Museum Matters

Newsletter of The Friends of The Canal Museum, Stoke Bruerne

Chairman's Jottings

Lynda Payton

It’s been a considerable time since I penned some notes for Museum Matters. Our editor Kathryn Dodington has had some health issues, but I am delighted to say she is back in fine fettle now and champing at the bit. Also, to be honest, there hasn’t been a great deal to report on We are no longer organising large events and volunteering has for a long time been channelled through the Trust, although we are there as always to support smaller events and activities put on by the team at the Museum. Unfortunately, like businesses and organisations everywhere, staffing at the Museum has been a huge challenge this year The Museum has been forced to close two days a week and it has only been possible, at least in the early part of the year, to put on a few events.

Our main focus now is to support the Museum as much as we are able with grant funding, and this is mostly what we are concentrating on Currently, we have just over £15,000 awarded to the Trust for curatorial work as part of the Stage 1 Development Works completed in July 2021 and which remains unspent The funding has been carried forward until such

time as a new post of Collections Manager South could be recruited. The position has just been filled and we look forward to working with Julia Morgan, who joined the Trust last month, to look at a plan moving forward to add to improve the interpretation and displays in the galleries using the funding we allocated. We also have retained funding for Stage 2 development works which will look mainly at interpretation outside the Museum, along the canal corridor, but will still look to upgrade the museum galleries and include a much needed lift to enable access for all to the upper floors.

We have recently learnt that instead of a major HLF bid, the Trust intends to break down the Stage 2 wish list into a series of much smaller more manageable projects for which the Trust’s National Fundraising Team will seek smaller pots of external funding We eagerly await more details and will share them with you when we have them.

You will have noticed that the Museum boat Sculptor has been absent from Stoke Bruerne for almost a year now Sculptor travelled with a volunteer crew to Northwich for works to her cabin at the end of October last year. We had expected her back on her mooring around Easter this year, however, she then went on to the National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port for some additional work I am pleased to say

she is now on her way back to Stoke Bruerne thanks to two sets of dedicated volunteers who are relay’ing her all the way We are expecting her back at the end of October, with a little detour to Braunston Marina, so that Tim Coghlan who has been so generous to us with donations from the Historic Narrowboat Show towards Sculptor’s upkeep, can see the work which has been carried out The Sculptor Volunteer Team have made several inspection trips ‘oop north as the work progressed and I hope you were able to see some of their photographs which we posted on our Facebook page. As Sculptor Volunteer Team Leader, Rob Westlake needs to be singled out for particular praise for his patience and hard work liaising with the Trust and complying with new procedures to organise volunteer rotas for Sculptor’s return to Stoke Bruerne.

A lot of our Trustees time in the last few months has been concentrated on disposing of the contents of our storage container which until last month sat in the Museum Car Park. I am pleased to say that a number of voluntary and not for profit organisations such as local Scouts, the Cricket Club, Stoke Bruerne Canal Partnership’s Adoption Group, the Inland Waterways Association and a 40s re enactment group have benefited from donations of our event equipment such as marquees, smaller tents, gazebo’s, staging, chairs and tables, lighting and BBQ equipment Items were also donated to the Museum We are immensely grateful to volunteer Trevor Allum, who arranged for

© The Friends of The Canal Museum Registered Charity No 1121146

Chairman's Jottings

Lynda Payton

the container itself to be craned out of the car park at no cost. The container has now taken on a new lease of life at Stoke Bruerne Cricket Club where we hope it will continue to serve the community for some time to come

What else did we do? Well, we fielded a quiz team for the John Smith Memorial Quiz and did abysmally. We took part in the Jubilee Celebrations at the Cricket Club and elsewhere in the village. We also managed to raise several hundreds of pounds from the sale of donated paintings via Facebook

In my capacity as Chairman, and as a Museum volunteer, I had the pleasure in August of nominating Robin Avery for a Marsh Christian Award. Robin is one of the Visitor Welcome Volunteers and at the end of 2021 he also volunteered to assist me with the task of cataloguing and indexing the Library, and re instating it in the Meeting Room of the Learning Centre after it had gone into storage for the duration of the building work when it was carried out last year As it turned out, Robin completed the task almost single handedly with little input from me The library has doubled in size due to a number of book collections having been donated, so this was no mean feat and Robin’s nomination was well deserved indeed The library is now a fully accessible and searchable resource for research purposes

It only remains for me to remind you that our AGM will be held at the Museum on Thursday 24th November at 2 30pm after

friendsofcanalmuseum

which refreshments will be served in the Museum Café We do hope to see you there. Better still, if you have a little time to spare, do consider joining us as a Trustee, especially if you might consider a more active role We are still in dire need of a Membership and Minutes Secretary. You can find more details of how to apply on the AGM Notice on page 8.

a raft of exciting new proposals for the canal around the Museum None of this would be possible without the generous contributions of members just like you!

