GCCC Museum and Learning Centre
8 October 2016
The Heritage Trust is now preparing for the opening of the new museum and learning centre (MLC) ready for the start of next season. This has been made possible by the signing of the Agreement between the Club and the Heritage Trust which covers the responsibilities and undertakings of both parties. This includes a minimum tenure of 25 years for the MLC.
We are grateful to the Club for redecorating the room we shall be using which, as you may know, is next door to the new café on the ground floor of the apartments. We are also extremely grateful to Clip Exhibition and Display for their ongoing advice and help in making sure that we will be offering you the best possible visitor experience when we open the MLC.
During the winter we will be working on the physical process of turning the room into the first stages of the MLC which will be open on match days and at other times by arrangement. Some displays will be an ongoing part of the museum – eg WG Grace and The One Day Kings, others will be more temporary or rotating and feature various aspects of Gloucestershire Cricket’s heritage. The use of the MLC for educational purposes, particularly for school groups, will be an integral part of our planning – education was the key element in obtaining our Charitable Trust status.
During the coming months we will also start the process of cataloguing our memorabilia (currently stored in different places) plan for future exhibits and developments while continuing with our fund raising efforts.
Fund raising is of vital importance in being able to achieve the standard of MLC that we are aiming for in the longer term. Many of you helped with this by becoming Friends and making a minimum donation of £10 for one year or £30 for 3 years. Some of you helped with further donations and we do have a few people who were made Patrons as a result of a minimum donation of £500. The period covered by initial Friends donations has now expired and we would be very grateful to anyone who would like to renew their Friendship or join for the first time - Friends will be invited to special openings of the MLC.
Please send your contact details and cheque made payable to GCCC Heritage Trust to Rex Body, The Brightside Ground, Nevil Road Bristol BS7 9EJ.
The Trust is holding a Christmas Dinner on December 7th at the Club which will feature the highly entertaining Great Western Chorus of thirty or more singers performing a shortened version of their 2016 Christmas programme. Everyone had a great time at the Grace Centenary Dinner that we held and this one promises to be just as good!
We’ll be keeping you informed of progress through the winter but in the meantime we are in desperate need of some volunteers! For example, we need help with basic shifting of stuff from one place to another, photographing and cataloguing items, research, IT skills and then, when the MLC opens, we’ll need help with manning it.
If you can spare some time and are happy to become an MLC Volunteer please get in touch with Wendy Body, the secretary at wendybody254@btinternet.com
