Hertfordshire Association of Museum Awards 2021
The Garden City Collection have won this year’s Hertfordshire Museum Object of the Year Award. The winning object was the Bond Bug designed by Ogle and the winner was announced at the online HAM Awards Presentation.
Runners-up were the North Hertfordshire Museum with their Ghost Cat, and the Columbian Press nominated by Watford Museum
Nearly 1000 people voted for their object of the year from a choice of fourteen artefacts from museums across Hertfordshire which included aVictorian Slate Deskand a Lady’s cape from the same era, a butler’s key, a ‘golden’ outside tap, an extinct carnivorous marsupial, called a Thylacine, a recently discovered plan annotated by the landscape designer, Humphrey Repton, fossilised ‘poo’ and an advertising booklet from the 1940s advertising “better living” in Stevenage New Town with English Electric.
The awards are run by the Hertfordshire Association of Museums, a dynamic and active network supporting people who work for and volunteer in museums and heritage organisations in Hertfordshire. Supporting museums in Hertfordshire means supporting communities, education, tourism, and wellbeing. Packed with treasures, often little known, our museums tell the story of our shared heritage and our communities.
Other award winners were:
North Hertfordshire Museum and Stevenage Museum who won the Inclusion award for their joint project “Doorstep Discoveries”, in which local artists took craft boxes, based on museum objects, to people with dementia and their carers, weekly during lockdown.
The Garden City Collection who won the Creative Response Award for Letchworth’s Outdoor Museum, which took hyper-local displays to the parks & open spaces of different neighbourhoods throughout Letchworth Garden City every weekend.
Watford Museum who won the Wellbeing award for Golden Friends Project, in which the museum partnered with Watford FC to create and deliver memory boxes to people with dementia.
The British Schools Museum who won the Magic Moments award for their project to put Smiles on Children’s Faces, creating and delivering craft packs to the Children’s Ward at the Lister Hospital.
Heritage Hero Awards were presented to individuals and teams from seven museums across the county to recognise the wonderful work they have done supporting museums and communities during the pandemic.
This year’s award categories were designed to highlight the work museums have done to respond to the pandemic and to demonstrate their relevance to the communities they serve and their value as place makers, increasing community cohesion and contributing to the wellbeing of their visitors.