SCARBOROUGH MARITIME HERITAGE CENTRE NEWS - 2011

CHARITY STATUS - After a lot of hard work by our secretary, Faith Young, the SMHC has now been granted charitable status which opens up a whole new raft of funding opportunities and of course the chance to get some tax back from the government! Our charity registration number is 1144532. For any donations given we can now claim back the 20% tax taken by the government on your money using the Giftaid scheme.

EDUCATION OUTREACH - After 6 months of hard work and preparation our education outreach “Fish Box” has been delivered to the Scarborough Museums’ Trust. They will now promote the box to schools throughout the borough. Moments after its arrival it was booked out to St Peter’s School in Northstead. SMHC volunteers accompanied the box that is full of educational material based on our maritime fishing heritage. Austen Sleightholme did the joinery work, Tony East produced a scale model trawler net and Nykhol Grant did the design work on the teachers’ information pack. The box also contains fishermen and women’s’ clothing, a model coble and trawler plus photographs and “flashcards” for use by children ages 4 to 8.

FUNDING NEWS - Good news as we have now secured the rent for 2011-2012 mainly by a grant from the “Two Communities Fund” and a £1000 donation by local supporter Maureen Robinson. We are also applying for funding from the Voice Your Choice project and continue to progress with our HLF bid. Letters of support for this have been received from the leader of Scarborough council, Tom Fox, and the cabinet member for tourism & culture, David Jeffels, for our Heritage Lottery Fund bid to create some maritime heritage information boards around the harbour.

FISH & SHIPS FUNDRAISER - To celebrate our 2nd anniversary we took part in a ‘fish and ships’ fundraising supper at Café 55 on Eastborough. Pam Barton organized the event and the funds were shared between the SMHC and the Rainbow Centre, which works with people in difficulty. The event took place over 2 nights with live music, poetry, sea shanties and comedy.

ACTIVITY REPORT NOV 2011 - Six volunteers attended training events put on by the Museums’ Trust in connection with the “Fears, Foes and Faeries” exhibition opening at the art gallery in March 2012. The volunteers have been carrying out oral history recordings of local fishermen and women about their superstitions. University of Hull IT students will form these into interactive displays and a professional designer will bring the whole exhibition to life along with artifacts from the museum’s collection.

SMHC chairman, Mark Vesey, attended the 4th National Maritime Heritage Forum in Chatham Dockyard. The topic for the conference was the regeneration of coastal towns and communities through maritime heritage. A study by the Association of Independent Museums, AIM, found that maritime heritage contributes over £100 million to the UK economy, bringing in 8 million visitors a year and employing 2300 people. 5000 volunteers contribute ‘in kind’ hours equating to a value of over half a million pounds.

Thanks go to all the people who have donated items recently including a portable ship’s foghorn, a map of Rockly Bay, Scarborough, Trinidad & Tobago. To Charles Braithwaite for bringing in photos and research information about the history of the development of the harbour.

Letters of thanks and praise have come from people who have made family or local history enquires at our Centre. John Middleditch received information about Margaret Bendelow and Pete Maslen on the Brilliant Star. He said “Many thanks. I was very impressed with the quick, efficient and kind response by the Maritime Centre”. Ted & Jenny Woodall sent a postcard from Wales expressing thanks for our help with their family tree saying “You are doing a great job, good luck”. Suzanne Middleton (nee Deane) and members of her family visited the SMHC as she is a descendant of John Deane. He was probably the best-known Scarborough mariner and hero of the 18th century. See the John Deane website for his story or a recent article in the Evening News.

SMHC'S BIG CATCH - Despite the damp weather visitors poured in to see the giant life-size tunny fish strung up in the exhibition tent at this year's Seafest event. The biggest tunny fish ever caught in UK waters weighed 851 lbs, was over 8 feet long and was landed in Scarborough. Members of the public, including the mayor and mayoress of Scarborough, enjoyed posing with the model and genuine tunny rod in hand. The fish were caught as big game sport by the rich and famous during the 1930s to 1950s after which the tunny disappeared along with the herrings they fed on. The tunny fish exhibition was complemented by the story of huge herring catches as Scarborough was once the fifth largest herring port in the country. Visitors also enjoyed the Titanic exhibition and a host of other maritime artefacts and information. Thanks go to all the volunteers who gave up their valued weekend to help with the exhibition.

CAN YOU HELP? - The SMHC is starting a research project to look into the history of the old buildings along Sandside and the harbour. If you have any photographs, maps, deeds or information or would be interested in helping then please contact us asap.

ACTIVITY REPORT SEPTEMBER 2011 - SMHC volunteer, John Rushton, gave talks to the Scarborough branch of the Merchant Navy Association and the Fylingdales local history society. He also led a guided walk around the harbour and old town area for the Scarborough Forum for Tourism. SMHC vice-chair, Lindy Rowley, gave a talk to the Burniston & Cloughton W.I..

