Rye Castle Museum is planning to hold “Third Tuesday action days” to work on maintaining and developing the collection and are calling on volunteers, old and new, to become involved.
The East Street site is closed for the winter which makes this an ideal time to make improvements. The action days will be based in East Street as “gatherings” with tea, coffee and biscuits provided. The tasks are many and varied and people can choose which team to join and what to do.
There are a number of exciting things on offer to volunteers. Last winter, for example, a team of volunteers, including an 89-year-old, restored an 1826 British Board of Ordnance ammunition box as seen in the before and after photographs.
Display boards were also added in the East Street entrance, the kitchen was refurbished and touching up paintwork was undertaken. There is new storage, a new glass case to refresh and add to the pottery displays and a new touch screen explaining the background to the new Lossenham Pottery Project display
1826 British Board of Ordnance ammunition box – before and after restoration.
Volunteers can help to maintain and develop displays such as cleaning the armour and weapons or helping to sort and display a collection of hop tokens and coins. There would also be opportunities to undertake research such as looking at the growth of vineyards and comparing them with the tradition of hop-growing.
Rye Castle Museum is an important visitor attraction to the town. Ypres Tower, an 800-year-old Grade I listed ancient monument, is open 363 days per year and has been visited by nearly 32,000 adults and children in the past 12 months.
The East Street Museum is opened at weekends from April to October by volunteers. In the past 12 months there have been more than 10,000 visitors. This year during the two week long Rye Arts Festival, East Street was able to open every day boosting September’s visitor numbers to over 2,000.
Ypres Tower and the East Street site are looked after by the Rye Museum Association, which is self-supporting, reliant upon visitors, volunteers and fund-raising. There are no full-time employees, and the directors and trustees are volunteers.
If you are interested in taking part in developing the museum by volunteering to help, there will be a short introduction to “Tuesday action days” at 11am on Tuesday, November 19 at East Street.
Further “Tuesday action days” will take place at East Street from 10:30am to 3:30pm on the third Tuesday of each month on December 17, January 21, February 18 and March 18.
Image Credits: Geoffrey Austen .
Sounds interesting, hope to be at first Tuesday see if I can be one of the useful individuals to make the museum shine
Thank you Heidi and all the others who came to “make a difference” today. It was a good day, made all the better by homemade refreshments by Jen.
Even though it was only the first session, we achieved a lot. With Linden’s guidance about conservation, we started sorting and presenting coins and hop tokens. Preparations were made for decorating the museum’s Christmas tree, to go in St Mary’s Church “forest”. The main storage cupboard was tidied and rationalised.
The next session will be on Tuesday 17th December. Anyone wishing to “make a difference” would be welcome. The gatherings are very sociable.
Rye Museum Association keeps Ypres Tower open 363 days per year and takes full responsibility for this Grade 1 listed ancient monument. Over 32,000 visitors (including free entry under 16’s) visited the Tower in the last 12 months. That’s how important Rye Museum is to Rye!!