The Friends of Beamish Museum.Meet New Friends at Beamish: Examples of Past Events Enjoyed by the Membership.
Example 1. Chair's Christmas Treat.
All members of the Friends are cordially invited to join us for a special day in December.
The Chair's Christmas Treat is designed to give you the chance to meet other Friends and visit "behind the scenes" areas of the museum not normally open to the general visitor. These will include the Friends' workshops and the Regional Museums Store (Beamish Waggon and Iron Works).
The Regional Museums Store is a vast building based on a late 19th century engineering works and houses many unique items of the Region's industrial and transport heritage, most of them too large to be stored elsewhere.
There's the 120 tonnes Doxford Marine Engine, a 54 feet Tyne wherry, a North Eastern Railway coach and rolling stock, wonderful enamel advertising signs, horse drawn-vehicles, an iron lung and much more besides !
Friends will gather in the Dainty Dinah for seasonal mince pies. There will be a chance to meet the Friends' Chair, John Grundy, and the President of the Friends Dr. Frank Atkinson as well as members of the Friends' Board of Directors and other Friends.
During the afternoon long service diplomas will be presented to Friend volunteers.
Weather permitting, we may be able to take a guided walk around the 1820's area of the site and of course we will be able to soak up the Christmas atmosphere at Beamish.
Please remember to dress warmly, and wear stout shoes, as it can be cold, even indoors, at Beamish in December.
And How it Went.
We had a Friends' Christmas Treat in December. If you were there you will know all about it. If you weren't, for whatever reason, let me tell you that we gratefully toasted all of our absent Friends in an orgy of Beamish sherry.
I say "gratefully" because the event would have been a touch overcrowded if all 1500 of us had turned up together. The Dainty Dinah was a fine venue for those who were able to join us but it would have complained bitterly if everybody had come.
In my opinion this treat fell into the category of treats which live up to their name. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. There was brilliant sunshine and a hard frost. The water on the horse troughs was frozen solid and the grass everywhere was white with frost.
Every building, every enamel sign, every cobble gleamed beautifully. There can be no better way and no better time of year to see Beamish. It looked wonderful and it was particularly delightful to see it in the company of so many Friends who greeted each other and treated each other as if they were, well, old friends.
We felt like a group, if you see what I mean. People chatted and shared memories and were given privileged and expert access to various parts of the site.
The various tours that were available ended in the Museum store where there was yet another bacchanalia of punch and cups of tea and our president and former chairman, the redoubtable and ever popular Frank Atkinson, handed out long service certificates to Friends who have been on the job for more years than you can shake a stick at.
Some of the dedication has been extraordinary. I'm sure I noticed on our Director of Projects, Robert's certificate, that he has been a volunteer at the museum for 36 years. That's amazing isn't it but there were others not far behind.
Colin and Tommy spring to mind. Such people need saluting. I'm saluting them even as I type, which isn't as easy as it sounds.
When I left, the weather was still so lovely that I decided to walk right round the site before getting back to my car. The other visitors were still sloshing back the punch in a deplorable manner and all the other punters (the non-Friends) seemed to have disappeared, so I had Beamish to myself.
Let me tell you that it was a wonderful experience. It was totally convincing as a historic landscape. I was transported to the past to such an extent that when a plane suddenly flew over my head I got a real shock.
John Grundy
Chair of Friends of Beamish.
Example 2. New Friends Evening.
In Late October we held a New Friends Evening, when we invited all new Friends to see some of the work done by the Friend volunteers and invited them to volunteer too. Several people took up the offer and are now in the process of getting involved.
Example 3. Away for the Day.
Five volunteers took part in Family Day and nine took part in Make a Difference Day. Help on these occasions, was requested by Megan Hiles, the Museum's Placement Coordinator. We also had a team of volunteers out in Durham City for the Christmas Forum.
Our team was on Palace Green with some bicycles and the street organ. Although it is always cold, it is a good event for publicising The Friends and Museum.