MALVERN Museum of Local History is an independent museum run entirely by volunteers. During the visitor season (late March to the end of October) it is opened by volunteer stewards, who take admissions and sales monies and do their best to answer visitors’ questions about local and family history.
The day-to-day business of the museum is overseen by a management committee, made up of the trustees of the Museum Society and the officers of the Friends’ Association. All committee members are also volunteers, filling roles including chairman, secretary, treasurer and curator.
The Museum Society is a registered charity and owns the museum building. The Friends Association is a separate body, with a membership who are interested in helping to support the museum.
There are currently just over 200 members of the Friends Association, paying a small subscription each year which gives them free entry to the museum, free admission to a series of six lectures held during the winter months, and three copies of the museum newsletter ‘The Newseum’.
The Friends Association provides committee members who help to run the museum, and makes small grants to help fund museum projects.
Recent grants have included money for a lap-top computer, used to catalogue the museum’s collections, and a contribution to the gatehouse building restoration fund.
Many Friends work as museum stewards and others get involved behind the scenes – in curating roles, helping to answer local and family history questions, or helping to take the museum out to the community with talks to schools and local groups.
The Friends Association is always looking for new members.
For those wanting to learn more about the Friends and volunteering opportunities at the museum, there will be a Friend’s coffee morning held in the Lyttleton Rooms in the centre of Malvern on Saturday (September 19) from 10am to 12 noon.
The Friends’ lecture series for 2015-16 starts at 7.30pm on Friday, September 25 at Christchurch Hall in Avenue Road, Malvern when Peter Sutton will talk about the medieval poem ‘Piers Plowman’ which famously begins in the Malvern Hills, reading from his new translation into modern English. Admission is free to members of the Friends and costs £2 for visitors.
Visit www.malvernmuseum.co.uk where you can learn more about Malvern Museum and the role of the Friends Association.
