NASAM Update as of the 21st Jul 2023
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Summary of Contents
What’s In This Edition
From The Chairman
This edition of the blog starts with Steve, the Chairman, giving an update on the major announcement made at the AGM. A summary of this announcement and the brainstorming sessions are given below.
From Around The Museum
First in this edition from the “Teams” around the Museum is a short piece from Malcolm with an update on the Model Maintenance Unit (MMU) sorting through the multitude of models in the model store.
Then we have the Painters Update with Barry and the team. In this posting, Barry continues with his updates on the Hunter and now the ROC building. The Hunter is beginning to look shiny now, which is more than can be said for the Valetta which is getting stripped back to metal by the Buckenham Blast Company.
In his second-week update, Barry continues with the Hunter refurb and gives more news on the progress of the Valetta as it continues with its major refurbishment.
I have taken the liberty of including a couple of my pictures below the Painters Update which were taken on the day of the AGM at the Museum. These show the blasting of the Valetta by the Buckenham Blast Company. The company have been onsite when the public are not allowed in the Museum as there is a fair amount of dust and disruption to the traffic flow. The pictures show the removal of the old paint before the application of the “wet jet” as Barry puts it.
Upcoming Special Events
The next special event in the Museum Calendar is this coming weekend, which is the Family Fun Day on Sunday the 23rd of July 2023 from 1000 thru to 1600. this event should see a flypast by the RAF BBMF Spitfire, this however is subject to operational commitments and weather conditions on the day.
Pete S
Chairman’s Update
AGM Update
This year’s Annual General Meeting was held in the main hangar on Tuesday 11th July. Over 40 members attended what turned out to be a lively meeting.
The formal business of the AGM was undertaken quickly but included Steve announcing that the museum had been able to complete the purchase of two packets of land just over a week before the meeting. These two packets consisted of 1.8 acres of ex woodland adjacent to the museum and around one acre of the field adjacent to the land owned by The Buck Inn and extending from the newly purchased woodland to the road (see images below)
The aim is to turn the woodland into car parking for the museum, this would give us increased parking space compared to now, but would also give us the opportunity to drastically reduce the amount of traffic flowing through the museum itself whilst visitors are present.
After the formal AGM, the second part of the evening commenced. Tom Beese from The Association for Suffolk Museums introduced a section on updating the museum’s collections development policy. He gave us examples of other museums’ policies which offered food for thought.
Steve then introduced the fact that in order to fully develop the new land and take advantage of the possibilities that it opens for us a large amount of money will be required. If this money comes from grants then we have to demonstrate that the money will help us fit the funder’s objectives, one small part of which is preservation of heritage.
A larger part is widening the exposure of our collection to a more diverse audience, in order to achieve that we need to be able to demonstrate better why different people should visit. To that end, Steve asked people to work individually or in small groups to say what stories the museum should be telling. This also moves us to a more positive view on the collections policy rather than a negative one of “we need to declutter”. (We do need to declutter, but we need to do so by moving towards something). Tony has “volunteered” to collate the large pile of sticky notes that resulted from this exercise.
The second part is to demonstrate “societal benefit”. Steve then asked those present to create sticky notes of ideas on how we can achieve this. He will collate the second large pile of sticky notes.
The trustees had earlier reported that in trading terms the museum expects to make a small profit this year. Steve also told the meeting that power costs had roughly tripled over the year, and raw materials increased dramatically. Thus the museum needed to generate more income.
The next sticky challenge was to suggest additional income streams. Gary has taken the output from this to collate.
The final question posed to the membership was to suggest any additional development that might be undertaken as part of the project as all of the recommendations that we have received is to “think big”.
Peter Willes who has been co-opted by the board to lead on the development/fundraising project took the output from that away.
We would like to thank all present for their contributions to the evening, we look forward to sharing the outcomes with you once we have collated and sorted everything out. In the meantime, if anyone has additional input on any of the four questions please email them to us and we will ensure they get to the right person.
The meeting ended with Steve pointing people to a map of the land purchased and a model that we are using to educate the development process (both of these are shown below).
Steve B
(Photos) Land Purchase & Model Layout
Around The Museum
MMU Update
Following the completion of several model refurbishment projects over the winter and the sale of 200+ models in April, the emphasis grew to reduce the number of unwanted models held in the Model Store.
There are many subjects which have no connection with the aim of the museum and are only taking up storage space and collecting dust. Then in late May, an event hastened this project, the partial collapse of the ceiling in the model store. This triggered the need to remove most of the stored models from the front end of the building to a temporary space behind the Avro Anson.
A more rigorous approach then began with the boxing of surplus models, both at the museum and at home in Bury. To date Batch 2 of 50 boxes (372 models) is complete, using the store room at the side of the ROC hut, and waiting for the ending of the 3-month “offer” period for those models with museum inventory numbers.
The first 4 boxes of Batch 3 are already packed and will be kept in Bury with subsequent boxes until Batch 2 goes. The photo shows just 4 of the dozen or so boxes presently at home awaiting processing. All being well Batch 2 should leave Flixton in October.
I just hope that my local supermarket continues to supply the old fruit boxes. My intention is to process as many of the remaining boxes over the coming months so that the area around the Anson can return to normality. For most models, it is an easy decision to either keep or get rid, when undecided its fate usually leans towards the models’ state of repair. Enjoyable and Interesting task.
