The cleaning and sorting session we had last Friday, April 5^th, was fantastic, and the Museum looks so much better now than it has done for some time. Thank you to everyone who was involved. It really has made a difference, and it was lovely to see the Museum come to life with volunteers and Trustees busy doing things. There is still a lot to be done to nurture our museum back to health, but it feels like a positive start.

Here are a few things we achieved:

Several of the long case clocks have been moved from in front of the window in the Nursery to different rooms in the Museum. The next stage is to get them working, if possible, and decide where they will look best.
The impressive Nursery window is the focus of the room again and can be appreciated as the lovely window it is. The next stage is to carefully clean the window.
The front windows downstairs are clean inside and out – next time you’re passing have a look through!
The imposing front door has also been cleaned of dust and cobwebs and looks the part.
The work room can be used as a workroom again and has tables and chairs in it and the kitchen for volunteers is clean and tidy.
Dust and forgotten bits of rubbish have been removed.
The task of sorting through and organising some of the essential Museum paperwork has been started.
Old display boards have been sorted and neatly stacked.
Items waiting to be sorted are labelled and stored on shelves or in boxes.
The surface area round the till has been cleared and cleaned.
Three large bin liners of rubbish were removed.

As well as being cleaned, our Museum was open to the public and we had over 50 visitors in from all over the country - and other countries too. Desk volunteers kept a tally and encouraged people to sign our new Visitors' Book which after just one day has some great feedback and makes interesting reading. Visitors also gave us valuable donations – maintaining the museum is expensive and every penny helps.

Thanks to those who got in touch to say you couldn't be involved this time but will help in future. The next opportunity will be Friday April 12^th from 10.30 until 4pm. We would love to be able to open the Museum more often and this is our aim, but to do this we need a bank of volunteers. April 12^th is the first of several days planned to encourage volunteers and also engage people and find out what people think.

The next scheduled opening day after April 12^th will be Friday April 19^th again from 10.30 until 4pm. The Museum will also be open to the public on both days as donations are vital to our survival so we will need people to be on the front desk to welcome visitors and explain a little about the Museum. There will be a crib sheet available if you need it! Do let us know if you can help.

Totnes Museum updates

Opening Fridays!

April 19th - Museum open 10.30am to 4.00pm

April 12th Volunteer Day update

April 5th Museum cleaning update