If you have not yet renewed please consider doing so, so we can continue our work supporting the Museum and its role in

M B E R S H

We would like to take the opportunity to thank all of you who renewed your membership of The Friends in April Your continued support is crucial to us. Last year, your generosity enabled us to give grants totalling more than £67,000 towards the complete refurbishment of The Canal Museum and towards the cost of new interpretation in the Museum’s Galleries, work which was in the main carried out by volunteers

This year, we still have pledged funds remaining to finance even more work on the displays and have also allocated funding towards maintenance work carried out to the Museum boat NB Sculptor at Northwich and funding to refurbish, make a replica or interpret the Traffic Board so it can go on display. The Traffic Board showed the positions of the working boats and their cargoes. We are also working closely with the Canal & River Trust on a Stage 2 Development Project which we hope will see a lift added to the rear of the Museum to enable access to the upper floors as well as

The Friends of The Canal Museum Registered Charity No 1121146

the

waterways

You can make a bank transfer or send us a cheque We regret we cannot take on line

Membership subscription rates, which start from only £10, can be found on the

of

use application form

website at

Sculptor and Museum Update

Museum Sculptor

It has been a very exciting summer here at The Canal Museum, in what felt the first ‘normal’ summer in a long time we welcomed over 24,000 visitors through the door. Despite recent challenges with today's current climate and staffing issues reducing our ability to open our doors everyday as we wanted, the sense of fun and community was very much present.

During the six week holiday we ran our hands on kids activity from the first floor of the museum in which visitors were invited to make their own boats and this lead to the team needing to cut over 2,000 boat templates

Heritage open weekend gave us the opportunity to showcase all Stoke Bruerne has to offer and saw the coming together of volunteers from all aspects. Despite being in post for well over a year now I still very much consider myself new and from my point of view this event just highlighted how much potential our little site can have at making a big difference

As we look onwards towards winter we hope to continue the development of our museum offer with the help of our newly in post Collections Officer South Julia. The team is very much growing and new ideas are blossoming so watch this space!

Sculptor has been away for almost a year for a repaint at Northwich which was, of course, where she was built in 1935.

Sculptor was repainted by Bob Hegenbarth and then was dry docked in the amazing dry dock under the railway bridge in Northwich.

Everything was planned to take Sculptor to Ellesmere Port for the usual Easter Gathering but that had to be postponed due to one of the crew contracting COVID.

Sculptor did make it to The Port some weeks later where the Port based volunteers have worked miracles on items that are, perhaps, more difficult to undertake at Stoke Bruerne due to the facilities available at the Port

There is a plan to get Sculptor back to Stoke Bruerne, which Rob has been working on with Ellesmere Port, by 25th October which is the first week of the school holidays. This gives us the opportunity to publicise Sculptor’s return to Stoke Bruerne.

Whilst Sculptor has been away for almost a year we have had some interesting visitors using Sculptor’s mooring by arrangement with the Museum staff; Ilkeston, Hyperion, Hyades, Towcester, Bordesley, Tadworth, Bletchley, Archimedes, Cedar, Nutfield, Raymond, Gerald, Otter, Bideford.

The

Sculptor on the River Weaver on her way to Ellesmere Port via the Manchester Ship Canal as the Anderton Boat Lift was closed (Photo: RW)

The very pleasant and neat frontage to the Museum following attention from John Wetherell (Photo: KD)

(Left) Robin Avery who was nominatied by Lynda Payton for a Marsh Christain Award for his excellent volunteer contribution in cateloguing the library we have in Stoke Bruene and for researching the scond hand books that we receive. Sadly Robin wasn't successful but his nomination did help to raise the profile of Stoke Bruerne (Photo: LP)

(Left) Sculptor leaving Ellesmere Port on Sunday 16th October on its way back to Stoke Bruerne Image courtesy of Peter Stelfox of the Manchester Ship Canal Group on Facebook

Sculptor in the paint dock at Northwich (Photo: KD)

Sculptor in the Dry Dock for blacking (Photo: RW)

Rick Thake

Rick joined The Friends in 2008, firstly as a member and then joined the Volunteer Sub Committee The following year he joined the Events Sub Committee, who set up the events staged each year to raise funds for the Museum and for the Museum’s Historic narrowboat, Sculptor

He was co opted onto The Friends Council in 2009 He also joined the Events Sub

Through these years, Rick became involved with the maintenance and operation of Sculptor, under the guiding eyes of David Blagrove.

Rick was always a willing member of the team, though was happy to help in many ways, he never took the tiller His choice I believe, as he loved to prepare the locks and wind the paddles

He was always well prepared, with his wellies on and his cagoule tided around his waist

His knowledge of all things electrical helped enormously in some rewiring work on Sculptor and came into his element in

Committee in 2011, where he became Treasurer until the time of his stroke in 2014

My first personal meeting with Rick was when he used to visit our home to carry out an independent audit of the Parish Council accounts for the three Parishes for which Helen was the Parish Clerk Rick had been appointed by the Northamptonshire Association of Local Councils as an Independent Auditor. I understand that he served on Roade Parish Council for several years.

Rick was a member of the Sculptor Team and joined many of the trips around the area

The Friends of The Canal Museum Registered Charity No 1121146

Rick doing what he loved - helping with Sculptor (Photo: RW)

creating festive lighting for the illuminated boat parades.

Sadly in 2014, Rick suffered a stroke which prevented him for doing what he loved and he was confined to a wheelchair until he died in August this year RIP Rick

Rob Westlake

Rick posing on the stern end of Sculptor (Photo: LS)

Photographic