News Update - June 2017
Items in this Update cover:
- Dates for your diary
- Double your Donations
- Events
- Exhibitions
- Somerset Coalfield Life programme latest news
- Photography/Artwork Competition
- Shop
- Tearoom changes
- Update on the Clock Tower Work
- News
- Partnerships
- Five Arches
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Dates for your Diaries
Jun 6th - Sep 2nd Norman Matthews Paintings
Jun 18th - Sep 2nd Display of Competition entries
Jul 29th Meet the Victorians at the Seaside (Children's event)
Mid Sep - End Nov Celebrating Westfield Exhibition
Details of all the events and exhibitions can be found on our website.
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The Museum uses Localgiving as one of its ways of raising funds to support the Museum's activities and its projects.
We have attracted a number of regular donors who have set up direct debits which also attract Giftaid to enhance the amount raised each month.
As part of Small Charity Week on Thursday 22nd June, Localgiving will be doubling each one-time donation of up to £25 pound-for-pound. It launches at 10:00 and goes on until the funds run out, or 23:59 - whichever comes first.
Small Charity Week celebrates and raises awareness of the essential work of the UK’s small charity sector - of the invaluable contribution that these groups make to the lives of millions of individuals, communities and causes across the UK and the rest of the world.
The Small Charity Week match fund has been kindly funded by the FSI and a private philanthropist.
So please, if you are able to make a donation soon after 10:00 am on 22 June is the time to do it and to double your money! Click here to go to our donation page on the Localgiving website
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Village Events During the Summer
The Museum has already had stalls at Kilmersdon, Midford and Timsbury village events and plans many more including Peasedown, Midsomer Norton, Paulton, Coleford and Shoscombe. If you are at these events be sure to drop in and chat with our volunteers or browse our stall. You can't miss our new eye catching all black gazebo!
If you are interested in joining our band of volunteers who man our stalls then you can find out more about what they do on our website. To join you can use this link or e mail lucy_tudor@btinternet.com
Also if anyone has 2 serviceable but no longer used folding chairs suitable for use on soft surfaces which they could donate to us please contact publicity@radstockmuseum.co.uk
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Victorian Seaside Afternoon - Sat 29 July
On Saturday 29 July from 2:00 to 4:30 pm the museum is offering children the opportunity to MEET THE VICTORIANS AT THE SEASIDE with no charge for children's entry.
Activities will include making bunting, windmills and flags, designing a postcard, hooking a duck, hoopla, painting pebbles and the end of the pier show!! Plus more.
All ages are welcome but all children must be accompanied. Every child will get squash and a cup cake.
Full details will be on our website soon and also on Facebook nearer to the event.
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Norman Matthews
Paintings of Local Life and more...
This exhibition came close to a serious delay as Anne Miall our exhibition leader, who had done all the preparatory work, was involved in a serious road traffic incident a few days before the exhibition was due to open. Thankfully she is now recovering well and we hope to see her again in the Museum soon. Another volunteer, Anny Northcote, stepped into the breach and thanks to her hard work on the final pieces it all came together in time for the planned opening date.
The paintings on display are by local artist Norman Matthews who has recreated some happy memories from his youth ... Playtime at Clandown school, Waiting for the racing pigeons return and Swimming in the brook amongst others. The museum has used its archives to complement these occasions with photographs and information on these events.
Do you remember the flying circus, or are you in the school photograph? Come and find out between 6 June until 2 September.
A member of the Bath Society of Artists, Norman continues working today and is currently providing art work for a large multi-national company as well as book illustrations plus his own work which features in many local collections.
A selection of Norman's prints are on sale in the shop.
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SCL Update
The Museum has seen yet more changes since the last news update and one in particular is hard to miss!
The Friends of Radstock Museum, our community fund raising group, have sponsored the purchase of four banners.
These colourful banners, which have been specially designed by Miranda Litchfield, the Museum Development co-ordinator, focus on our specialist collections of Ceramics, Curiosities, World War, Agriculture, Lord Nelson and Methodism.
They are sited high in the upstairs mezzanine galley and entice our visitors to explore in depth the collections that we hold at the Museum.
Click here to see all the latest developments.
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Our New Children’s Trail:
Amy the Ammonite & Friends.
Designed especially for the under 5s who sometimes find the picture quiz a bit demanding.
Smaller children are invited to go on a Fossil Hunt and search for 10 hidden ammonites.
