The Staffordshire Regiment Museum
2009 was a year of steady development for the Staffordshire Regiment Museum. Varied events brought in significantly more visitors than in 2008 and boosted admissions income. However, despite continuing generous support from the Barracks and The Mercian Regiment, it remains clear that longer term sustainability and development is unlikely without major efforts in raising support and careful consideration of the way the Museum operates.
The winter has been a busy one for the Museum. The thing of longest term significance is the granting of Accreditation to the Museum by the Museums Libraries and Archives council (MLA). This has involved jumping through several hoops but should safeguard the access of the Museum to grant funding and MOD Heritage Branch support for the next few years until the system is changed again which, unfortunately, is something that is in the pipeline. One immediate benefit from this has been the MLA Accreditation development grant (£650) applied for successfully to update the environmental monitoring equipment from the two old paper chart THUGS (thermohydrographs), on loan from the National Coal Mining Museum, to six new “Tiny Tag” digital monitors now in various locations in the Gallery and stores. The first week of data was successfully downloaded to make sure that the tags and the software were working properly. The availability of new environmental measuring equipment was especially welcome as we have now completed the move to the new stores in the former Army Youth Team (AYT) buildings inside the camp. Considerable work has been done in completing and documenting the move, improving the security of the building, decorating it (with some help from the camp but much of it done by volunteers) and making it our own. Thus far, there is nothing negative to report about the new arrangement and much in its favour.
The Special events this winter went well with The November Night in the Trenches being a sell out for the second year running and the Carols in the Trenches being a good event with fair numbers of visitors. Due to the Success of the Night in the Trenches, we decided to run a Spring Offensive version of the event which again went well although it was not a sell out. All three events made small financial profits and boosted visitor numbers. We have been making progress with the MLA Learning Links Project in partnership with King Edward VI School in Lichfield and mentored by the NAM to generate a Victorian period programme for the Education team. The Education volunteers have been showing particular enthusiasm during the last few months getting involved in the trench refurbishments, the Night in the Trenches events and also contributing to ideas and outputs for the Victorian programme. A group of the volunteers, the head of history from King Edward’s, Willy Turner and EB all went down to London to visit the Education team at the NAM and came back full of good
The Mercian Eagle
ideas. The immediate outcome was a “Mary Seacole British Hotel display” which is now in the museum and available for use in the new Schools programme. This was generated almost free of charge from existing handling collection material and things donated by the volunteers.
VISITOR FIGURES ARE CERTAINLY ON TRACK TO BREAK THE 10,000 MARK AGAIN FOR 2010
A considerable amount of work has been done on fund raising over the winter. As well as the MLA grant for Learning Links which we have started to get money from and the MLA grant for the Tiny Tags, we have also had £500 from the Strasser Foundation towards the uniforms which are now on order for the Crimean interpretation, £1000 promised from the Post Office Communities Fund towards the refurbishment of the trench sound system and communications equipment, £640 from the Friends of the Museum towards a variety of projects and, thanks to one of our younger volunteers being elected to the Youth Parliament, we are pursuing, with some chance of success, £800 from their projects fund. We have also had £100 from Staffordshire Museums for Adult Learners Week which is another project that the education volunteers have picked up with enthusiasm. It is important to note that the enthusiasm of the Volunteers has been growing in parallel with a corresponding increase in the enthusiasm of the Friends. This is partly due to the fact that Education Volunteers now occupy several of the Committee positions in the Friends but it is also greatly affected by the fact that they are seeing projects through
from the raising of money to project design to completion. Of the 24 volunteers recruited last autumn, 22 remain in contact and most are now actively engaged with volunteering. This has given a boost of “young blood” to the system and has proved to be particularly helpful in providing assistance for major tasks such as the move from the Keep to the AYT and the annual shop stock take.
Generous donations of historic items for the collections have continued. There are far too many to mention all of them but, to choose one particular example, the Museum was fortunate enough to receive the father and son medal groups for Gen J H Porter DSO and bar and his son, Henry. Gen Porter had an illustrious military career but might be idolised today more for being the man behind the development of Newcastle Brown Ale! Visitor figures for 2010 have made a good start to the year boosted by 360 recruits from the Infantry Training Centre, Catterick, who visited over three days as part of a Realities of War tour generated to replace the previous trips to Belgium which have been suspended for financial reasons. The Education numbers have also been doing well and the Half Term and Easter holiday numbers were good. We are certainly on track to break the 10,000 mark again for 2010.
Finally, it is with great sadness that we record the passing of two more of our stalwart volunteers over the winter. John Fear and Dick Rutter both gave regularly of their time to the Museum and will be greatly missed.
From top to bottom:-
Over the top ... Ooh La La! Tiny Tag in the stores An example read-out Night in the trenches Maj Gen Porter’s medals
October 2010 133
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