REDDITCH Local History Museum has received a bumper £22,500 grant to aid its work to take the history of the town out into the community.

The museum, which officially opened last November, has been awarded the cash from the organisation ArtFund_.

The funding will be used to improve the public’s access to local history and to reach groups who do not normally get involved with local history.

Derek Coombes, museum trustee, said: “The demographics of groups we wish to target are age and ethnicity. 

“Age because getting younger people involved in local history improves the support for its retention as time passes and ethnicity because the migration of ethnic and minority groups into Redditch over the generations has significantly helped to create the multi-cultural community we have today.”

The team at the museum have set ambitious plans to use blogs and streaming to reach younger audiences as well as developing a ‘virtual museum’ to make their archives accessible online so disabled people enjoy the museum.

They also want to reach out to schools and link with the wider Redditch community through events.

The team are now working to link up with other organisations in Redditch to help plan future activities.

To help with their goals, they are on the lookout for more volunteers to make their ambitions a reality.

Derek said: “The first three months operation of the museum have brought a very positive response and much encouragement from our visitors that what we have done so far is beneficial to the town.

“So we are also repeating our appeals for individual to step forward a volunteer to help.

“We constantly hear the message of the importance of remembering and promoting local history, we need people to take the next step and put that desire into practice.”

To get involved email contact@rlhm.online