{"id":582,"date":"2020-08-04T13:14:11","date_gmt":"2020-08-04T12:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/oral-history\/?p=582"},"modified":"2023-01-19T18:14:30","modified_gmt":"2023-01-19T18:14:30","slug":"remembering-the-past-impacts-of-a-global-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/oral-history\/2020\/08\/04\/remembering-the-past-impacts-of-a-global-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering the Past: Impacts of a global pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Kath Smith, Associate Researcher, Newcastle University OHU and Manager of Remembering the Past* <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

I\nhave a calendar on my desk that is frozen on the date 23 March 2020. I don\u2019t\nfeel able to change it because it represents a pivotal point in Remembering the\nPast\u2019s existence. This was the day that our building closed its doors and some\nvery quick decisions had to be made about how to run the organisation from that\npoint on. No mean feat when you\u2019re a micro charity. In practice this meant\ngrabbing the laptop and some sound equipment and taking it all home. I often\nwonder what happened to the milk in the office fridge. On 24 March the\nvolunteers took up the challenge of turning the laptop on my kitchen table into\na connected virtual office. First it was Team Viewer, then in quick succession\nthey restored our email networks, installed Zoom and MS365 with all of its\ncapabilities. Suddenly the challenge wasn\u2019t about survival but one of\ndevelopment and opportunity.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
(Left to right) Dorothy, Val and Mary at the hairdresser (Copyright Remembering the Past)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Operationally,\nwe\u2019ve used the freedom to change brought by CV-19 to introduce a new project\nmanagement system and improve communication links between volunteers. In the\nprocess we\u2019ve found new ways to share our collections and to collect material.\nFor instance, our online presentations have been well received and a joy to\ndeliver (once we got the hang of it). Strategically, we\u2019ve used the time to\nreflect on the huge gaps that have emerged between those who are digitally\nincluded those who are not. Care homes are a salutary, but not exclusive,\nexample.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Remembering The Past: Tynemouth (Copyright, Remembering the Past)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Was\nit easy? Not always. Was it fun? Not always. Was it worthwhile? Amazingly so. Things\nwill never be the same again and, so far as Remembering the Past goes, that\u2019s\nabsolutely fine.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

*Remembering\nthe Past is charity which\nprovides innovative and engaging responses to the issues of social and digital\nisolation faced by older people in North Tyneside. Its team of highly trained\nvolunteers develops projects to collect the reminiscences, memories and oral\nhistories of local people, adding the resulting stories to its web-based\ncommunity history archive: www.rememberingthepast.co.uk<\/a>.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kath Smith, Associate Researcher, Newcastle University OHU and Manager of Remembering the Past*<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7121,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,166],"tags":[85,37,17,215,69,129],"class_list":["post-582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflection","category-think-piece","tag-covid-19","tag-memory","tag-oral-history","tag-pandemic","tag-reflection","tag-remembering-the-past"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":586,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions\/586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}