News

Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse, and the Museum of East Anglian Life have just completed the first six months of a Heritage Lottery Funded project to train people in a range of heritage and craft skills.

The project will run for 3 and a half years, and train about 60 people in total (for traineeships between 3 months and 18 months). 

Attached is the first edition of ‘Trainmail’ - which will feature news about the trainees. If you would like us to send this to you (will be approx every quarter), or would like further information about the project then please get in touch.   

Sally Ackroyd

Skills for the Future Project Officer
Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse

'Trainmail' newsletter

The Network is very pleased to publish the report 'Rural Museums: Ten Years On'. It was written by Hilary McGowan following an approach to the Network by the Museums Libraries and Archives Council. 

'Rural Museums: Ten Years On' report

Tony Butler is interviewed for an article on recent developments at the Museum of East Anglian Life in the July/August 2011 edition of the Museums Journal. 

The 2011 AGM was held on 10 May at Melton Carnegie Museum. The museum reopened late last year after major investment in new displays and facilities, and it proved to be a superb venue. Following the officers' reports we were brought up to date on the two large RMN projects currently underway.

Catherine Wilson reported on the 'Digging Deep' ploughs project following circulation of the questionnaire.

Hilary McGowan spoke about the 'Ten Years On' review of the rural museums sector. She presented the results and initial findings of her membership consultation. This was followed by group discussions on the future of the Network that Hilary will include in the final report.

After the AGM we toured the excellent new galleries at the museum and heard from Jenny Dancey about some of the interpretive and design considerations that underpin the new displays.  Many thanks to Jenny and other staff at Melton Carnegie Museum for a really good day. 

	Melton Carnegie Museum
	© RMN

	Melton Carnegie Museum
	© RMN

The RMN has been awarded funding by the Museums Association through their Effective Collections scheme to carry out a thorough review of ploughs held in public collections in the UK. This will involve both museum workers and the enthusiasts sector. As a result museums will be in a position to understand their collections more fully, improve interpretation and demonstration, and be more able to exchange, loan or dispose of items as appropriate.

Catherine Wilson will shortly be circulating a questionnaire to RMN member musuems regarding this important but challenging area of agricultural history collections.

Many RMN members will recall the very thorough review of the rural sector which Rob Shorland-Ball carried out in 2000, on behalf of the Museums and Galleries Commission. This work reported on the status of most rural museums in the UK at the time and was the foundation of the Network and the basis for all of the work we have done over the last few years.

We have secured funding from MLA to carry out a review of this report to see how the sector has changed in the last decade and identify current strengths and weaknesses. Hilary McGowan has been appointed to carry out this work. The attached questionnaire is part of her work. We intend to present the results at the AGM in April 2011.

Duncan Dornan, RMN Chairman

'Ten Years On' questionnaire

This new £1m gallery at Melton Carnegie Museum opened to the public on Saturday 13 November 2010. 

The state-of-the-art gallery gives visitors an insight into how the countryside in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, has responded to the changing world. Displays reflect home and family life as well as working life in the borough. They also feature topical subjects including transport and green issues as well as the diversification of the rural economy. 

The museum’s Carnegie Study Area is also newly opened. Visitors have the opportunity to use internet ready computers to research their local history first hand with the expert help of museum staff.  This area also provides access to the important fox hunting library, photographic collections and information about the Melton area, including village history files, and archives created by local people and volunteers.

For more information please contact Jenny Dancey at the museum.

www.leics.gov.uk/index/leisure_tourism/museums/meltonmuseum.htm

Dr Roy Brigden has retired form the Museum of English Rural Life at Reading after 30 years. His contribution to the sector has been outstanding and the Rural Museums Network wishes him well for the future. Read more about Roy's work on MERL's website:

www.reading.ac.uk/merl/news/

An article by Patrick Steel in the September 2010 Museums Journal considers how Local Authority museums are fareing in the current economic climate. It specifically mentions the Highland Folk Museum at Kingussie, and Church Farm Museum, Skegness.

www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/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).