As you may have seen on AngloFiles earlier this week, The Royal Oak Foundation is moving! The boxes are packed, walls stripped bare and the moving company is loading our things into their truck as I write this. We’re thrilled to be moving to 44th Street’s General Society of Mechanics building next week.
We’ll walk you through that space next month, but before we leave our home for the last several years, we wanted to take you behind the scenes of our last week in our 35 Street office. While much of the office looked like the image to the left for the last couple weeks, boxes towering ever higher, packing meant an opportunity to sort through old files and dig deeper into our organizational history. It gave us a chance to sort through our archive of programs brochures of seasons gone past, highlighting lectures that brought lords and ladies, authors and scholars to the United States to discuss the rich history of the English country life. The move also encouraged a dive through our old newsletters, brimming with stories of critical work at National Trust properties in all corners of the United Kingdom, made possible by you, our supporters.
Glimpses like these into the decades of preservation work Royal Oak has undertaken taken alongside you and the National Trust affirms the importance of our current projects, such as the National Trust Furniture Appeal, and excites us about all we’ll accomplish together in our new offices.
Jessie celebrating her 90th birthday with Royal Oak.
This week afforded us more than a glimpse into our organizational past, though. We were also able to celebrate an important part of our present and future, volunteer Jessie Walker, whose 90th birthday was Monday! For those of you who don’t know Jessie, she’s come into our office every day for decades, helping us sort the mail, process donations and complete other essential work around the office. If you’ve ever attended a Royal Oak lecture in NYC, you’ve probably tasted her wonderful catering, too! This was a particularly special birthday for Jessie, and we were honored to be able to celebrate her and all the work she’s done for our mission of connecting Americans with English country life and preservation culture.
We’re extraordinarily grateful to Jessie, and indeed all our volunteers, for their absolutely critical support of Royal Oak. We’re excited about all we will accomplish together in our new space, and know that our supporters will join us in learning about and supporting important National Trust properties across the UK.
Cheers to Jessie, our supporters, and the past, present and future of Royal Oak!
To learn more about our preservation projects, click here: Learn More