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Each ammonite is a different colour, painted and decorated with glitter/sequins and has googly eyes. They are very cute and well hidden and do not to distract from the exhibits and displays.
Children can claim a sticker when they have found all the ammonites.
Especially for the under 5s: who get FREE admission to the Museum when with an adult visitor.
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Volcano Batch Competition
Over 40 entries of stunning photographs and beautiful artworks of Old Mills Colliery Batch were entered in a competition to find a new image to represent our mining heritage here in Somerset. This historic landmark is one of just a handful of visible reminders that the Somerset Coalfield ever existed.
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The winning entries to become postcards were chosen by Will Nicol and Anna Barclay, local professional photographers, and Miranda Litchfield, Art Graduate and Museum Development Coordinator. The images were chosen on the basis that they were the most striking for the purpose of postcards. Other entries were considered in equally high regard, but were thought to be less suitable as postcards.
Ella Drew won the children's category with her eye catching collage and the adult category was won by Ivy Goatcher with a very unusual shot of the batch.
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The winners are coming to the museum on 24 June to receive a framed copy of their postcard and to enjoy the museum’s new item on the menu; a delicious clotted cream tea. Photographs of the winners and their images will be published in the News Update, on our website www.radstockmuseum.co.uk and on our FaceBook page.
Copies of all the entries are on display throughout the summer in the upstairs gallery of the museum. You can request a copy of your favorite image from the exhibition to take away with you for a small charge. The images chosen to become postcards will be available to buy in the shop shortly. The museum's Shop and Tearoom are open to non-museum visitors.
Lastly the museum would like to thank warmly all those who entered the competition. The entries are all fantastic and it is greatly appreciated that many of the artists spent a considerable amount of time painting or drawing this iconic landmark.
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Shop
In conjunction with our current exhibition of paintings by Norman Matthews - Local Life in Paint - we have a selection of Norman Matthews' prints on display and available to order in the Museum shop. They can be ordered in different sizes and a limited edition of signed and numbered prints are available at £5.00 extra.
Also three of the original oil paintings in the exhibition - Snooker Hall, Clandown Men and Radstock Market Hall - are for sale and can be reserved with a deposit through the shop.
Click here for more details of what is in the Shop.
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The Tearoom
New in the Tearoom we now have delicious clotted cream teas and cheese scones and butter on our menu. Our selection of cold and hot drinks has been extended together with additions to the range of snacks we offer.
We are also working on providing free Wifi.
The Tearoom and Shop are open to non-visitors.
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Clock Tower Update
Good News! The scaffolding is now down and the clock is once more fully functional, although the strike may not be heard very often as we have received a complaint from a local resident about the noise at night.
The next phase of the work is to give the movement a full clean and overhaul, to fit a new protective case around it, to install a self winding mechanism, to fit night silencing and to provide auto regulation.
Our fund raising efforts continue so that we can carry out the rest of the work as soon as possible; if you wish to make a donation please visit our website where you can also sign up to receive regular news by e mail of what is happening on this project and in the Museum itself.
The opportunity was also take to repaint much of the tower and the west face of the old Market Hall, as well as doing some repairs. Many thanks to Bob Taylor, a very long standing volunteer, who did much of the work single-handed.
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News
Museum Entrance
Passers by may have noticed a new look to our entrance, as in addition to the noticeboards and re-painting we have also installed very smart new signage.
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Bath and Bristol Numismatic Society
Mark, one of our regular Saturday museum volunteers brought the Bath & Bristol Numismatic Society to the museum as part of their monthly meet, for a grand tour of the collection and some extra special handling of our own coin collection.
We were delighted to be able to offer the Society access to our facilities and collection and if you want to do something similar for your club or society we are pleased to say at the moment we are able, on most occasions, to bring out items of particular interest to particular groups, providing enough notice is given. Depending on each case, there may be a charge for this service. For all enquiries please email info@radstockmuseum.co.uk or alternatively call 01761 437722 to discuss your plans and requirements.
The museum is also available to hire for private events at very reasonable prices. The museum makes an excellent backdrop for meetings, talks, and filming.
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Rex Ladd joined the National Coal Board in 1947 as a trainee surveyor and qualified in 1953. He continued working for the NCB until 1963 when he began to suspect that the coal mining era in Somerset was probably not going to last much longer!
He set up a land surveying business in partnership with Don Walker and the company, Walker Ladd, became one of the largest companies of its kind in the south-west. They surveyed the Bath Stone mines at Combe Down in preparation for their filling in and making safe, and were involved in the survey work for the second Severn Crossing.
