News

Abbot's Hall Enterprises, a social enterprise scheme developed by the Museum of East Anglian Life at Stowmarket, features as a case study in the new MLA report Sharper Investment for Changing Times (page 16).

Abbot's Hall Enterprises is an excellent example of partnership working that provides a structured approach to skills delivery and training at the museum.

The Sixth West Country Scythe Competition and South Somerset Green Fair will be held at Thorney Lakes, Muchelney, Langport, on Sunday 13 June 2010.

The National Electronic and Video Archive of the Crafts (NEVAC), held at the University of the West of England, has now changed its name to Recording the Crafts.

www.uwe.ac.uk/recordingthecrafts

The AGM held on the 16th February 2010 provided a useful opportunity for us to get together and review projects and set the scene for future work.

We also enjoyed three presentations. Helen Barker of of Beamish took us through rural outreach work that she and Seb Littlewood have been involved in. We were particularly interested in replica Union banners printed onto cloth at a reduced scale, which made them transportable and accessible without loosing detail or texture.

Seb outlined working with volunteers and societies at Beamish to promote activities such as dry-stone walling and hay meadow management.

Gareth Beech talked about the re-erection of Kennixton farmstead outbuildings at St Fagans, which has put the farmhouse, already at St Fagans, in greater context. The buildings will also provide opportunities for interpretation and learning.

We also saw the stores at the Regional Resource Centre, and visited The Town and Home Farm. Thank you Seb and other staff at Beamish for making us so welcome.

	Regional Resource Centre, Beamish
	© RMN

	The Town, Beamish
	© RMN

	Home Farm, Beamish
	© RMN

East Lothian Council Museums Service is collecting stories on life in East Lothian for inclusion in the John Gray Centre due to open in Haddington in 2012. 

We'd love to talk to as many people as posible involved with farming in East Lothian in whaterver capacity. We'd like to meet farmers but also farm workers, farmers' spouses and people who grew up on farms.

If you would like to be involved in this exciting project or would like more information please get in touch.

Katherine Weldon, Museums & Libraries HQ, Dunbar Rd, Haddington, East Lothian, EH41 3PJ, 01620 828224, kweldon@eastlothian.gov.uk

The British Agricultural History Society is organising an international conference on Rural History, to be held at the University of Sussex, 13-16 September 2010.

www.bahs.org.uk

Dr John Geraint Jenkins, one of the foremost Welshmen in the museum world and Fellow of the Museums Association, passed away on 15 August 2009.

Dr J. Geraint Jenkins obituary

Representing Rurality: Culture & the Countryside in the 20th Century is a conference to be held in connection with the Museum of English Rural Life's Collecting 20th Century Rural Culture project.  It is being organised by MERL in conjunction with the Inter War Rural History Research Group.

Venue: Museum of English Rural Life, Reading, on Wednesday 4 November 2009. Contact Roy Brigden at the museum for details.

The John Clare Cottage at Helpston, Northamtonshire, will open to the public on 14th July 2009 as an environmental and educational centre. Through his poetry John Clare (1793-1864) acutely observed and recorded many aspects of the English countryside of his time. The cottage was Clare's birthplace and family home for many years.

www.clarecottage.org

From villages and towns, cities and suburbs, children and students, parents and grandparents - they all flocked to farms nationally for Open Farm Sunday on 7 June. Despite the severe weather in some parts of the country over 140,000 visitors were welcomed onto 425 farms. Open Farm Sunday 2010 will be on Sunday 13 June, so make a note now!

www.leafuk.org 

Written by Mary Sirault and published by England's Past for Everyone, this new book looks at the history of Exmoor's landscape and community from prehistory to the present day.

www.englandspastforeveryone.org.uk

The Museum of East Anglian Life in Stowmarket has recently launched a new online exhibition on social sustainability called 'When Were We Happy?'.

www.whenwerewehappy.org.uk

Attendees braved rain and snow to be at the AGM, held at Gressenhall Farm & Workhouse on 9 February 2009. We enjoyed talks by Lisa Harris on the Museum of East Anglian Life's social sustainability work, and on recent developments at Gressenhall by Robin Hanley, followed by an excellent tour of the site.

	AGM at Gressenhall
	© Somerset Heritage Service

Museum of English Rural Life's project on Collecting Twentieth Century Rural Culture now has a blog which is there to provide updates and invite discussion and comment. 

The link for it is:
http://collecting20thcruralculture.blogspot.com/
Also from our website at
www.reading.ac.uk/merl/research/merl_collectingruralcultures

The project needs a broad level of participation to suceed so your involvement will be greatly valued. Many thanks, Roy Brigden

The Making of Am Fasgadh: An Account of the Origins of the Highland Folk Museum by it's founder Isabel Frances Grant. Available online at www.nms.ac.uk/books or telephone 0131 247 4026.

The Network's Turning Green conference, held at the Museum of English Rural Life Feb 20th-21st, was a very successful and well-attended event. In the course of it, twelve rural museums signed up to participate in the carbon footprint project.

The theme of the summer exhibition at the Museum of English Rural Life, University of Reading, was Sustainability Past and Present.

A grant of up to £25,000 has been made to the Rural Museums Network by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council under its support scheme for subject specialist networks (SSNs).