Appeal

One of the things I am trying to do with our website is to bring together in one place all the memories and material about our school, so in the future our families and descendants as well as the wider public can learn about our school and what it was like to be there.

Of course the book Run Like a Stag was a really good start in capturing the essence of the school, but there is still so much more we should and do need to record - and so this is where you come in.

Before its all too late, please consider letting us have copies of any photos and documents from your schooldays you may have to add to our archive.

A great many really interesting and relevant photos appeared in early editions of The Gazette but due to the technology of the day, the quality of the images now available from the remaining paper copies is very poor, and so it would be great if people could resubmit them as scanned images for inclusion in the web gallery. Many more were submitted for possible inclusion in RLAS but we don't know where they are now!

My dream is that one day the collected contents and material from our website will become an accessible repository for everything about the school which is a unique piece of educational history. We already have almost all the OWNS and some Acorns and a variety of other documents - but we know there is still so much out there which we do not have and which may soon be lost forever if we don't take action now.
Whilst not wanting to seem morbid, I hope our members and others will lodge and record more of their material before they finally pass on, or it will be too late to give our decedents the opportunity to learn all about our unique heritage.

So what do we need and how do we record and store it?

Photos:
These will be added to our gallery to show what life was like at Ottershaw. You don't have to send your originals, a simple scan at 200dpi for general photos is plenty good enough. Please save images as jpeg files and email directly to me with a description of when they were taken, what they depict and if possible, who or what is in the photo. Larger photos of groups or teams are best scanned at 300dpi or 400dpi to allow zooming in to view individual faces.

Documents:
It is possible to scan them but do not need to be in such high resolution; 150dpi is generally more than good enough. These can be sent as individual pages in either JPG or PDF format, but if possible with a description or any additional information you can add. You don’t’ need to take stapled documents apart but simply scan them either page by page or with two open pages together. Even if the scans come out a little warped or skewed, they can be electronically straightened and I can easily separate facing pages later to recreate documents accurately with the correct pagination as has been done with the OWNs.

Memories:
Our Forum offers the perfect medium to record your stories, experiences and memories of staff and activities, etc. In particular, we should add all we can recall about our teachers before there is no one left who remembers them! And it’s very easy to do so in the Forum, where thoughts of some staff have already been lodged. I have recorded at some length my own experiences at school. Others will have differing viewpoints and experiences and it would be good to see what you all did and thought. Very few people have used the Forum recently yet it is perhaps the easiest of ways to make sure what you think and know gets preserved for the future.

Audio:
We do have a few recordings of the school orchestra and choir on the website but would dearly love to find more. Do you have any recordings still lurking about which we could copy?

Video or movie clips:
Moving images are very rare but we are always looking for examples from school days. We know some do exist but would love to discover more. John Athersuch recently provided a new video of a news report which is now on the website. There is also a link to a short clip of boys in the East House dining room and clips of the Benny Hill show recorded in the formal gardens shortly after the school closed — but do you have more tucked away somewhere? If you do, the Society will consider paying to have any relevant 8mm film or video transferred to digital format if it can then be added to our archive.

Activities since school:
The Gazette is great for recording more adventurous tales, especially since school. Simply contact the Editor and let him know what you have been doing. Although The Gazette only available to members at the moment, we intend that it will eventually be accessible to be anyone.

If you need any advice about how best to submit any material you may have, please get in touch with me and I will do my best to either telephone or contact you by email to advise on what may be the best options for your particular situation. You don't have to be technically minded, and even if you don’t posses a scanner I am sure we can find a way of get getting your photos or documents copied for all to enjoy.

Josh Lovegrove
itmanager@osobs.com