Museum Update

The formal group, with the Mayor are our chairman Andrew Wakefield, our archivist marguerite Lee Delisle and Meg Thomas who created the new exhibition [Full image 51.2kb]

June was a busy month for us. We had arranged a private view for the members and volunteers on 6th June to see how the new exhibition was coming along. Needless to say, it turned into a recruiting exercise for the 5 days left before our grand re-opening!

The Mayor and Meg Thomas [Full image 59.0kb]

Thanks to the hard work and drive of Meg Thomas, and her team, all was finished in time.

However, we were saddened to hear in this week of the sudden death of Kevin Leyden, brother of Ray, and (as you can see from his obituary printed below) not just a Founder member of the Museum, but a creator. We had been so pleased that he had come to out SIR opening last year, and were looking forward to seeing him again for the reopening this year. Sadly, this also meant that Ray could not be with us on our big day.

The reopening on the 12th June followed the plan developed for the SIR exhibition in 2003. Guests were given a drink from the outside bar on the way in (thanks to Jeanne Thomas and Ellie for their manning of this essential function) and had the opportunity to wander around, view the new exhibits, and socialise. We were pleased to welcome the mayor of Merton, Cllr Margaret Brierly, who had kindly agreed to open the exhibition by lighting up the Wandle Stained Glass. Meg Thomas said a few words about her approach to the new exhibition, and her determination that this would present the work of the Museum in context, and in a way which would enable regular updating and adjustment to fit the needs of our community. Our Chairman Andrew Wakefield, introduced her, and then our Mayor.

Our MP, Siobhan McDonagh and Meg Thomas [Full image 49.8kb]

It was a pleasure to be able to welcome our MP, Siobhain McDonagh, who arrived in time for the speeches, and had time to share with us afterwards, together with many local councillors and friends of the museum.

Later in June we manned a stall at the Wimbledon Village fair, as noted in Newsdesk, and we make no apology for printing here a couple of photos showing our stall in situ, and our Chairman adding his weight to the proceedings.

Michael, our Webbo, has worked hard to render our new exhibition in electronic form, and we hope you have all had a chance to see the results of this on the website. It is particularly nice to be reproducing the text of the exhibits electronically now, to enable the Museum's reach to become world wide. This has been reflected in a steady stream of email requests for information.

In due course we hope to fulfill Monty's ambition for us - to have our information available in layers, the headlines in the exhibitions, and then increasingly more detailed levels available for those who are interested in delving deeper.

Later in July and August we opened the Museum for two special visits, the latter being from a German TV company, who were making a program about the recovery of industrial rivers and their return to clean water and an acceptable part of the modern environment. Meg Thomas and Mary Hart were both interviewed. We hope to see the finished product in due course. Both visits resulted in generous donations to our funds.

The stall at Wimbledon, Meg and Mary in charge [Full image 56.1kb]

Andrew Wakefield at the Wimbledon Village Fair [Full image 49.6kb]

We are on camera, again [Full image 32.6kb]

Jeanne Thomas and John Hawkes, wearing the Wandle Valley Festival T-Shirts, listening to the speeches with our MP and others [Full image 30.6kb]

Ed. Aug 2004