Young Friends Cranbrook & Tunbridge Wells Report: February 24th, 2024
After an initial meeting to find out about her workplace, Heather Stracey, UK Young Friends ambassador and Senior Collections Officer at The Amelia Scott (The Amelia), arranged to meet Naïma Sagna, WFFM Young Friends Coordinator, the following morning. This time, they were off to Cranbrook, Kent, a 30-minute drive from Royal Tunbridge Wells, to visit Cranbrook Museum, with whom The Amelia team regularly collaborate with, particularly on object loans.
Welcomed on arrival by Mike Huxley, Curator of Cranbrook Museum, the two Young Friends delegates were given a guided tour of the galleries, and were told about the Museum’s history, which celebrated its 50th anniversary on the 17th of June 2023, alongside some sixty guests in the presence of the Mayor of Tunbridge Wells and the Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Kent.
What makes this museum unique? It is run entirely by volunteers.
A team of twenty-two volunteers are responsible for the day-to-day running of the Museum; five are in charge of the Archive, website, and donation process, and another five look after the garden. Temporary exhibitions are organised three times a year, and the permanent galleries highlight the history of Cranbrook. These include a series of pictures painted between 1850 and 1890 by the Cranbrook Colony of artists. These artists came from London to Cranbrook to paint rural scenes. There is also an entire room containing the immense ornithological collection of Boyd Alexander (1873-1910), a bird-loving officer who brought dozens of birds back from his explorations in Kent and Sussex.
In addition to hosting and maintaining Cranbrook Museum, the History Society of Cranbrook also organises lectures and, each summer, three visits with historical themes, to enable its members to discover other museums.
Back at The Amelia, another remarkable project awaited Naïma at Tunbridge Wells: a presentation on 3D digitisation projects, using technology that is at the cutting edge of what is currently being developed in museums in the UK.
Heather took the time to introduce Naïma to her colleagues Matthew Simpson, Collections Officer, supervising the 3D projects, and Richard Peretti, Digitisation Consultant, to find out more about their studio and their current projects: started seven months ago, this is a major long-term investment to facilitate access for as many people as possible, from children to scientists. Several hundred objects have already been digitised, and there are thousands more in the collections. The digitisation technique, which Matthew and Richard have mastered perfectly, enables them to reproduce the texture (leather, metal, wood, etc.) of each object by hand, and then list them on the Sketchfab.com platform.
This second and final day by Heather Stracey's side therefore saw a number of facets of intergenerational synergy between voluntary work and professional commitment: a true testament to the richness and vitality of the initiatives and projects that exist in Cranbrook and Tunbridge Wells, and a very promising one for the future development of the Young Friends of Museums network in the UK.
