Thank you for an amazing season in 2019!

Many, many thanks from all at Burwell Museum and Windmill!

Thank you to everyone who has supported, visited and/or volunteered at Burwell Museum and Windmill this year. We’ve had over 3,500 visitors over the year and our amazing volunteers have put in over 4,000 hours between them to make sure that the museum continues to be a really great day out. We’re also very grateful to the Parish Council, the Carnival, Cambridgeshire County Council and Newmarket Waitrose for financial support over the year, and to Newmarket Tesco and Burwell Co-op for giving us gifts in kind (and in the Co-op’s case lots of very much appreciated staff time). Thank you to everyone who has been to the museum either as a visitor or a volunteer in 2019!

Do you have any time to spare?

Although we are now closed to visitors for the winter, there is still a lot going on behind the scenes and WE NEED YOUR HELP!

Are you enthusiastic, community-minded and want to offer some time to a local charity? If this sounds like you then please get in touch about becoming a volunteer with the museum. No previous experience required and you'll receive a very warm welcome! We're especially looking for:

Mill volunteers: We need more people to help with the Mill as we work to prepare for its 200th birthday next year. Mill volunteers work on Tuesdays, usually from around 9.30am until 4pm. You don't have to commit to every Tuesday but it's helpful if you are able to say in advance when you will be there so that work can be planned. Jobs range from routine maintenance tasks to operating the mill itself; full training is provided for the jobs involved. If you want to find out more, you are welcome to come to the museum on a Tuesday or to contact Colin, our Mill manager, on cmarshall@cantab.net.

Site maintenance volunteers: Keeping the museum site going needs lots of people for a wide range of jobs including painting, repairing things and keeping all of our buildings clean and tidy. Previous experience of plumbing, electrics, IT systems etc. would be massively useful but there are plenty of jobs which don't require specialist skills! If you can spare us time on a Tuesday or Thursday to help either with a specific job or with general maintenance tasks, we'd love to hear from you at volunteers@burwellmuseum.org.uk or on 01638 605544.

We've had a great summer at the museum!

The last of our children's holiday activities went well today, with lots of people planting cress seeds to learn about our farming heritage. We've had a great summer all round (helped by some wonderful weather) and it's been great to welcome so many people to our children's activities. We've also welcomed groups from two WIs, Felix Coaches, a car club and the Mother's Union. Now we're looking forward to Heritage Open Days, which for us will be on the 15th, 19th and 22nd of September. On the 15th and 19th we're offering free entry to the museum, then on the 22nd we have our folk celebration with local musicians and dancers. We'll be looking at "People Power" through our collections, including a special guest appearance by the winning soapbox from the Newmarket Soapbox Derby.

Settling into the summer

We had a very warm start to our summer holiday activities, with record temperatures in Cambridgeshire last Thursday, but we're hoping to return to normal with light drizzle expected this week! We'll be spending the summer holidays finding out about different materials on Thursday afternoons; we made some amazing trophies for all sorts of achievements last week and I've spent some of this morning sawing up clothes pegs to make rag rugging tools for this week's work on cloth. If you're a little bit old for that sort of thing (although there's no age limit, everyone is welcome!) then we still have our temporary exhibition about Burwell's industrial history and all of our usual exhibition spaces (see map below) and the fine weather is a great time to come and explore our indoor and outdoor spaces.

Looking forward to the summer

It's really glorious weather at the museum as I'm writing this and we hope it continues as we start a jam-packed summer of events! We'll celebrate the start of the summer holidays with our summer fete on the 21st of July, with a packed line up of local musicians, and then explore what history is made of with children's activities every Thursday afternoon from 1.30 to 4.30. Come and hear stories, take part in craft activities and explore the museum's collections to find out about different materials, starting with metal on the 25th of July.

A busy couple of weeks!

