• Marsh Friends of the Year Award with BAFM

    This Award recognises the work of Friends Groups in museums around the country. These groups support their museums through fundraising, voluntary work, helping to advocate for needed resources and helping them engage with their communities. 

     

     

    Pictured: Birmingham Museum


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    Friends of the Oriental Museum and Barry LeJeune 2026

    Friends of the Oriental Museum, Durham

    The Friends of the Oriental Museum at the University of Durham was founded in 1985 and bring together people who love the Museum and its world-renowned collections. The Friends provide financial assistance to the Museum for special projects and promote their recreational and educational facilities and activities. Members of the Friends group enjoy a programme of public lectures, events and activities, an annual newsletter, invitations to special events and opportunities to volunteer at the Museum. The Friends are a registered charity and therefore able to raise donations and gift aid, which they offer to the Museum in support of activities and acquisitions that are outside of their usual budget, allowing the Museum to extend their reach even further. The relationship between the Friends and the Museum staff is mutually supportive, and members of the Friends are among the first to volunteer their help with important behind the scenes work. The Friends are an essential element of the Museum’s success.

     

    Barry LeJeune, Friends of the London Transport Museum

    Barry has been a member of the Friends of the London Transport Museum for many years, and recently served as the charity’s Chief Executive until the end of 2022. He was also editor of the London Transport Museum Friends magazine, which he transformed into an attractive, modern and content-rich publication. Barry is able to engage easily with both stakeholders and members.

    Previous Winners

    The Friends of Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery and The Friends of The Fordingbridge Museum

    The Friends of Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, Lancashire 

    The Friends of Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery was established in 1982 and is dedicated to promoting and supporting the museum through fundraising, conservation, and the restoration of paintings and other exhibits. The group aims to raise awareness of the museum and contribute to activities that increase public engagement with its collections. Over the past year, the Friends have connected with 200 visitors through tours and lectures. They contribute to the museum’s blog and newsletter and enhance visitor engagement by running a variety of talks and tours focused on the collections. Without these volunteers, the museum would not have the capacity to offer many of its visitor activities. Their presence in the gallery and guided tours have helped to attract new audiences, including a support group for refugees, asylum seekers and other migrants. These visitors enjoyed a successful museum tour, followed by a town tour led by the same volunteer. In addition to the museum’s impressive art and history displays, there are special exhibitions, craft sessions for families, Young Artists Open competitions, and creative workshops. 

     

    Friends of The Fordingbridge Museum, Hampshire

    The Museum is entirely run by volunteers and has been since it first opened.
    Fordingbridge is a small town with around 6,000 inhabitants, located on the edge of the New Forest. Its primary industry is now tourism, following the decline of traditional industries. The Friends Group was formed to manage and develop a collection of local history objects that had been gathered over a period of 50 years. The group received support from Hampshire County Council, which purchased a building to house and display the collection. The Friends raise funds to operate the museum through shop sales, visitor donations, and fundraising events. Thanks to their efforts, they were able to acquire artworks for a display about the local artist Augustus John. The museum is free to enter, and in recent years, annual visitor numbers have ranged between 4,000 and 7,000. Each year, the museum welcomes work experience students from a local school and engages young volunteers completing their Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme. 

    Friends of Oakwell Hall and Country Park, West Yorkshire and Friends of Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery 

    Friends of Oakwell Hall and Country Park, West Yorkshire 

    The Friends Group have been involved with Oakwell Hall, an Elizabethan manor house, since its restoration in the 1980s and now assist with the protection, promotion, management and monitoring of the Hall and Country park for use by the public as a place of recreation, enjoyment and education. The Friends have helped with numerous practical improvements to the site and hold monthly work parties in the park to ensure that the grounds are looking their best and are accessible for all. They regularly publicise the Friends Group at events and on social media to encourage others to become members and have also raised much needed funds to support the museum’s activities. One of their most recent projects was to create a seating sculpture in the park which, as well as being a place for the public to use, was a commemoration to members of the Friends Group who had passes away. Both staff and the Friends worked on the project as a collaborative effort, and it brought them closer together. The Friends enable activities at the Hall to be undertaken which simply would not be possible otherwise and they have been the most consistent support to the site.  

    Friends of Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery 

    The Friends Group was established in 1931 and supports the Birmingham Museums Trust by donating money and providing support through volunteering and working behind the scenes on specific projects and conservation. They currently contribute around £15,000 a year in donations to the museums and this has been instrumental in leveraging external funding from other grant makers, as they can see that there is consistent support from the local community for the museums’ activities. Birmingham City Council have faced serious financial difficulties in the past couple of years, which has impacted the work of the museums – including the closure of their flagship site. The Friends have been a solid support throughout this time, meeting regularly with senior managers to find out what more they can do to secure the future of the museums. Their demonstration of local support and offers of match funding helped to secure the reopening of the Trust’s flagship site. The Friends are a group of passionate individuals that champion the work of museums in Birmingham. 

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