Conference celebrates volunteers’ achievements and Shropshire’s heritage

A special event takes place at Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury on Saturday 28 February to celebrate the achievements of a volunteering project, and the heritage of Shropshire.

The ‘Vital Volunteering’ conference is being presented by the Volunteering for Shropshire’s Heritage project, which is based within Shropshire Council’s archives and museums teams.

The project, which has run for the past three years, has been funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and has seen over 400 new volunteers variously contribute their time, effort and skills to making Shropshire’s heritage more accessible to the public.

The conference’s roster of speakers includes representatives from the Association of Independent Museums, The National Archives, and Shropshire Council’s archives and museums teams. Of particular interest will be the section of the programme where volunteers from the project will share their experiences of working on various historic collections.

Michael Turner, Project Manager for the Volunteering for Shropshire’s Heritage project, said,

“The Vital Volunteering conference comes at the end of a fantastic project that shows just how much people are committed to the county and its heritage. Some people have given a small amount of their time to subjects that are of particular interest to them, while others have covered a range of themes, working with us for two or three days a week over the last three years.

“Artefacts and archives that have been the subject of volunteer work have included Shrewsbury and Much Wenlock court papers from the 1600s and workshop tools from the late 1800s, right through to photographs, pamphlets and sales catalogues from the early part of the 20th century.”

Tina Woodward, Shropshire Council’s Deputy Cabinet member for visitor economy, will open the conference. She said:

“In a county with as rich a heritage as ours, the Vital Volunteering conference will appeal to anyone who has an interest in Shropshire’s development through time and is thinking of getting involved in capturing information about that history for the future.”

For further details see www.shropshirearchives.org.uk, email archives@shropshire.gov.uk or phone 01743 255350.