Restoration Fix it up! Reconnecting People!

Our people and the community
Mental health is huge issue in the current COVID climate and we recognise, through our community, that it is crucial to support people both individually as as a group out of lock-down and back into the friendly, relaxed and safe environment. In getting people together to work in small community groups on projects, we aim to really inspire them and help with their mental and physical well being.

In support of this we acquire, conserve, restore and reconstruct historic computing systems for preservation, display, demonstration and research. Our large collection allows us to offer both current and future volunteers an opportunity to learn about historical and modern day systems in an environment that can develop ideas, support new people to the team and offer hands on restoration projects.

What the aim of this project is
There is currently very limited space in the Museum to work on maintenance of existing display and restoration of new ones, especially large ones, Our Bilton Road storage facility does not have the necessary environment or suitable space to enable us to undertake that work to be done.

This project aims to find a location / office space near the Museum or Bilton Road where existing and new volunteers can work together on restoration of smaller machines, collections and artefacts, in an environment that is clean, warm and suitable for all to work in. This would also be an ideal space to offer weekend events for example fix a Beeb day, or enable special groups like the autism in the workplace trainees to learn basic skills with expert mentoring and support in a quiet and safe environment.

Projects will include:-
- Team Engagement: Engaging with the team and attracting new volunteers in becoming part of the community within the Museum

- Supporting our volunteer students: In particular those students within the neurodiverse community helping them see their true potential.

- Software / Programming: To enhance and make displays more interactive

- Engineering: Designing / working out new ways to overcome questions like 'How do we get information into and out of systems' or 'How can we make this more interactive to show off how it was used in the past'

- Restoration: To work on old machines / collections / artefacts to bring them back to working order so they can be seen again by new generations

- Maintenance and repair: To keep our existing systems and display running for future generations to see

- Preservation / Conservation: Ensuring systems and artefacts are properly conserved so they are not lost to future visitors and researchers

All projects undertaken in this space will have a volunteer lead who will put forward an initial plan of what will be worked on and the reason for doing so. This will enable scheduling of the work and allow the museum to understand what new items may become available for future display areas in the museum. We have a large collection of items from pre-war to the present day and our aim is to have as many restored, working and interactive displays as possible. This new location will allow this to happen.

We believe this is a fantastic way of engaging new volunteers to the team and offering great facilities for our restoration projects.

Your support of this project will make a difference to our community and people. Thank you.