What the heck is a lek?
Males great bustards perform spectacular courtship displays, gathering at a ‘lek’ or small display ground to try to impress the females.
Wessex Museums has been successful in its bid to extend the partnership’s current National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) status until 2026.
This means we will receive £1.3 million from the Arts Council over three years from 2023-26, which includes extra funding to welcome the three Swindon Museums into the partnership.
As of April 2023, our existing partnership of Dorset Museum, Poole Museum, The Salisbury Museum and Wiltshire Museum will be joined by Swindon Museum & Art Gallery, STEAM – Museum of the Great Western Railway and Lydiard House Museum.
Kristina Broughton, partnership manager, said:
“We are elated that the achievements of our pioneering collaborative approach have been recognised by the Arts Council, resulting in another three years of funding support.
“I’d like to thank all the staff, volunteers and supporters who have worked so hard to make Wessex Museums such a positive and dynamic partnership. It will be incredibly exciting to extend our thriving collaboration to three more museums and together continue to connect with our communities.”
The funding will support a range of innovative projects to improve collections, engage underserved audiences and deliver exciting events and exhibitions, as well as champion equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) and environmental sustainability.
Gill Donnell of the Wessex Museums Trust board added:
“Glyn Coy and I are privileged to be co-chairs of the board and are thrilled that the hard work and dedication of our colleagues across the partnership have been rewarded with a further three years of funding support from the Arts Council. We now look forward to continuing to build on the amazing collaboration that has been forged across Wessex and delivering even more exciting and ambitious projects for the benefit of our communities.”
The Arts Council is investing in 990 organisations for the next three years so that more people in more places can enjoy creativity and culture wherever they are.
Wessex Museums would like to extend the warmest welcome to colleagues from the three Swindon Museums who join our partnership from April 2023.
Based in the northernmost part of our region, the Swindon Museums are a good fit for Wessex Museums – they are similar in size and offer complementary strengths and collections.
Swindon Museums Manager, Frances Yeo said: “We are tremendously excited to be working collaboratively with Wessex Museums. The NPO funding will enable Swindon Museums to progress community engagement programmes, collections loans and ambitious joint exhibition programmes with our partner museums across the region.”
Images above: Lydiard House Museum (left); STEAM – Museum of the Great Western Railway (photo: Jack Boskett, features a locomotive on loan from the National Railway Museum).
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Males great bustards perform spectacular courtship displays, gathering at a ‘lek’ or small display ground to try to impress the females.
The great bustard has a dignified slow walk but tends to run when disturbed, rather than fly.
The hen-bird on display at The Salisbury Museum was one of the last great bustards to be eaten in the town!