The recent annual meeting of Rye Museum Association at East Street Museum, chaired by Jo Kirkham, elected two new directors, John Lanigan and Yvonne Metcalf, and Sheila Maddock has taken over from Jeremy Huddle as Treasurer.
Jo Kirkham presented the annual report highlighting the successes of the year. Both the Ypres Tower and the East Street Museum continue to enjoy good visitor numbers. The decision to have free entry at the East Street Museum has been very successful, with a five-fold increase in visitor numbers over the previous year.
The Ypres Tower opens every day, except 24-25 December and visitor numbers increased by 20 per cent to over 23,000 during 2014. The East Street Museum opens at weekends from April to October, with free admission and displays at both the Tower and the Museum are changed and refreshed on a regular basis. Jo Kirkham highlighted the range of leaflets produced by the Museum members (shown above) to enhance the displays and improve the experience of visitors.
Those leaflets include activities like the Rye Medieval Conference and the Woman and Children of Rye Project, exhibits in the Women’s Tower, exhibitions, for example, The French Connection and items of general interest such as The Huguenots in Rye and a map of Mapp and Lucia’s Rye (filmed last year for the BBC).
During last year’s Rye Arts Festival (RAF), the East Street Museum was open every day with a special exhibition, The French Connection. This generated much interest and was very successful with daily numbers exceeding expectations. For this year’s RAF, the Museum will be open 11-27 September 10:30am-4:30pm with a special exhibition, Leading up to Waterloo. Entry is free.
The volunteer stewards will be very busy during this period. If you are interested in helping, the Museum website has details.
Leaflets courtesy of Rye Museum