Kids in Museums

The biggest museum award in Britain is launched ….

Do you know which museum can win the title of BRITAIN’S MOST FAMILY FRIENDLY?

Perhaps it boasts the best spot to get up close to a Tyrannosaurus Rex? Or where you can enjoy a great cup of tea and unlimited tap water, as well as Titians? Or the kids can dress up as Henry VIII or made a Mexican mask? Or teenagers Warholise themselves on a computer screen?

Anyone can make a nomination in the 2009 Guardian Family Friendly Museum Award - the country’s biggest museum award, attracting thousands of nominations. It’s also the only award where the winner is entirely chosen by families.

The museum can be small and local or large and national – it doesn’t matter. It just has to be especially welcoming to everyone, of every age. Nominations just have to say why it should win this prestigious award.

And if it’s not quite clear yet which museum offers that perfect family friendly welcome, there’s the whole summer to wander among the cabinets and test the interactives. Nominations for the Award don’t close until 28 August 2009.

The shortlist will be announced in September. The winner, announced in October, will receive 500 special edition Mammoth Activity Sheets by sponsor Folded Sheet, an inventive, sustainable design company. (www.foldedsheet.com)

Nominations can be made by email or by post, in any form you like –  email message, letter, DVD, model, scrapbook …

Email:  award@kidsinmuseums.org.uk
Post:  Guardian Family Friendly Museum Award
Kids in Museums
Downstream Building
One London Bridge
London SE1 9BG

And just in case you don’t know already, here’s our story:

Kids in Museums was founded when writer Dea Birkett’s family visited the Aztec exhibition at the Royal Academy, London. Her two-year-old son River shouted ‘Monster!’ at a statue that looked rather like - well - a monster. But rather than congratulating their young visitor for his early appreciation of Aztec art, River was thrown out for being too noisy.

Dea soon discovered her family wasn’t alone in being made uncomfortable when surrounded by objects and art. After she reported her family’s expulsion in the Guardian, hundreds of visitors wrote in ot saythey’d also been made to feel unwelcome in a museum. So Kids in Museums and the Guardian Family Friendly Museum Award were launched, determined to show how museums and galleries can get it right for families.

The Award’s previous winners are Weston Park Museum in Sheffield, (museum’s motto ‘Doors and minds open daily’); Falmouth Art Gallery; Pitt Rivers Museum and the Oxford University Museum of Natural History; and Killhope North of England Lead Mining Museum, one of the few places in Britain you can travel down inside a mine.

Note for editors:

More about the Award, past winners and Kids in Museums from www.kidsinmuseums.org.uk

Kids in Museums can provide Quentin Blake illustrations to accompany coverage of the Award.

We can also provide photos of previous Award winners for your use.

We’d love to work with you – just get in touch:

Kids in Museums
Downstream Building
One London Bridge
London SE1 9BG

Tel 020 7022 1888

getintouch@kidsinmuseums.org.uk
www.kidsinmuseums.org.uk
www.twitter.com/kidsinmuseums

Kids in Museums logo and banner illustrations all © Quentin Blake.

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