New Donated Equipment

[at the beach]

I made a trip to the Archive this Fall and was pleased to discover various changes and improvements.

The builder never was able to successfully seal the folding shop doors so he replaced them with a glass enclosure and doors at almost no expense to the Archive. This lets much more light in the the display area where various Rootes artifacts are being housed.

A printing company in Banbury donated various pieces of equipment and the Trustees cleverly managed to squeeze them in. This included flooring over part of the opening for the stairway. This printing equipment includes large format plotters and printers.

And the Trustees were also able to add an upstairs restroom, saving some additional wear and tear on my rather shaky right knee.

The Archive building cost nearly $300,000 and now the outstanding debt is below $40,000. There's a chance that the debt will be retired in 2020. I sure hope we can make this happen.


Buck

 

[hottigr]

Looking good!

 

[canbeam]

Buck

Did they ever get the scanner working properly with their computer program? Last I heard the machine itself worked but there was some kind of a compatibility problem with the software. I never heard back from Matt.

Ron

 

[at the beach]

When I was over there in October the Trustees seem to have exhausted all they could personally do to get the scanner going. The scanner should have worked but wasn't.

The Trustees found an expert who they felt might be able to straighten things out to get it working properly. I seem to recall that this expert usually started charging for his services (at a rather high hourly rate) from the time he left his office in a rather distant part of England and continued on the clock until he finally returned back there. So the ever frugal Trustees were trying to arrange for that expert to visit when he was already going to be in the general area of the Archive. As Matt put it, they certainly had not given up.

This brings up a point that few understand. The Trustees have made and continue to make huge personal sacrifices for the good of the Archive. The hours they donate are unimaginable to me. (and I run up quite a few hours supporting our marque.)

While some Trustees are retired, some like Matt (their computer and scanning expert) has a real job with a wife and two young daughters which all compete with the Archive for his time. My guess is that there may be some scheduling challenges getting Matt and the outside scanner expert together at the Archive at the same time without breaking the Archive's bank.

CAT made a $2K donation to the Archive building fund last month which took advantage of the depressed British pound's exchange rate. The pound has since strengthened in recent days but I expect it to be quite volatile this year. This could help our North American donations to be especially valuable in our quest to retire their debt this coming year.

Buck

 

[canbeam]

I know firsthand how much time and effort goes into volunteer matters, so there is absolutely no pressure from my end. I just keep my fingers crossed that the whole effort of obtaining the scanner in Montreal, and getting it to the UK, was not in vain. I'm proud that our ragtag Canadian group pulled together for a total contribution of $4,170 Cdn last Summer, with the cost of the scanner included, and notwithstanding the hiccup with the scanner programming, there were still also additional funds to help retire a small portion of the debt.

Hopefully someone in the family of Rootes enthusiasts, who has knowledge of classic scanners, can help out eventually, without the cost of consulting.