Volunteers are vital for keeping the area’s past alive

The new gallery will be a tribute to Mansfield industry of old and a look at what industry the town now has. From Mansfield Brewery to the pits, it’ll have all sorts of stories, objects, sounds and photos to preserve this important part of the town’s heritage, writes Sally Evans - Community Particptaion Officer at Mansfield Museum

I’ve not lived in Mansfield for long but I’ve grown very fond of the town.

It’s helped that I’m working at the Museum. I get to see all kinds of interesting objects and photos from Mansfield’s history.

My current favourite is our huge collection of tins made by Metal Box – some of the designs are amazing!

Though I do wish some of the Quality Street tins still had sweets in!

My job is to recruit and train volunteers to help us with all sorts of different jobs, relating to this new gallery.

We need people to take photos of objects, help with research, put the museum catalogues onto computer, run outreach events in the community, make the tea at special events and many, many other things!

One of our volunteers is currently cleaning some old Metal Box artwork.

Another has been helping with our Art Beat workshops.

A recent recruit did her first outreach event at a care home a few weeks ago.

Volunteers are very important to us at the Museum. We’re a small team and having the assistance of extra people means we can offer more to our visitors. We’re especially excited about making our archive available to view online – but it needs lots of volunteer help to achieve it.

Whether you’re available for just a month or a day every week, your time will be appreciated and you will gain something from your time with us.

If you’re interested in learning new skills, meeting new people and putting something back in to the community; we’re the place for you!

Over the coming months, I’ll be keeping you all up to date with what our volunteers are getting up to. You’ll get to read about some of our most fascinating items and hear from volunteers about why they love volunteering at the Museum.

If you’re interested in volunteering, please visit http://www.mansfield.gov.uk/museum/volunteers/index.htm and download a Volunteer Pack.

Alternatively, you can email me on [email protected] for more information.