Hello…it’s been a while since I updated the TheLMA blog although there’s been a lot happening. We have continued to welcome hundreds of visitors to our various units in Ocean Terminal and at Livingston. The Wee Hub and the Wee Museum have been especially busy with lots of different activities and groups. The Spirit of Leithers exhibition has closed (although the Goad Map project web pages can be explored in the Wee Museum). The unit will be put to good use as our latest reminiscence project – Away for the Messages – will be based on the ground floor. Project worker Russell and Heather plan to set out the space as a vintage shop! So watch out for further news and developments about this over the next few months…
Memory boxes
One of the unigue features of the Wee Museum is the freedom for visitors to interact with our collection and displays – visitors can pick up, examine, demonstrate, explain and share their memories prompted by objects. We also use lots of our objects in reminiscence groups at the Wee Museum, as handling, touching and feeling can stimulate memories – even for those who may have issues with memory, vision or communication. Over the years we put together boxes of objects and images for groups and organisations to borrow for use in their own reminiscence sessions.
Unfortunately we managed to lose track of a few of our memory boxes since 2020. These may have been lent out before Covid – or possibly during the years of restricted access and Lockdowns when messages or contact details were misplaced. We have tightened up our record keeping and now have a better system – not before time! The ‘lost’ boxes included the holiday case, men’s box, baby bath and Wartime kit bag. However we were fortunate to be given a donation of a number of reminiscence handling boxes from the Prentice Centre in Granton, which sadly had to close – it will be missed by the community. This was very timely as we needed to review our remaining boxes. We’ve have reused some of the Prentice Centre boxes to replace a few of our missing ones and have also put together new ones. We now have a improved selection of boxes, bags, cases and baskets available to borrow.
The revised selection includes: Ladies’ Vanity bag, Health and Wellbeing Doctor’s bag, Men’s, Childhood, Cooking and Cleaning, Leisure and Recreation, Travel and Transport. The project is not quite complete as we still have to check and update the Edinburgh, School Days and Going Out boxes but these will soon be ready. If you would like to borrow any of these get in touch by email: comhist@googlemail.com – we look forward to hearing from you!