Dear colleague

Here is a round-up of this week’s County museum news:

1. SHARE have announced the ACE ‘Ready to Borrow’ small capital grants scheme which is intended to help museums make improvements to security etc to allow them to borrow items from the National Museums and Major Partner Museums. SHARE are planning various forms of support for museums considering applying, but in the meantime I’d be very keen to hear from you if you are thinking of applying. There will be two rounds, the first opening in June, closing in September, awarded in October, plus another one in early 2017 awarding around Easter. Further details are expected very shortly.
2. The Collections Trust have a conference on digitisation of collections in London on 29 September, details at event webpage.
3. The Cambridge Botanic Gardens are advertising for an Education Officer on a one-year contract at http://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/10615/, closing date 17 July.
4. Last Thursday evening saw the celebration of museum volunteers at this year’s SHARE Volunteer Awards at the Fitzwilliam Museum. It was a great event and I wish to congratulate all those nominated from Cambridgeshire museums: Adrain Wright and Jane Williamson from the Farmland Museum; The ‘Portals of the World’ volunteers** from the Fitzwilliam; Philip Stephenson from the Fitzwilliam; The ‘Circuit Cambs’ Team from Kettle’s Yard; the front of house volunteers from the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology; Michael Loy*from the Museum of Classical Archaeology; Leslie Lawrence and David Stubbings from the Cambridge Museum of Technology; Alex Tomkins* from the Zoology Museum; the geology volunteers team from Peterborough Museum; Barbara Cadge from the Polar Museum; Jean Pegg* from Ramsey Rural Museum; Susan Miller from the University of Cambridge Museums; Lorena Bushell from the Whipple, and Barbara Gale from Whittlesey Museum. I have marked the winners in their categories with * and the highly commended with **.
5. Please note that the Cambridge Museums Forum is at Whittlesey Museum on 6 July at 2pm.
6. Round 12 of the Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund is re-open for applications, deadline 7 September. See http://www.museumsassociation.org/collections/18022011-esmee-fairbairn-collections-fund.
7. The MiC sponsored ‘Memories in the Community’ project exhibition is now at the Cambridge Museum of Technology, moving to Ramsey Rural Museum on 4 August.