We are closed to both the public and volunteers for the foreseeable future. Most of the volunteers who keep us going are in the more "vulnerable" groups, as are a large proportion of our visitors, so we won't be reopening until it's very clear that it's safe to do so. Events in April and May have already been cancelled and it's likely that June will follow unless things change dramatically in the next couple of weeks.
Thanks to a grant from East Cambridgeshire District Council and a legacy last year from Mr Michael Mitcham, we're very lucky to be in a good position financially. We're very grateful to both the council and to Mr. Mitcham and his family for that, as it means we can continue to pay our staff during lockdown and spend the time making sure that our paperwork is all up to date (we'll spare you all the details, but it will be good to have it done!). Many small museums are struggling, though, so if you want to support local museums and industrial heritage then our friends at Prickwillow Museum, Ramsey Rural Museum and the Cambridge museum of Technology are among many appealing for help at the moment.
Our ongoing projects will continue as soon as we can - we're still waiting for planning permission for the path to the windmill, so we'll need to wait until the council has finished dealing with the crisis, and once our volunteers are able to safely come back to work we will continue with site maintenance and refreshing displays. If you are going past the windmill you may notice that it's looking a bit bedraggled- we've removed most of the shutters to make sure it's safe while we're not working on it. Our next project will be to paint each shutter and put them back again, so although this isn't the kind of year we'd planned for the 200th anniversary year of the windmill we will get it looking smart again as soon as we can!
We wish all of our volunteers, visitors and supporters well and hope to welcome you back when we can do so safely.
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