bafm - south east western counties news

THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION OF FRIENDS OF MUSEUMS

SOUTH EAST WESTERN COUNTIES NEWS

BAFM email: a d m i n @ b a f m . o r g . u k

Sue Hall
7 Northbrook House, Free Street, Bishop’s Waltham. SO32 1NP

Next Meeting
Monday 8th September
at Chiltern Open Air Museum, Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire.

SOUTH EAST WESTERN COUNTIES MEETING 2007

We were invited by the Friends of Bursledon Brickworks to hold our meeting on their premises, which proved an ideal location, and the Friends prepared an excellent lunch for us. During the after-lunch tour of the Brickworks, delegates were delighted to find that the Friends had started up the engines for the Brick-making Machine and the Steam Engine - a very special treat! Volunteers Ahoy! was the theme of the Conference and our Keynote Speaker was Mark Lewis, a researcher from the Sea Your History exhibition currently being held at the Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth. Mark’s presentation stressed the importance of volunteers, who formed an integral part of the Sea Your History project. The Royal Naval Museum had been awarded a grant of £664,000 by the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2005 to develop a partnership project in order to create greater access to 20th century naval collections. This helped set up a website containing 15,000 items of digitised and interpretive material, and included the recording of 90 oral histories. [See www.seayourhistory.org.uk]

Any volunteer contribution made to the project equated as matched funding. A target of £15,000 or three volunteer days a week was set and work done included: researching collections; selecting items for digitisation; digitising, packing the items and later re-shelving them; working on the website; preparing metadata; working on the oral history project and many other tasks. Mark Lewis stressed that reward and recognition are crucial in volunteer management. A point was made of thanking the volunteers every time they came and of involving them, where possible, in extra curricular activities, including the visit of HRH the Princess Royal. Feedback showed that the volunteers felt rewarded and valued. Kate Elliott, who has been involved with the Oral History at the Royal Naval Museum, gave a short presentation on Women at Sea and played sound clips from those histories. Three Open Forums were held during the day, each of which was followed by animated discussion. All agreed it had been a valuable and very interesting day.

Co-ordinator: Sue Hall

Having been an individual member of the WFFM since the early 1980’s, I have only missed one Congress and it has been a great pleasure meeting the various overseas and local delegates during that time. I was the Executive Officer of the Friends of the Art Gallery of South Australia for many years and a benefactor member of the Australian Federation. After thirty years spent overseas in Hong Kong and Australia, I am very happy to be back in England and to be involved with BAfM. I am also a committee member of NADFAS in Winchester.

Registered Charity: 270253

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