August 2013

VOTE FOR HALESWORTH (MUSEUM)!

As museums go, the Halesworth and District Museum may be small but we like to think we punch above our weight. So this year we’ve taken our courage in both hands and decided to compete with the Big Boys in the Suffolk Museum of the Year competition. Some of you may have seen the feature on our Museum (and the other competing museums) in the East Anglian Daily Times. You may even have heard our Curator, Mike Fordham, extolling our small-but-perfectly-formed virtues on BBC Radio Suffolk.

The judges look at every aspect of a museum’s activities and displays and we’re hoping that all the work our volunteers are currently putting in to bring the Museum to the people of the district will be looked on with favour. This year alone, we’ll have bought the Bronze-Age Wissett Hoards for an eventual new display in the Museum, put on our first winter exhibition for years, staged four local history talks, canvassed every local school on what we can do to help them, published a book of Victorian photographs of the town (being launched in September), supported the Harry Becker celebrations with a jointly-organised exhibition in the Library, hosted five coach-parties from Southwold looking at the history of the railway and the town, developed our website and seen more visitors (so far this year) than we’ve seen for many years. All this alongside our usual annual displays in the Museum – this year on Dairying in Halesworth and Toys and Comics of Yesteryear.

If you think that’s worth crowing about and if you’d like to support our efforts to put Halesworth firmly on the museum map, there’s still time to drop in at the Museum at the Railway Station and cast your vote on one of the forms to name your favourite Suffolk museum. Obviously we’d like it to be the Halesworth and District Museum but, even if it’s another one, come and vote anyway.

We’re open Tuesday to Saturday 10.00-12.30.