Derbyshire Renaissance Heritage Awards 2008

The second Derbyshire Renaissance Heritage Awards were held in the beautiful setting of Hardwick Hall on Tuesday 22 July 2008. The ceremony celebrated the excellence, enthusiasm and inspiration of the county's museums over the previous year.

The winners were decided by a panel of three judges, Councillor Bob Janes, Cabinet Member for Cultural Services and Derbyshire County Council representative on EmmS; Pauline Beswick, freelance archaeologist and a member of the Peak District National Park Authority and Georgina Heathcote, Quality Executive for Visit Peak District and Derbyshire who visited the entrants during July.

Bob Janes spoke for all the judges when he said it was an honour to be asked to judge and to be taken into the confidence of so many people and organisations. He added that the two days of judging was fascinating and eye opening but hard work.

And the winners are ...

Best event

The 2008 winner is:

Barrow Hill Engine Shed Society for its LNER Gala 2007. The event attracted 6,000 people to see a range of engines in steam and to commemorate 40 years since the last steam train ran in Britain and 60 years since LNER became part of British Rail.

The event attracted steam enthusiasts and a large family audience and by 11am the car parks were overflowing. The event publicity was excellent including trade press and mass media through the presence of a Blue Peter presenter travelling on the 'Blue Peter' locomotive.

There were lots of things to learn for next time, but the event was a huge success and an award winner.

Highly commended awards also went to:

•    Heage Windmill for Great Balloon Race
•   
     Bolsover Castle for Halloween Week
  
  
  
  
  

Caring for Collections

The winner is

Museum of Childhood, Sudbury Hall for its collections work as part of its refurbishment. During the refurbishment the museum aimed to improve conservation standards and conserve display items as well as items in the store to enable them to be displayed.

The project involved both staff and volunteers and was completed on time and in budget, including enabling new objects to go on display and a new temporary exhibition space to enable more objects to be seen by more people.

The judges were impressed by the scope of the project with so much achieved in a short timescale.

Inspiration Award for Best Special Project

The winner is

Chesterfield Museum and Art Gallery for Time Travellers. The project of giving young visitors a passport to encourage them to revisit the museum began in 2007. The passports were available for under 16s who get a stamp every time they visit, receiving official Time Traveller status and badge when they've got four stamps.

The Time Travellers receive information about special events and activities at the museum and the information on the passport has helped the museum to see how often the young people visit and whether the special events are working.

A Time Traveller event is also organised at the end of the year and almost all of the 59 Time Travellers attended the first event.

The project has been very successful for the museum where half of the Time Travellers visited the museum on more than four occasions and two thirds of the parents said their visits were child led.



A highly commended award also went to: 

 National Stone Centre for Wirksworth Local Studies

Best Exhibition

The winner is

Buxton Museum and Art Gallery for Andrew Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire. The exhibition had been on display at Chatsworth House and a partnership between the museum and Chatsworth led the Dowager Duchess to ask Buxton to stage the exhibition in a venue that had free entry and was more accessible than
Chatsworth.


The exhibition enabled the museum to bring forward development for its exhibition area including new decoration, new lighting and improved security - essential for these internationally renowned exhibits.

Judges' Special Award

The winner is

Hardwick Hall for its community outreach work. The judges were particularly impressed by the work of staff and volunteers at Hardwick Hall to reach out and work with the local community, including projects with local schools and partnerships with other local services.

The Grot2Green project particularly brought together a wide range of people to learn more about their impact on the environment, nature and to take action to help clean up the local Model Village.

Pupils from a local school were involved, the Derbyshire County Council countryside officer was involved as were local fire and police staff who got involved in a village litter pick.

Museum of the Year

Museum of the Year was selected from the
other entrants to the awards and showed all round excellence.

The 2008 winner is Museum of Childhood, Sudbury Hall.

All the winners received a plaque, certificate and cheque.