Celebrating 10 Years of Friendship
It has been 10 years since the ‘Friends of the Commission’ was established. A lot has happened since November 2011, particularly so in the last eighteen months. From March 2020, in response to the demands of lockdown, we refocused our outreach activities so that engagement could continue in a new way and develop to attract a wider audience (see below).
We are proud to say that we are now one of the largest heritage Friends’ groups and have a most appreciative membership. This has been demonstrated by the large audiences regularly attending our monthly online talks. We value our Friends and have been very grateful for all the constructive comments in feedback forms after events and lectures, particularly with the preview of the ‘New Coflein’ earlier in the year. All talks have been recorded and are available on our YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/RCAHMWales.
Christopher Catling, our Secretary (CEO), expresses his appreciation of the decade of support given by the Friends, saying “The Friends were needed in 2011 because we faced a potential merger with Cadw that many did not think was in the best interests of the heritage in Wales. Today the Friends are needed as much as ever because the heritage sector faces many new challenges – from the accelerating pace at which places of worship are being closed and redeveloped, to changes in the High Street caused by the growth of online shopping, and above all from climate change, where some of the proposed solutions, such as large-scale reafforestation and the demolition and replacement of older buildings, threaten our architectural and archaeological heritage if not handled carefully. We a very small organisation facing a mountain of challenges; the support of Friends and the interest you show in our work is very important in helping us to maintain our morale.”
Our Friends group is FREE to join, and open to everyone.
To join, simply register by emailing friends@rcahmw.gov.uk
You will receive:
- Regular updates on our news, events, and activities.
- 10% discount on all items in the shop all year round including our new bilingual book on wallpaintings in Welsh Churches: Painted Temples: Wallpaintings and Rood-screens in Welsh Churches, 1200–1800 available to pre-order now
- Early bird tickets to our events
- Volunteering opportunities (when circumstances allow).
New online activities include these weekly features: #Monumentoftheweek on our Facebook page. Our popular specialist Twitter accounts are: @RC_Survey, which focuses on our survey work and thematic studies; @RC_Archive, which highlights some of our most remarkable archival material; @RC_EnwauLleoedd which has regular posts about Welsh historic place-names; and general Royal Commission news on our main account @RCAHWales. News from our partnership project @CHERISH* is available from: http://cherishproject.eu/en/
*Climate, Heritage and Environments of Reefs, Islands and Headlands, an EU-funded project led by the Royal Commission in partnership with Aberystwyth University’s Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, the Geological Survey, Ireland, and the Discovery Programme: Centre for Archaeology and Innovation, Ireland, monitoring the impacts of climate change on the coastal heritage of the Irish Sea basin.
02/01/2022