We had a great end to last month with the first of our "history is made of..." school holiday activities, with lots of families joining us to find out about bones, plastic and carbolic soap! The activities will continue every Thursday in the summer holidays so that visitors can explore the whole of the museum collection by looking at what it's made of.
June is the peak of the museum season, although as I write the rain seems to be putting people off a bit. We're really hoping for good weather next week, when we have three different WI group visits , our usual U3A French conversation class on Thursday and then Classic Car day on Sunday. Then we'll round off the month with a visit from Mepal and Witcham, one of our favourite schools. We've welcomed several new volunteers this year but we could still do with more; let us know if you'd like to get involved!

Events programme for the rest of the year

We had a great time at National Mills Weekend, welcoming over 250 visitors in the glorious weather and raising just under £500 for museum funds. Thank you very much to everyone who came, and to our wonderful musicians! Now we can concentrate on the rest of the year. Our events programme is:

23 May tea and talk: Burwell Brick and Tile works with Paul Hawes

30 May half term activities: Bone and more

13 June late opening for Burwell festival: free entry to the vintage vehicles gallery

15 June Burwell carnival

23 June Classic Car Day 

21 July Summer Fete

25 July to 29 August (Thursday afternoons) summer holiday activities: What is History made of?

15,19 and 22 September Heritage Open Days

24 October half term activities: Water

More information about all events can be found on our website - we hope to welcome you to one or more of them! 

A successful start and preparations for National Mills Weekend

We had a great opening weekend, helped by the glorious weather; over 300 people visited the Mill and museum over Easter Sunday and Monday. Now we're straight into preparations for National Mills Weekend on the 11th and 12th of May, which should be a brilliant opportunity to showcase the mill with free entry, musical entertainment and the usual stalls and tea room. Last year we had a very special event and attracted 628 people, and next year will be the 200th anniversary of the mill, so we've got a lot to celebrate over the weekend. Hope to see you there!

One month to go!

We're starting to get really excited about our opening weekend on the 21st and 22nd of April now, and we're showing that excitement by...erm... tidying up! Both the entrance kiosk and the tea room have had a morning's work from our team of enthusiastic volunteers and both are now ready to welcome visitors. We've started to sell season tickets and the events programme will be ready soon. Look out for more next month, and put us in your diary for a Sunday or Thursday this season!

February News - Burwell Museum needs you!

Could you be part of our team? 

We're gearing up for the start of our season on the 21st of April, and a big part of that is recruitment for our new Sunday museum assistant. The job ad is below - email education@burwellmuseum.org.uk if you want more information! Otherwise this month has been one of getting things organised, and taking advantage of the slowly improving weather to get some painting done. We hope to have a tidy, freshly painted museum to show off in the summer season!
Best wishes,
Alison
Burwell Museum and Windmill are looking for a: 

Temporary Museum Assistant
Contract: 21 April - 26 October 2019
Hours of work: Sundays - 10:30-17:30 (early finish possible on quiet days)
Salary: £9 per hour

About us:
Set among beautifully preserved historic farming buildings, Burwell Museum tells the story of a bustling fen-edge village. Alongside the 19th-century mill, displays from the everyday to the amazing vividly recreate Burwell life through the ages.

About you:
We are looking for an enthusiastic, responsible and personable museum assistant to join our small friendly team.



You must be capable of taking responsibility for the museum and other volunteers.



This role would be ideally suited to someone looking to gain some customer services/museum experience.



You must be prepared to undertake a DBS (criminal record) check, and either possess or be willing to undertake first aid certification.



Most importantly you will need to have a genuine enthusiasm for the museum and its collections.

The role:
In this role you would act as duty manager on a Sunday, to include:
- Opening the museum (involves some heavy lifting - training provided)
- Dealing with visitors and other ‘front-of-house’ duties
- Event Management
- Volunteer Management

For a full job description, further details and an application form, please contact Alison Giles, Museum Manager on education@burwellmuseum.org.uk

Application deadline noon on Wednesday 13^th March; interviews planned for Sunday 24^th March