Purchase a Message to the Future Card and join a historic project
the National Trust Time Capsule

We regret to advise that due to unprecedented demand message to the future cards are currently sold out.

 

Click here to purchase your cards online!

click here to read some inspirational messages from national trust
living treasures
click here to see media coverage in the Sun Herald in June 2007
click here to see media coverage in Sunday Life Magazine in August 2007
Click here to read the article from the February issue of Madison magazine

An intergenerational communiqué to the future
We are at a “tipping” point. In the face of runaway technological development, seismic shifts in world power, and especially climate change, what are our hopes and dreams for 2033?

How it works
Purchase an elegant numbered Message to the Future Card by credit card online now for $5 – it’s easy and secure, just use this link. We will send the card to your nominated address. You then compose and write your personal “Message to the Future” on the card to be included in the National Trust Time Capsule, and send it back in to us, or drop it in here at the Trust Centre, Observatory Hill.

Write your message to whoever you chose – a child, a grandchild, your older self, a sibling, or to a future generation.  And buy cards for your children so that they can also send a message – perhaps to themselves in 25 years’ time. In fact, buy as many as you like, perhaps for your whole extended family, your friends at the club, your book group, your work team. If you wish, add personal photographs.

Your message together with thousands of others will be placed in the National Trust Time Capsule in 2008, and remain at the Trust Centre for a quarter of a century. The Capsule will be  opened in 2033, after one, crucial make-or-break generation -   brought to light when today’s adults are seniors, and today’s children are adults, inheritors of the world shaped, for better or worse, by us.

Important  dates
The Time Capsule was launched by the Governor of NSW, Professor Marie Bashir, on National Trust Day, Sunday 18 March 2007, coinciding with the 75th anniversary of Sydney icon, the Harbour Bridge. It will be unearthed in 2033 on the 100th anniversary of the Sydney Harbour Bridge .

 

Tracking your card
You and your family will be able to track your cards. Each card’s tear off receipt will show the number of the card, the author’s name and address, and the name of the person to whom they are sending the message. Writers can place the receipt in their photo album or personal / family papers to ensure that their message can be traced and its contents discovered in 2033.

Be part of a project that captures the collective imagination
By participating, you join part of a momentous historic project which involves everyone from our most revered leaders to young children. The Trust’s 100 National Living Treasures have been invited to contribute their messages, as well as schoolchildren from selected schools.

Some messages may be chosen prior to the interment (with permission as on the card) for use in artworks such as large format text and images collages, in digital image projections, on the web and in documentation of the project.

By participating you also help the National Trust in its mission of conserving natural and cultural heritage for those who come after us. All monies raised will go to the Trust’s work

Take this once-only opportunity to be a part of a unique written and photographic document of living history, a compelling record of our collectively imagined future.

Will our heartfelt wishes for circa 2033 be realized? How will our hopes and aspirations be reflected in future reality? What does the future hold? Only time will tell.

National Trust. The future keepers

We regret to advise that due to unprecedented demand message to the future cards are currently sold out

Copies of the Trust’s policy relating to retention, publication (with permission) and release of the message cards is available on request. Please email ajonson@nsw.nationaltrust.org.au