During his time with the NCB he put together a large collection of maps drawings and plans dating from the late Nineteenth century to the 1960s. These included mine surveys, shaft sections and surveys, geological maps and plans showing the extent of the workings of many local pits.
Rex died last year and left his collection of maps and plans to Radstock Museum, where they have now joined the collection of similar material donated previously by other local surveyors, Ray Ashman and Don Dowding. The museum now has the most extensive coal-mining archive in the south-west, all of which will be available for research.
Rex's son, Richard, has also donated his father's six-drawer plan chest which has provided the museum with a storage facility for both his father's collection and some of the previously donated material.
The collection will take our volunteers several months to catalogue and digitise for the museum database, after which it will be easily searchable by those wishing to learn more about the local mines and their geology.
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Ray Ashman - 90th Birthday
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The Museum sends very best wishes to Ray Ashman on the occasion of his 90th Birthday.
Ray was a Mining Surveyor at the local pits for almost 40 years and along with his colleague Don Dowding was based at Old Pit, Norton Hill for more than 12 years after the last pits closed at Haydon/Writhlington.
His father George Ashman worked as a miner at Ludlows for 37 years, and then Norton Hill until retirement; a total of 52 years.
Ray played an active part in helping to set-up the Museum in the Barn at Haydon and continued to have a role at the current Museum - not least because of his comprehensive knowledge of, or access to plans of the undergound workings, geology, and depths being worked.
Until the onset of Dementia in recent years, he remained a source of information and many details which are not necessarily recorded elsewhere and is cited by a number of local Authors.
He was a Member of the Museum Society and a longstanding Trustee of The Miners Welfare, attending their Miners' Reunion until 2014, in which year he gifted his local plans, maps, drawings, photos, etc, to the Museum.
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Jim Arthur - 80th Birthday
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Former coal miner and museum education volunteer Jim Arthur was 80 earlier this month. Jim now talks about his experiences as a miner for museum school visits.
Congratulations on your 80th Jim.
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Partnerships
A New Way of Working in 2017
Making contacts with local businesses and enterprises and getting these partnerships to work for both us and them is a new way forward in 2017. This is another part of the work of our development co-ordinator, Miranda Litchfield, at Somerset Coalfield Life at Radstock Museum.
So far we have formed partnerships with four local organisations and businesses (Centurion Travel, Forge of Avalon, T + H LLP, and Bath College Somer Valley Campus) and you can now see more about who we are teamed with and the benefits this brings on a new Partnership page.
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Legal Services Discounts for Society Members
A new community partnership between Thatcher + Hallam LLP (T+H) and Radstock, Midsomer Norton and District Museum Society to give discounts on legal services for all Museum Society members and their adult children was launched on Monday June 5th at a special event laid on by T+H in Radstock Museum.,
Partner of T+H, George Persson, gave a speech explaining that leaflets will be sent to all Society members outlining the discounts which are as follows: free 30 minute appointment; 20% discount on Wills and Lasting Powers of Attorney and 15% discount on residential conveyancing matters. Leaflets are also available in the museum foyer and at T + H offices in Midsomer Norton.
Chair of the Museum Society Dennis Herbert gave a speech thanking T+H for the generous discounts on offer which he was sure members would take advantage of. Dennis then presented George Persson with a copy of the book: “Down and Warrington’s History of the Somerset Coalfield” for T+H clients to enjoy reading in the T+H waiting room.
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The Museum Trustees and T+H Partners and staff also explored further opportunities for mutual benefit; one item which looks promising, is how in 2020 the Museum could help T+H celebrate 250 years of serving the local community.
If you would like to join the Museum Society full details of the cost and benefits are on our website. Your membership will support your local museum, which is a charity and receives no public funding.
For details of T+H services go to www.th-law.co.uk Alternatively, contact George Persson on 01761 409322 gpersson@th-law.co.uk or Laura Ablett on 01761 409312 lablett@th-law.co.uk
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Five Arches
The summer edition of Five Arches (no.88) is in the final stages of preparation. Copies will be on sale at the Museum in early July, or you can become a subscriber and have it delivered to you door.
Articles include: the filming of the Titfield Thunderbolt; letters home from the Poyntings in 19th century America and from soldiers on the Western Front; part two of a ramble down the Camerton branch line; and the Carlingcott Chapel Orchestra.
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