Over the past 150 years the Club has developed a rich history much of which is evident in the large amount of historic documents, trophies, caps, photographs and videos, along with other items and stories that have been accumulated since 1871.
In 2020 the Club’s Executive commissioned a project to gather and securely store these artefacts. Hugh Hutchison took on the challenge to lead this process and accepted the role of Club Archivist. It quickly became apparent that in order bring this history to life an online platform would be needed to capture and display the catalogue. The Men’s Chairman, Paul Clarke, volunteered to help define and manage the development of the system.
The design considerations exposed two significant issues that needed to be addressed.
This resulted in three objectives being identified.
- To archive for posterity of 150 years of rugby history – 2021 is the Club’s 150th anniversary
- To make the history available via a visually stunning virtual interface
- To create a workflow and repository to ensure that all new assets are stored and accessed in the same way as the history
As a result the Club Executive approved a plan with this brief.
“To create an archive of physical and digital artefacts, and to make these accessible to Club members via an online interface. Whilst the Club has 150 years of artefacts to collect for the archive the intent is to create an active repository to ensure that all valuable artefacts are collected on an ongoing basis such that we can pass these on to the next generation when the Club celebrates its bicentennial in 2071.”