The climax of the first phase of the Open University and Living Archive Millennium Awards Scheme was reached on Saturday, 17 June, when nearly 200 parents and guests attended a ceremony in the Berrill Lecture Theatre for the presentation of Millennium Fellowship Certificates to the parents who had successfully completed their projects. The presentations were made by Dr Heather Couper, broadcaster and writer, who complimented everyone on their outstanding achievements during the past 8 months in researching local history topics and presenting their findings on the Web.

After the ceremony, the 19 Web sites created by the CLUTCH Clubs were available for all to see on the 19 i-Mac computers that the parents had used for their projects. It is an impressive collection of over 1000 Web pages which, in most cases, were created by people with little or no knowledge of computers at the start of their projects. In addition, an archive has been established which has nearly 10,000 digital images, and many hours of audio and video clips.

There are numerous examples of parents who have unearthed previously unknown information, photographs and recordings. Among a number of outstanding examples is a reel-to-reel tape that was found by the members of the Loughton Manor CLUTCH Club. The tape was recorded in 1959. It features 89 year old Archie Stevens recalling his first Christmas when he was 4 years old in 1874!!