Work experience schoolboy, Dean Longshaw, spent a week working at our Centre learning how volunteers digitize the archives, prepare exhibitions and greet visitors to the Centre. He also carried out some data analysis creating a spread sheet using our guest book to discover where most of our visitors come from. Most visitors came from: - Scarborough, Sheffield, Leeds, Nottingham, Hull, York, Doncaster, Manchester and London. International visitors came from: - Australia, Canada, Norway, South Africa, Europe, Malaysia and Mauritius.

Thanks go to all the people who have donated items to the SMHC including Wendy Brockwell who donated two miniature models of fisher lasses, to Stew Ball who donated a P&O lifejacket and to Jim Dungey who gave a mariner's chart.

FUNDING NEWS SEPTEMBER 2011 - SMHC volunteers are still working on the application process for charitable status registration and a new Heritage Lottery Fund bid. Our aim is to create some maritime heritage information boards around the harbour along with a leaflet and guide book for tourists. SMHC will be working closely with local groups, the council and some schools to achieve this project.

Our rent bill is due in November and we still need to raise over 3000 pounds. Please help us in any way that you can? Thank you.

SMHC WEBSITE voted 'Best overall' for fishing family history research in BBC TV's 'Who do you think you are magazine' - March 2011.

BIG THANK YOU AWARD - For the second year running the SMHC and several of its volunteers won the mayor's Big Thank You Award for Artistic and cultural contributions to the town.

ACTIVITY REPORT FEBRUARY 2011 - SMHC volunteers put on four puppet shows to packed audiences over the Coastival festival weekend. Children from the Friarage School made the puppets which represented different historical characters from Scarborough's past.

Scarborough's "Coronia" has been saved from receivership by local MP Robert Goodwill who purchased the boat. We look forward to seeing her on the move again this summer.

SMHC committee members had a very productive meeting at the Heritage Lottery Fund office in Leeds. HLF staff said we have a valuable collection and a worthy project. They have encouraged us to apply for a 50,000 pounds grant to continue the project for the next few years and gain more project experience before applying for the up to 1 million pounds bid.

SMHC committee members also had productive talks with Scarborough Council staff looking at identifying a permanent site for the maritime heritage Centre in the future. One option may be a new-build site over-looking the outer harbour.

Donations and loans of maritime memorabilia continue to roll in with some amazing photographs, antique books, models and artefacts being given during the past few months.

Our website continues to get over 4000 visitors a week with more articles and improvements being added all the time.

SMHC volunteers created a decorative maritime panel with gansey patterns, rope and knot work on. The panel went on display at the Woodend Creative Industries Centre and forms part of an exhibition now on a tour of quilting and sewing groups around the UK.

During the past year we have had over 100 requests for information, by email or in person, from people researching their family history or a maritime connection. Our archive team have indexed over 2000 files of local topic information and they have been entered on a searchable database for easy access. Over 20,000 maritime photographs have now been catalogued and sorted into boat registration order. The huge task of digitising them all has just begun.

FIRST BIRTHDAY A GREAT SUCCESS - On Saturday 13th November 2010 the SMHC celebrated its first birthday with wine, cake and merriment. SMHC chairman, Martin Johnson, proposed a vote of thanks to all the volunteers and supporters who have made it possible. Vice chair, Lindy Rowley, cut the cake and many visitors enjoyed a pleasant couple of hours celebrating our great success. Nearly 1000 people have signed the guest book during the year and for every one that signs another does not meaning we have had at least 2000 visitors. Not bad for a heritage Centre that can only take 6 people at a time! Our thanks go out to everyone who has supported the project over the last year and we all look forward to a bright future in 2011. "It was a nice evening and I much appreciate both your having laid on such a lovely spread, and for starting such a splendid little archive that has given me" and hundreds of others so much pleasure. Thank you, Eden Blyth.

ARK ROYAL TO BE SOLD - The newspaper "Portsmouth Today" reported on the 21st of October that the HMS Ark Royal is more likely to be sold as scrap than as a ship. They say that the navy's flagship of the fleet will soon be decommissioned after the government announcement. The Ministry of Defence expects the 32-year-old ship will attract more attention from breakers yards than from foreign navies or commercial companies, given its age. A source is quoted as saying: 'As with all ships deemed to be surplus to requirements, HMS Ark Royal will be put up for tender to see what interest there is. 'We don't know what interest might be out there but it looks likely it will come from recyclers.' The navy's second carrier, HMS Illustrious, is also under threat following the defence review. The Queen will still be visiting the Ark Royal to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the commissioning of the fleet flagship. Anyone fancy a floating maritime heritage centre?

FUNDING NEWS 2010 - SMHC volunteer, Mohammed Yogi, raised over seventy pounds for the Centre by walking nearly 80 miles along the coast to coast path. SMHC volunteers have given talks to staff at Whitby Seafoods, the Friends of Scarborough Library and the Hunmanby History Society raising a total of three hundred and forty pounds. Colin Coupland, Max Payne and Tony East are all donating the profits from the sale of their publications to the SMHC.

36 Eastborough, Scarborough, YO11 1NJ. Tel 01723 369361.

Email: scarboroughmaritime@yahoo.com

SMHC is a company limited by guarantee under the Companies Act 1985 &1989 and a registered charity number 1144532