Malcolm
Painters Update
11/07/23 – A Brucie Bonus kind of day!
With the previous night’s forecast suggesting a 70% chance of rain on Tuesday morning, the prospects of making any significant progress on the Hunter initially seemed low. But au contraire mes amis. The overnight rain cleared through in the early hours and with a warm brisk wind, the boys rocked up to find a pretty dry Hunter. Ladders were swiftly set up, blue booties donned and paint tins cracked open. But before any paint was applied, the fuselage was tack clothed as it felt unusually ‘gritty’ to the touch. The reason for this grittiness became evident a bit later. By lunchtime though, the entire upper fuselage had been second coated in Dark Sea Grey.
With the rain still holding off after lunch, the boys split up with Private Walker (Ian) taking up station on the starboard wing (see pic 2307 08) and applying a first coat of Dark Sea Grey. Similarly, Mark (complete with Tenko hat) went about painting himself into a corner on the port wing (see pic 2307 09). Up front, Barry got the fine art brushes out and proceeded to paint the ‘fiddly bits’ around the canopy, the engine intakes and various grilles on the fuselage. A small shower eventually arrived at 14:25hrs bringing play to an early close, but not before both wings had received their first coats of Dark Sea Grey (see pic 2307 10). Next week should see second coats applied to the wings and some ‘camo’ applied to the fuselage and tail.
Elsewhere, the Skipper (Cliff) was busy climbing Ben Nevis while Gwen set about giving the ROC building a fresh coat of paint (see pic 2307 11). Also on site were the BBC (Buckenham Blast Company) who had started media blasting the Valetta last Thursday. This was evidently the cause of the grittiness encountered on the Hunter. The BBC carried on with the strip back of the Valetta (see pic 2307 12) and with the wind fortunately blowing their efforts away towards the Phantom, today’s Hunter painting was not impacted, phew!
18/07/23 – XG254 Pilot found!
With the weather set Fair at around 20 degrees, light winds, plus a bit of cloud cover it was an ideal day for painting (the Hunter). It was also ‘camo’ week as the boys broke open the Dark Green. Initially, the consistency of this paint resembled a slightly melted bar of Aero (other brands of chocolate are available – Ed.) with loads of small bubbles in it! Undaunted, in the morning Mark and Ian concentrated on applying the ‘camo’ to the main fuselage, as the top of the wings still required a second coat of Dark Sea Grey. Mark took up station on the port side (see pic 2307 13) while Ian went into impromptu ‘Bad Dad Dancing’ mode on the starboard wing root (see pic 2307 14). Maybe the heat had got to him? Meanwhile, Barry set about masking off the leading edges of the wings where the grey/camo ‘wraps’ a couple of inches under the edge. By lunchtime, the main ‘camo’ block that traversed the spine of the main fuselage had been completed.
In the arvo, Mark and Ian applied a second coat of Dark Sea Grey to the wing tops. Barry gave the leading edges/wrap two coats of Dark Sea Grey. Having also outlined the ‘camo’ pattern on the tail section in chalk, Barry then set about painting in the ‘camo’ and was ably assisted by Mark and Ian once the wings were finished. By close of play most of the fuselage and tail ‘camo’ had been applied (see pic 2307 15). Next week ‘camo’ will be put on the wings and the cockpit/nose area.
During the week, Barry had contacted 54 Squadron in order to try and obtain a high-quality image of the squadron’s ‘Lion Rampant’ badge. Several emails later, Barry was contacted by a Mr Austin of the 54 Squadron Association. It turns out that this gentleman was a pilot and our Hunter (XG254) was “his aircraft” on the Squadron! Small world, as Mr Austin lives in Norfolk and is an occasional visitor to the museum with his grandson, who when visiting recently was amused to find out that Grandpa had learnt to fly in the RAF using a Link Trainer like ours!
In other news, Cliff and Gwen spent the day starting a ‘resto’ of the T28 Trojan. At some point in the afternoon, Gwen managed to blow the electrics but the less said about that the better!
Also in the middle paddock, the Buckenham Blast Company (BBC) were back on site advancing the Valetta restoration. The absence of noise seemed to indicate that the media blasting had finished and that the ‘wet jet’ grey priming had begun. By mid-afternoon, most of the Valetta was wearing a coat of grey primer (see pic 2307 16). This had been achieved in a fraction of the time that it would have taken the Paint Team to achieve similar results on such a large aircraft.
Barry
(Photos) Painters Update
(Photos) Valetta Paint Removal
Upcoming Events Posters
Details of the next special events after this weekend’s Families Fun Day are shown in the poster below. More information on his event will be in the next blog posting.
Pete S
The Repeat Info
The repeat information is still here I’m afraid, and I make no apologies for keeping his section in our blog. We are a charitable organisation relying on monies from the public to keep us going. Any help we receive is gratefully accepted and enables the museum to continue in our mission “To conserve, preserve and promote the history of aviation in East Anglia, whilst providing a fun, family-friendly and interactive museum, promoting education and remembrance of the events of the past“.
Are you thinking of helping ??
We obtain most of our finances by donations and by membership fees. We save money by having a dedicated group of volunteers that keep the museum and the exhibits both manned and maintained. We hope therefore a few people may consider helping in the ways below.
There are three easy ways to help: Help by becoming a Museum Member, also by Volunteering to help at the museum, or by Donating to assist in our running costs. Please click on the appropriate button below to access the appropriate information:
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Pete S
