If you ride at Bemsee now or in the past - think of your own personal Bemsee memorabilia. You’ll find stuff in cupboards and files where you keep past programmes - photos some will be digital, some printed – and trophies that you long run out of shelf space for. The challenge that the Club faced in compiling an archive is not dissimilar - we did start with boxes and boxes of stuff…. then we received more boxes from other kind sources.
Today we announce the release of Version 1 of the Bemsee Archive and Club History Site.
This project has taken Bemsee Director, Peter Bartlett, 6 years to get our collection to this point. It will be a never-ending and on-going task.
To give you a sense of the scale….
You will find programmes going back 102 years, 840 of them – all scanned, indexed, searchable, viewable, AND downloadable*
There are currently 200,000 rider names (it will grow!) – all searchable in the database, by year, by circuit.
The Club’s Monthly Journals from the 50s, 60s & 70s are also available to view and download.
We are building a large, viewable file of historic photos that define the Club’s history.
References to the exploits and history of some of our past key people.
Details of the history behind much of the Club’s amazing Trophy Collection.
Your opportunity to add details of past & present riders to help expand the archive. (to follow)
You will be able to search and view programmes and the old journals. These will have a “watermark” over them on screen. You can download a clean digital version from the site. *It will cost just £5 to apply for unlimited downloads. All revenue generated by the site will benefit the Club’s charity – The British Motorcycle Racing Club Benevolent Fund. This supports riders behind the scenes who face financial difficulty because of injury whilst racing. So, buying and downloading from the site represents a VAT exempt, charitable donation.
The site is here:
www.bemseearchives.co.uk
Please go and take a look around, we hope you enjoy your journeys!
If you find links or searches that are not quite right – please email us at admin@clubracing.co.uk