Enid Porter Project

Bringing folk traditions to life in five Cambridgeshire villages

About the project…

The Enid Porter’s Folk Project researched and revived some of the best traditions of Cambridgeshire.

The project made use of the author’s collection of writings, owned by the Museum of Cambridge, as the inspiration and starting point to investigate some of Cambridgeshire’s historic past.

Bringing folk traditions back to the villages

The project was born from a recognition of the value of Miss Porter’s writings. Funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund enabled the project to raise public awareness of Miss Porter’s writings and their heritage value by:

• bringing the traditions back to some of the villages they are rooted in
• creating a permanent, easily-accessible, digital resource of the collection of folk-lore relating to the most culturally rich villages
• delivering a programme of targeted activities and events working with specific groups in five locations which feature prominently in Miss Porter’s writings.

Folk artists worked with school children

In particular, folk artists worked with school children in Wisbech, Swaffham Prior, Littleport, Whittlesford and Haddenham to revive and reenact the stories, poems, dance and song that school children a century before them would have enjoyed.  Performances took place in their localities and also at an end-of-project celebration in July 2014.

A film-maker / photographer captured the children’s workshops and performances and are available to view on Enid Porter Project | Bringing folk traditions to life in five Cambridgeshire villages – to ensure the legacy of Enid Porter continues to live on.

SWIM 2 – Strengthening the Workforce in Cambridgeshire Museums continued

Following the success of the SWIM project which ended in March 2016 (see ‘past projects’ below), MiC contributed £5,000 to a second phase of the project starting in October 2016 and ending in March 2018.

SWIM 2 built on the results of SWIM 1 as described in the evaluation report and followed the same basic approach. It was funded through the Arts Council England Museum Resilience Fund and involved 14 independent museum partners (there were 12 in SWIM 1), this time including the Museum of Cambridge and the Stained Glass Museum in Ely. The main objectives were once more to recruit and train volunteers and trustees but with a stronger focus on increasing the diversity of the recruits which was achieved to some degree. In total the project recruited 106 volunteers and 11 trustees and there were 15 training sessions attended by 176 people.
Read an evaluation of the project.

Memories in the Community
The Memories in the Community project was funded by HLF in 2015-2016.  Memories from elderly people living in their own homes were collected and from these the participating museums created personalised memory  which are now the property of the participants. The project was a wonderful collaboration between the museums, the County Council and Care Network Cambridgeshire and all the participants. The project allowed museums to develop fruitful new links with the County Council’s adult social care and volunteers in the care sector who had never had any previous working relationships. It captured the fascinating memories of many older people from around the County and the memory boxes are now making a real difference to their happiness and wellbeing.
Find out more about the project on the Memories in the Community blog.
Read an evaluation of the project.

Past Projects

Strengthening the Workforce in Cambridgeshire Museums
Strengthening the Workforce in Cambridgeshire Museums (SWIM) was a sustainability scheme for independent museums, which ran from April 2015 to March 2016. It’s main objective was to recruit and train volunteers and trustees for 12 museums across Cambridgeshire. The project, and employed two Museum Volunteer Co-ordinators.

Ranging from local history museums, to specialist collections, the group of museums included Chatteris, Ely, Prickwillow, March and District, Whittlesey, Wisbech, Burwell, The Cromwell, Denny Abbey and Farmland, Nene Valley Railway, St Neots, and Ramsey Rural. Each museum aimed to diversify their workforce to better reflect the community it serves. SWIM was funded by the Arts Council England Museums Resilience Fund, with partnership funding from Museums in Cambridgeshire.
Read an evaluation of the project.

Wide Skies
Nine Cambridgeshire Museums worked together to create learning programmes for local communities based on their collections, recruiting and training volunteers, creating printed resources and working with community groups and schools. This project was supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Renaissance East of England.
Read an evaluation of the project.

Key Memories
Five museums from each of the Cambridgeshire districts worked with care partners to deliver reminiscence workshops for older people, and to develop resources that can be used by day care centres and residential homes. This project was supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Renaissance East of England.
Read an evaluation of the project.