in the past, such as.....
Dr Norman James and Caroline Checkley-Scott have joined NMCT as Trustees.
Norman has provided advice to NMCT for two decades, his advice along with that of his curatorial and conservation colleagues at The National Archives, has informed all decisions on grant applications. Norman has also made many visits to NMCT applicants providing advice on strategy and development. Following Norman's retirement from The National Archives, he has accepted an invitation to become a Trustee in his own right.
At their meeting on 1st December 2014 the Trustees awarded grants for the conservation of collections as varied as the archives of the South Wales Miners Federation, the Bankes Archive of Kingston Lacy and a rare Latin-Chinese dictionary.
During 2014 grants totalling nearly £170,000 have been awarded to institutions across the UK. Grants totalling nearly three-quarters of a million pounds have been awarded by NMCT since 2010.
At their meeting in June 2014 the Trustees of the NMCT awarded grants to enable the conservation of collections ranging from the archives of the lead mining industry, and the conservation of manuscripts detailing the mammals of India and Nepal to important letters from the Royal Institution archives and the diaries of Edward Hall at Wigan archives.
The next deadline for applications to the NMCT - 1st October - is fast approaching.
You can find the application form in the Applying to Us section of this site and you will also find guidance on what institutions and projects are eligible as well as the criteria against which we assess applications.
Note that our funds are not unlimited and, in practice, our grants are generally below £20,000 - so you may like to bear this in mind when preparing your appeal. Also note that you must provide full conservation treatment proposals, these are assessed by conservators so the more detail you provide the better.
If you have any queries do feel free to contact Nell Hoare via the Contact Us section of this site and she will be happy to provide advice.
The 2013 Annual Report of the NMCT has just been printed.
Thanks to the support of many trusts and foundations, the NMCT's capacity to give grants for manuscript conservation projects has increased enormously. In 2010 Trustees awarded grants totalling just over £67,000 and in 2013 they were able to award grants of £175,000.
