What an amazing year 2025 has been. Our volunteers have been incredible; they have emptied the Museum. Our vast Collection and Library are being cleaned, conserved, catalogued, digitised and safely stored or put on display in our exhibitions or local history library at Ayscoughfee Hall Museum, or on loan elsewhere. The fantastic Collections, Conservation and Library teams, fuelled by coffee, cake and biscuits, have and are still working through this at Broadgate House.
At Ayscoughfee, our stewards are on hand to chat with visitors and promote our Society. Other volunteers are researching the history of Spalding to create a Victoria County History volume, supported by the Lincoln Record Society and the University of Lincoln.
We have also been helped during the year by six Heritage Associates. This project has provided hands-on experience for newly qualified heritage professionals and several months of full-time help for SGS. This project is a first in the museum world and is funded by the South & East Lincolnshire Councils Partnership’s (SELCP) Arts Council National Portfolio grant (NPO). Arts Council and SELCP would like to see this expanded to other museums.
Dustin Frazier Wood, who has volunteered and was an SGS trustee for years, has this year been employed part-time by SGS as Head of Collections and Operations. His knowledge of museums, heritage and our collection and library is invaluable to us. Working together with Eleanor Chadd, our full-time Collections and Facilities Officer, we have a small but very knowledgeable staff team. At the end of the year, as part of our Heritage Fund grant, they were joined by Laura Fanthorpe, part-time Communications Officer. We have been fortunate to have these posts almost entirely grant-funded.
Our Trustees and Committee members too are all volunteers and their commitment and expertise last year was much needed as, together with Greenwoods (project managers) and Purcells (design team), they worked through the challenges of the MEND grant for the repairs of the Museum. At the same time, our grants team worked on the application and start up work for the National Lottery Heritage Fund Development grant towards the extension into the former Levertons / Business Centre site. We have been updating our numerous policies and improving our processes and governance. While we are out of our museum, our Accreditation is reviewed annually.
For 2026, all the above work continues as we work towards the re-opening of the 1911 museum building in spring 2027. The curatorial and collections team are already drawing up designs for the displays and exhibitions, with the conservation team ensuring that the items will be ready for use. We are fortunate to have been awarded a Reimagine Grant by Art Fund to support this work, which will also give opportunities for members, volunteers and young people to become involved in curating the museum.
During 2026 we will also be working through the National Lottery Heritage Fund Development grant work with consultants and a design team to put together the application, in spring 2027, for a National Lottery Heritage Fund Delivery grant which will be for around £4.5m towards the new extension with the activities and exhibitions that will be possible there, bringing all our current activities back to one site. We will need to find further funding to develop and staff this extension fully, and to enable us to not only enhance the activities and access to our collection for our members, but for us to open fully to the public, engaging people and schools with interesting exhibitions, courses, workshops and activities.
During 2026 we look forward to bringing you the usual activities and exhibition openings. We will also be asking you through surveys and by meeting up in person to help us develop the new extension and the future of SGS.
We look forward to seeing you at our events, but if you would like to join our merry volunteers even if it’s for only a couple of hours a week, email me on chairman@sgsoc.org.
By Petronella Keeling, Chairman of Spalding Gentlemen’s Society
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