Syston Local History Website

In 2024 I was contacted by a lady whose husband had recently passed away if I would like a large collection of history of Syston for our Local Studies room at Syston Library. The collection had been collected by her husband the late Mr Ray Young. Mr Young was a founder member of the Syston History Society and major contributor to its publications. Ray was a frequent visitor to Syston Library, where I have worked for over 26 years and we often were in contact with customer enquiries.
With the help of Ray’s two grandchildren all of the collection, including over 40 exhibition boards from the many years the Syston History Society held their yearly exhibitions were transferred to the Local History room at the library.
In September of that year myself and a colleague from Melton library who had been working on the collection were asked to do a display for History week and we showcased Ray’s collection and the event was attended by over 50 members of the public. Syston Town News attended and they promoted our new Local Studies collection and our successful exhibition.
Unfortunately, in January 2025 I received an email from our Librarians to say the collection was no longer able to be kept at Syston and had to be removed. I did fight to keep the collection but sadly it was not to be and as I am still employed by the Library Service I had to comply.
So since then, the collection has been kept at my home. I could possibly have sent it all to the records office, but they are at capacity and it would just be stored in boxes and forgotten about. Then one Saturday I was working and along came Felicity Austin, who has previously collaborated with Ray and written books on Syston and has held many events in the local church. Felicity and I got together, and both decided that in honour of Rays’s memory this collection needs showcasing to the people of Syston past and present who are interested in local history.
Felicity is using the documents to write a new book on Syston, but my aim is to get the collection online and that’s where I need help.
I have looked at other local history websites in the area, Quorn Online Museum, Barrow Upon Soar and Hoby who have all successfully created wonderful websites. I have emailed them asking about how they got started. I also contacted Fiona from Syston Town News who was interested in my proposals, and I also contacted the administrators of Sometimes Syston (where information and photographs of Syston are posted). Steve Quinn from Sometimes Syston is also interested in the project. I also informed Ray’s family and the Local History group what we were planning. Currently we have a history group, a Facebook group and Felicity writing her new book, but it would be good to get this under one umbrella.
Last week I was introduced to a friend of Fiona’s from Stn and we had an informative meeting, and he is interested in assisting us getting up and running. He is talking to colleagues of his at the University, we may be able to get assistance from history graduates, use their scanning facilities etc. In the meantime, I am also going to contact Wreake Valley Academy to see if their older students may be interested in a local studies project, even just working on one area.
What we need is to form a working party of people who are interested in getting this up and running. We need to go through and catalogue everything from the collection, so if you want to join us in having Syston history online please get in touch and we can arrange a first meeting, my contact details are.
Sharon.burditt@yahoo.com