So who entered the Leicestershire & Rutland Heritage Awards?

It’s been a bumper year for our annual Heritage Awards. Not only are we celebrating our 20th birthday (and celebrating it in style, I can assure you), but we have seen a bumper crop of entries, with excellent entries in every category.

As happens every year, I’m gobsmacked to find out about some of the things that you are up to, even though i like to think that I am in touch with most of your fairly regularly. Brilliant exhibitions, amazing work with children and young people, fabulous projects and events that I am so gutted to have missed – but I can’t come to them all (more’s the pity).

The entries in the ‘achievement’ categories emphasise how far Leicestershire & Rutland museums have come – some over a number of years, other in a much shorter time – some over only a few months.

But enough of me going on – take a look at a summary of each entry by visiting the awards page of our blog.

Winners will be announced on 30th July!

Community museums up for awards

Unsung heroes from community-run museums are to be honoured in the 20th annual heritage awards for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.

Around 1,000 volunteers run 40 independent museums in the area and they attract 250,000 visitors per year. Leicestershire County Council and the Leicestershire and Rutland Museums Forum launched the awards in 1989, to recognise the volunteers’ achievement in preserving the area’s rich heritage. Ernie White, Leicestershire County Council Cabinet member for Community Services, said: “It’s the 20th anniversary of our awards and community-run museums are more relevant than ever – helping people to learn about their own local history and play a part in preserving it. “I’m always impressed by the quality of the entries and I hope that we get more than ever in this special anniversary year. “I’d encourage people to visit these museums over the spring, to see what’s on offer”

The categories are: Best event, Best exhibition Best special project Work with children and young people Improvement award Museum of the year.

 The first award was won by Rutland Railway Museum in 1989 and last year’s best museum was the Sir John Moore Foundation at Appleby Magna.

Winners will be announced at a ceremony at Stapleford Park in July. Entries will cover the period between June 2008 and May this year. The top prize in each category is a plaque and £100.

For further details about community museums and the awards, see www.leics.gov.uk/community_museums

Flying the flag, shouting from the rooftops, blowing our own trumpets

People so often get upset when folk talk about strategic priorities.

They think that they are awful top-down things that try and force people to do things that they are not interested in or are not relevant to their organisation. And I’m not saying they are always wrong! Of course they are top down, and of course we can’t fit in with every priority.

Sometimes, on the other hand, they are kind to us, very kind. And at the moment, things are looking pretty rosy for independent museums in Leicestershire and Rutland.

Rutland has identified increasing the number of visitors to museums as a priority for the next 2 years, and, under the new assessment framework, that could mean visits to any museums, not just those run by the council.

And although Leicestershire & Leicester haven’t specifically chosen museum visits as a priority, there are other ways to fit in. Leicestershire, for example, wishes to increase the number of people in the county that volunteer. At the last count, there were around 1,000 volunteers in independent museum in Leicestershire with plenty of capacity for more. So we can’t say that we don’t fit in there.

Leicestershire & Leicester are both interested in building stronger communities – they will be measured on whether people say they like the place in which they live and if they think that people get on well with each other in their community. There’s lots of research to show that museums contribute to just that. They strengthen communities by helping people to understand where they come from and the place they live in. They are meeting spaces where people discuss and debate the past and present, build friendships, interact as families. Museums generally improve the quality of people’s lives.

All three areas are interested in children and young people – they want to create opportunities for ‘positive activity’ – or in layman’s terms, they want to see more places to go and things to do for young people (including volunteering). And museums can be precisely such spaces.

So you see, things are looking quite good at the moment. Museums play a significant role in their communities. Even people who don’t go to museums (or about 80% of them, anyway)  say that museums are important, so there must be something in it!

But there is no point donig it if we don’t shout about it:

We must fly the flag, shout from the rooftops and blow our own trumpets.

It’s essential to ensure the long term sustainability of our organisations and our sector.

Let the good times roll…