If you have any interest in the history of Hawke’s Bay and its gazillion fascinating individual stories, you should get acquainted with the Hawke’s Bay Knowledge Bank.

The mission of the KB is to build an exhaustive digital archive of material depicting HB’s history – with all ‘raw material’ supplied by HB residents from their files and shoeboxes, photo collections, letters, clippings and so forth. Plus oral histories recorded specifically for the KB.

Presently the archive includes over 11,000 documents and more than 28,000 images. A project to capture the experience of Cyclone Gabrielle has recorded 150 personal stories so far.

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With one full-time manager, Linda Bainbridge, the Knowledge Bank has always operated on a shoestring, its very survival made possible by a small army of dedicated volunteers … more than 90 volunteers working up to 1,300 hours per month. Many with long service were honoured at this past week’s public AGM.

Cynthia Bowers is the current Chair and she reported a sustainable but lean financial picture. Fundraising is an ongoing priority (heads-up HB tech companies!). As you might expect, a major expenditure involves ensuring the capacity and data security for the archives. Security has been partly managed by locating servers at multiple locations, including Palmerston North and Auckland. Insurance costs loom ahead.

With most volunteers over 70 in age, the enthusiastic audience at the AGM displayed a lot of gray hair, reflecting the life-stage reality of most volunteer-driven organisations in the Bay. As Cynthia commented to BayBuzz, “It’s an age and stage thing, many people don’t appreciate history until they hit the 60s themselves.”

As for the value of this undertaking, she adds, “Our website is regularly used by researchers, students etc.  Our challenge is to promote ourselves well and make sure that the ‘younger’ generation understand that family and business histories do have a value that is worth saving.  The message we try to convey is that our individual stories may not seem to be important, however when you get a collection of individual stories you get a rich social history.”

HBKB’s current board members are: Cynthia Bowers, Barry Cole, Kevin Atkinson, Phil Lascelles, Jo Blakeley and Helen Walker.

You can check out the KB website here, or pay a visit to their Stoneycroft Homestead HQ at 901 Omahu Road in Frimley to see firsthand what the archiving process entails. And perhaps volunteer!