A Change of Season

Our return after the summer has been a busy one with September full of community engagement events. We’re always happy to talk to people about our project, looking for new ways to bring interest and support to our plans.

With Heritage Open Days this month, we decided on two events which would sit within the suggested theme of Architecture.

The first was a junk modelling session for children to ‘rebuild the town hall’. The idea was for them to be dropped off and for a local art teacher to run a fun, creative session.

Unfortunately we had to cancel the event due to very low booking numbers. This was really disappointing for all involved but we’ll be picking over it in our Evaluation report to learn some lessons and try again later.

In terms of what went wrong? It may have been poor timing of advertising (during summer holidays) and of the session itself (Saturday mornings are busy with clubs); we’re unknown to parents (the challenge of developing a new audience) and perhaps the concept could have been more fun.

Our second event for Heritage Open Days was much more successful. A Walking Tour of 19th Century Bourne which we repeated on consecutive Sunday afternoons and which sold out both times.

We were very lucky to have our amazing volunteer and history enthusiast Malcolm Scriven to lead the tour and share interesting stories of central Bourne.

There is another Heritage Fund project within the town at Wake House and due to our venue being closed, they invited us to use some space within the building to share our story with visitors.

We’re grateful for the offer and were able to talk with a steady stream of visitors through the day.