Help Save and Sound Tell the Story

Tuesday 23 January 2024

The Save and Sound Project will soon be halfway to its target of recording 40 history interviews and is now calling on credit unions to do one of three things to help it share the heritage of the sector with a wider audience.

“We are grateful to everyone who has stepped forward to record their stories and we have more to line up in the coming weeks, says Save and Sound Project Manager, Abbie Shelton. “But we are still really keen to hear from as many people as possible and want to collect the stories of people who played all sorts of roles in all types of credit unions.“

With just six months to go until the project finishes, credit unions are being asked to help in one (or more!) of three ways:

Tell Your Story – if you were involved in credit unions in the north of England before 2000, the project would love to add your memories to its collection of oral histories (and we may be able to include you if you are outside of the region, so do get in touch). Interviews are informal and enjoyable and take place on an online platform that records high-quality audio and allows you and the interviewer to see each other.

• All equipment and instructions are provided, and the interviews are carried out by volunteers trained by the Oral History Society. The interviews will become part of the national oral history collection cared for by the British Library where they will be available to generations of researchers.
• Tell a Friend – Perhaps you know someone who was involved in the early days of your credit union whose stories should be recorded for posterity. Or you may be able to put out a call to your members to find people who were involved in setting it up. By letting them know about the project and encouraging them to take part you will be making sure the pioneers behind your credit union (or the credit unions that came before it) are not forgotten.
• Show and Tell – Wherever you are in the country you can still contribute to the project. Save and Sound is also developing a website that, as well as hosting audio clips of the interviews, will contain photos and other memorabilia of credit unions across the country. Digital copies of photos, publicity, passbooks or any other material is needed from all British credit unions. The site is being developed as a crowdsourced hub for credit union heritage and needs as many credit unions as possible to contribute to make it a success.

Save and Sound has been funded to collect interviews in the North of England for now, but the Trustees of the Credit Union Foundation are keen to expand the work across the country, and a toolkit will be produced by the project to enable further projects in the future.

Abbie added: “Some credit unions have been generous in sharing their material, but we need lots more! We are urging every credit union which was around before 2000 to take a bit of time to have a rummage through their old files and photo albums and share some material with us. The credit union movement has a rich and varied heritage that deserves a much wider audience and by working together we can make sure that happens.”

You can contact Abbie at abbie.shelton@creditunionfoundation.org.uk or phone her on 07498 928188.

More information is also available at https://www.creditunionfoundation.org.uk/projects/save-and-sound