Lottery money for museum

The Museum is to receive 9,242 Lottery funding which is its third award from a national source - the first was 38,720 from BIFFA and there was also 12,749 Prism Grant.

John Betts, head of fundraising for the Society of Bexhill Museums, applied for the Lottery's Awards For All support back in August and made the announcement this week that the bid was successful.

He said: "It is not a huge amount of money but it is a Lottery award under the heading Awards For All.

"It has been very gratifying."

The exhibition will be launched next summer in the new museum and will last six months, exploring the changing roles and status of women in Britain from 1900-1970.

John said: "There will be five themes running through the exhibition - suffragettes, education, employment, equality and domestic issues. The main areas of material culture to be exhibited will be dress and domestic social history items from the period in review."

The exhibition will also encompass local education and packs exploring the themes will be made available to tie in with the national curriculum key stages. The curator and education officer will visit schools and adult groups to give talks, and a variety of events will be held, including re-enactment of suffragette history which will take place at the society's coffee mornings at Parkhurst Hall in Parkhurst Road, held on the first Thursday of each month.

The public will also have access to the exhibition via the website and enhanced online resources will be made available - visit www.bexhill-museum.co.uk for information or telephone 01424 787950.

John commented of the announcement: "Awards For All is one of the fastest-moving Lottery funding sections - it is for small applications really.

"The exhibition is something we have never tried for, or gone for, before - it is a new venture. We have always had temporary exhibitions but this is the first time we have gone for this format, to have something that goes beyond the museum and Bexhill.

"We have always held temporary exhibitions which usually last two or three months. But this will be the first like this and we wanted something special for the new museum.

"What it shows, with these three outside lots of funding, is that Bexhill Museum has a status now. Obviously we have had other money and locally we have had considerable funding these are national funding organisations...We are up there in a way with the DLWP with funding because the DLWP had BIFFA funding too. It shows we have a certain significance. It is gratifying."