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The Kegworth Heritage Centre (formerly The Kegworth Museum) is still closed unfortunately. Although life is largely back to normal in the UK, we are still playing catchup trying to get the museum reopening back on plan. More on this below…

Thank you for your continued support!

KHC Interactive Advent Calendar

It's back! The KHC interactive Advent Calendar will launch on 1st December 2023 with a whole new set of photos of Kegworth places and people from past and (relatively!) present.

This year we've added a section for you to add more information about each photo as you reveal it. This will then be used to add more details to our photography collection.

Click here on or after December 1st….

Autumn Update 2023

A large number of museums, especially small, independent rural museums, run as charitable organisations, like KHC, closed their doors during the pandemic, and many of them may never reopen. For some, it was because they had nothing left in the bank to cover their ever-increasing costs of even opening the doors. For others, it was because they lost their volunteers.

At KHC, we had a different set of problems, but we've been fortunate to be able to pay for all the new infrastructure that needed to be put in place through various grants and generous benefactors. And as I have previously mentioned, we have a great set of new and former volunteers driving us towards our reopening. I want to express our thanks to our most recent benefactors.

In July, we received an award from the East Midlands Airport Community Fund, which has enabled us to install a new alarm system. This includes both burglar alarms and smoke detection devices. The alarm is monitored, ensuring a police response in the event of a break-in. Please don't attempt to put it to the test!

We'd also like to thank Amazon UK Services Ltd., who have donated brand new display boards, which have been installed and their contents already planned and currently being created.

We still have much to do, but more pieces of the jigsaw I alluded to back in the summer are falling into place daily. The challenges that looked insurmountable in the past are becoming more manageable, and our confidence grows. Some of our volunteers have engaged family members to support us; thanks to Geoff Powell, Steve Yates and John Wood for rolling up their sleeves, quite literally at times, and getting stuck in with some of the heavy-duty activities that occasionally stand in our way.

Our finances continue to be tight, but careful management by our treasurer, John Billett, ensures that our cash flow is still under control and we can see out the continued cost of living crisis. We will continue to try and pay for improvements through grants, but operational costs will still need to be met from our reserves until we can start to bring in new sources of funding - and we are already thinking about opportunities.

In addition to the appointments we made in our last announcement, Diane Powell has now taken on the new role of Chief Archivist in addition to her role as a trustee. One of Diane's key tasks will be to bring some sense of order to the hundreds (thousands?) of documents in our possession and to provide her expertise and knowledge to our volunteers as we start to label the artefacts chosen for display to help visitors understand more about them.

We still need more volunteers! In certain organisations, there becomes a point where throwing more people at a problem does more harm than good. That's not the case with us! Our current volunteers need some support, both mentally and physically! In return, they will teach you about resilience, passion and extraordinary commitment. And we really need to get some younger members of our community involved. If you'd like to help out or you know someone who might be interested, please let us know! We will hold another volunteering day early in 2024, but there's no time like the present to get involved!

New Appointments at KHC

We’re delighted to announce that we’ve filled some of the roles we have been advertising in our volunteering section.

Melina Leary has taken up the position of secretary, and she will also share some of the volunteer coordinator duties with Val Yates. Val is also taking on part of the role of the Creative Director. We are calling her our Stage Manager, and she will work with John on setting up the displays and museum layout ready for opening.

Sandra Hawksworth will be taking on the role of the Photography Manager, looking after the extensive photographic collection previously managed by Phil Stevens. Sandra will also work with Ally to find new ways to manage and present the photograph collection using web-based solutions.

Val, Mel and Sandra will also become members of our new management committee to help facilitate faster decision-making of specific operational activities.

We also want to acknowledge the huge efforts of Pat Busby, Maria Hall, and Marietta Kershaw, who have been meeting up regularly alongside Diane, Val, Sandra and Mel and paving the way to our reopening. We are hoping that some of the other volunteers who signed up at our Volunteering Day will be able to join the fun in due course.

The Kegworth Heritage Centre website and email management system is hosted by Krystal.