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Through a grant of £10,000 from the "Awards for All" programme of The National Lottery, the museum has started a project, called "Seaford Museum and Life-long Learning". It is part of Heritage in the Community and the grant covers the following activities:- |
These activities will provide facilities and materials for all ages, from school
groups through to residents in retirement or nursing homes. Visitors to
the town and researchers will also benefit from improved archive access and
information retrieval in the Museum as well as specialised town tours.
Trained workers will have material to take out to residential homes to provide
happy reminders of past times as well as equipment to record reminiscences from
our older residents, forming a library of memories of life in Seaford several
decades ago.
The MLA (Museums, Libraries and Archives) quoted that museums 'are in a unique
position to bring people in touch with new experiences and perspectives, which
can radically change their lives.'
However, such plans are more suited to large institutions with suitable staffing
and budgets. We can make a start thanks to the "Awards for All" funding
but more volunteers are urgently required. Following two coffee mornings
in July 2007, there were 17 new volunteers who offered their time for the
museum.
A spin-off from this programme is the "Owl Trail", where children can get a page
with questions about items in the Museum which are identified by a model owl.
This encourages observation skills and the chance to study items of interest.
Another spin-off was the creation of a Heritage Group with representation on the
committee. This group widened the reach of Museum activities with local
businesses and houses participating in "Seaford Rediscovered" in 2011 which
continues in the following years with courses and formation of a local history
club. (See Heritage Group in the main menu)