During October and November 2014 the Accounts of the Conflict project team worked with a number of partner organisations to deliver seven roadshows.  The Roadshows aimed to engage with a range of different audiences across Northern Ireland and the border region in order to:

* Raise awareness of the project

* Attract/persuade/inform potential contributors and collection owners to deposit

* Begin a discussion about the potential future use of such an archive

* Get initial feedback on the layout and structure of the archive

* And to publicise the International Conference.

In all, over 200 people attended the roadshows which were held in Antrim, Dundalk, Limavady, Derry~Londonderry, Dublin and Belfast.  We were delighted to work with the Community Relations Council, Dundalk Institute of Technology, The Victims and Survivors Forum, The Garden of Reflection at Holywell Diverse City Partnership, the Institute of British Irish Studies and OFMDFM Research Unit and thank them warmly for their assistance.

Those who attended were positive about the value of such an archive and felt it would be useful to them in their work.  Many people raised questions ranging from practical things that would help a user, such as a map and details of support organisations through content related questions about how we ‘verify’ the stories and how we promote the viewing of a range of stories, through to how we will manage future deposits and the potential uses for such an archive.

The roadshows were enormously helpful in the run up to the launch and fed in to our final modifications to the design of the resource.  The questions raised also contributed to the structure of the conference and the content of the parallel sessions. Thanks to all of you who attended.