Colne Valley Museum is a wholly volunteer run museum of the textile industry based in Golcar, a village on the outskirts of Huddersfield.

They have been running successfully for over 40 years serving their community and delivering a renowned schools education programme.

They are working hard to put together stage 2 of a major lottery bid which will make a big change in the development of the museum.

The Museum Development team have been regularly involved in helping them with this following a smaller successful bid a few years ago.

Currently, the museum’s IT infrastructure consists of a telephone, answering machine and a stand alone. So York Museums Trust lent some of former IT Manager Symon Ayland’s time to go over and visit the museum and produce a short report and recommendations which will go to help bring very welcome funding to enable a great small museum to continue to grow and develop.

Symon commented:

“It was a great opportunity to connect with a regional museum and help steer them in the right direction. IT consultancy doesn’t come cheap and for a relatively small museum like Colne Valley, access to such advice hopefully came in useful.

“Not only that, but it gave me the chance to emerge from the ‘Digital Dungeon’ and discover a new corner of God’s own county. The visit brought about a new perspective to my own work and got me thinking about how York Museums Trust could benefit from this and other relationships with institutions in the region.”

Museum Development Yorkshire are the Arts Council funded Museum Development Team hosted by York Museums Trust. The team are keen to benefit the Trust and the region’s museums through sharing expertise – find out more on our website.

Alan Bentley, Museum Development Officer