Poetry challenge as museum looks ahead
Arundel Museum is offering a poetry competition for school children – one of the ways it aims to keep in touch during the shutdown. Museum chairman Malcolm Farquharson said: “The theme is nature which can include poems about birds or animals. They could be funny, rhyming, haikus, acrostic and more. The two age categories are five to eightyear-olds and nine to 11-yearolds. All the children need to do is email their poem to arundelpoetrycompetition@ gmail.com along with their name and age category to which they belong.” The closing date for the competition is May 5. The poems will be judged by Sandra Saer, Arundel-based writer and publisher. The first prize will be a £10 voucher for the Arundel
Museum gift shop where children’s toys and books are available, as well as two books – a copy of Sir Patrick Moore’s poetry book Within The Glade: Poems for Children – of All Ages, which is published by Sandra’s SMH books, plus a copy of Star Sandwiches And Moon Custard, written by Sandra for her own four children. The five runnersup will receive £5 vouchers for the Arundel Museum shop. The winning entries will be posted on the museum Facebook and website. Malcolm said he would be looking to run other competitions as well – all part of helping to keep the museum in people’s minds. “The museum is closed until the end of June, and we will review the decision at the start of June. We have got one full-time employee and one part-time, and they are both on furlough until the end of June. We are just going to have to see what happens. “We are writing off for grants, just to keep going. We will run out of money by the end of the year. We were very lucky to have a bequest last year which has helped us, but certainly we will run out of money if we can’t open our doors by the end of the year.” The point is that there are still costs – even to being shut: “You have got the rates and insurance and computer services to pay, and I am sure that that is the same for all museums. The money is just leaking away at the moment. But we are lucky in that we have got a bit of a cushion for a while. We had the bequest, and one of our lovely, lovely volunteers gave us £3,000 the other day and wants to remain anonymous. Another one gave us £1,000 so we are able to struggle on.” Fortunately, there are a couple of little streams of income: “One of them is the cash machine, and we have also got a thing called the 100 Club. People put money in and every quarter we draw prizes… and that ticks over and also we have had the gifts.” But as Malcolm says, otherwise, money is ‘leaking away’. Sadly, there are also social implications to the closure. The museum is very much missed as a key meeting place. “There are 90-odd volunteers, and for a lot of them the museum really is a community hub, and they enjoy going there. We have a meeting every Wednesday morning and about 30 people turn up. We have a coffee and a chat, and they are all good friends. It is lovely for them to get together and I think people are missing that. “There are people that I ring around every couple of days just to make sure that they are OK, and they all tell me they are missing the chance to meet up with their friends. But it will come. We will be open again. It is just a matter of time.”