The Historic Dockyard Chatham has been shortlisted for the Kids in Museums Family Friendly Museum Award From Home, it was announced today.
Kids in Museums has run a prestigious annual award for the past 15 years, recognising the most family friendly heritage sites in the UK. This year, the charity asked families and museums to vote for what they thought was the best online activity for families during lockdown. A panel of museum experts whittled down over 400 nominations to a shortlist of 26 museums.
The Historic Dockyard Chatham was recognised for its ‘Dockyard From Home’ campaign linked to the Arts Award Discover programme. Children were encouraged to follow weekly videos to make nautical themed crafts, including a pom pom Octopus, Jolly Roger flag and a juice carton Dazzle Ship. Each craft activity linked to a part of the Historic Dockyard’s history and children were encouraged to complete a weekly log book to document their activities.
Lynnette Crisp, Head of Marketing and Communication, Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust said:
We are thrilled to have been nominated for this prestigious award. Lockdown has been a challenge for us all and the closure of The Historic Dockyard to visitors has been difficult for both our staff and our visitors. Creating easy-to-follow, arts-based activities enabled us to engage with our visitors virtually, giving them the opportunity to recreate a little taste of Dockyard spirit in the comfort of their own home. In the absence of physical visits, the campaign also allowed us to continue fulfilling our important charitable objective of ‘learning.’ We have loved seeing everyone’s creations over the last few months. We have our fingers crossed for the awards announcement later in the year and wish our fellow nominees luck.
The Historic Dockyard Chatham is vying against four other museums in the Best Website Activity category.
Over the summer holidays, family judges will try out all the activities and their feedback will decide a winner and highly commended award for each category. The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony in October.
The Family Friendly Museum Award From Home has been made possible by funding from Arts Council England.
ENDS
