Life-long Learning

	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:-

• Extension of access to Archive and social history artefacts;
• Development of special interest trails in the museum and in the town;
• Development of presentational and interpretation skills of museum volunteer workers using their own lifetime experiences;
• Provision of reminiscence material to the many elderly, infirm and disabled residents of the town.

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)