Readers will be familiar with the somewhat protracted story of Aston Manor Road Transport Museum, and it’s move to Aldridge last year. Sadly, things didn’t quite go to plan at Beecham Business Park, and the museum had to move again – but the good news is, it’s still in Aldridge at Shenstone Drive.

This Sunday, 20th January 2013, the museum will be holding a ‘Meet the Museum’ event, where the general public can pop in, take a shufty around and hopefully help shape this valuable collection’s future.

The people behind this museum really want to meet you, and hear what you have to say – the event runs from 2pm to 5pm, is free to attend (donations welcome!) and there will be a presentation about it all at 3pm.

Why not check out the museum website or their Facebook group?

Martin Fisher, Chairman, contacted me:

Look – they’ve even got old bikes! Image by Martin J Fisher.

Good evening,

I do hope that I’ve got your correct e-mail address.

However, I’ve now attached a copy of the advert for our first event at the Shenstone Drive, Aldridge, site on 20th January; the museum is far from ready to reopen, with some work on the building still required and potential exhibits and artefacts in all the wrong places (quite apart from Planning Consent for change of use being required), but we felt that we should have an afternoon to let local people see what we’re doing and to have their input into what sort of things they would like to see in the museum. We will have the space eventually to have short-term displays of local history or art – if people have ideas, then we can consider them, though we don’t want to rush everything in during the first few months of being open. Among the topics already floated are Aldridge airport, the railway line that runs behind the site and the local canal, all of which seem to have excellent justification for coverage at some time.

If we are to survive, we will need to get a steady stream of paying visitors, as well as attracting large numbers of families and enthusiasts alike to our Open Days, which were successful beyond our imagination last year – far more people than to similar events at our original Witton home. We are currently working on our event programme for the year – we know that our first Running Day, with free bus rides, will be on March 17th; by 20th January event we should have a provisional programme available.

Any support that you can give us will be very welcome and, if you have any queries, please get back to me; at the moment we have no direct phone (the site is only active a few days each week) and the e-mail address on the website can take a day or so to react, so my own e-mail address is the easiest contact. Hopefully, we’ll launch an improved identity before long, at which time the website will be brought more up to date as well.

Thanks

Martin Fisher

AMRTM Chairman

Check out the museum website or their Facebook group.

Print out and post up on your nearest noticeboard, or make flyers.