Sporting Heritage has recently launched a comprehensive toolkit providing wide ranging guidance and support for anyone working with heritage collections.

The Toolkit is aimed at anyone with a heritage collection not just those with items, artefacts and material relating to sport. It is full of tips and advice drawn from across the heritage, volunteer, charity and business sectors and beyond to bring you best practice examples to support organisations in the care and management of their collections.

Topics currently cover:

1. Governance
2. Income generation
3. Fundraising
4. Financial planning
5. Access
6. Evaluation
7. Learning
8. Audiences
9. Collections management and care

More topics are coming in the new year – including marketing, community engagement, staff and volunteers and digital.

The Toolkit is structured around three levels of activity, broadly based on knowledge and experience of the topic.

Image credit: Courtesy of Fermanagh County Museum

Rustington Museum is now open at its new home in the Samuel Wickens Centre, Broadmark Lane, Rustington. Locating the Museum in the heart of the village.

The new space provides the Museum with a dedicated permanent exhibition gallery, showcasing the history of Rustington from prehistory to the present day. Giving visitors the opportunity to engage with Rustington’s past through the displays, a family trail, three hands on discovery stations and an interactive to explore in-depth more about the people and buildings of the village as well as an oral history hub to listen to memories of local people.

A temporary exhibition has also been created and is currently displaying an exhibition exploring the life and times of Mary and Beverley Taylor. Offering a glimpse into the fascinating story of the Taylors, a local family who have been integral to the uncovering of the history of Rustington. From finding evidence of prehistoric settlement in the area to rediscovering a forgotten First World War American aerodrome.

Image credit: James Pike

Rustington Parish Council has received a National Lottery grant of £71,400 for an exciting heritage project, A new home for Rustington Museum. Made possible by money raised by National Lottery players, the project focuses on redisplaying Rustington Museum in the newly created exhibition gallery at the refurbished Samuel Wickens Centre.

Supported through the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), the project will enable Rustington Museum to retell the story of the history of the Village. The project provides the Museum with the opportunity to renew, redisplay and reimagine the story of Rustington focusing on stories of local people, highlighting key buildings and places in the Village and placing the history of Rustington in the wider historical context. Our new displays will encourage opportunities for interaction and engagement by incorporating personal stories from local people, films showcasing local stories and low-tech inter-actives. Alongside the displays we will have a varied programme of community activities for everyone.

The importance of our material lies in the origins of the Rustington Heritage Association collection. A collection started by the passion of a local member of the community, Mary Taylor, to tell the story of Rustington resulting in a wealth of material with a personal connection. Mary is a lifelong resident, and has created with her husband Beverley Taylor, a unique record of the history of Rustington through words, images and objects.

Commenting on the award, (Carole Ward, Clerk of the Council) said: “We are thrilled to have received this support thanks to National Lottery players to rehouse Rustington Museum in the centre of the Village retelling the fascinating history of Rustington.”