Your Invitation to enter the
East Midlands Heritage Awards 2015
We would like to invite you to enter one or more categories in the East Midlands Heritage
Awards 2015. The Awards are organised by East Midlands Museums Service, Museum
Development East Midlands and Nottingham Trent University in association with the
Lincolnshire Heritage Forum, Derbyshire Museums Forum, Leicestershire and Rutland
Heritage Forum, Nottinghamshire Heritage Forum and Northamptonshire Museums and
Historic Houses Forum. The Awards are sponsored by Barker Langham, a leading global
cultural consultancy and David Weight Design + Artwork who is producing all the plaques
and certificates and the presentation for the Awards Ceremony.
The Awards will showcase and celebrate the wonderful work and outstanding achievements
in museums, historic houses and heritage sites across the region and reward best practice.
The Awards are open to any organisation that operates a site in the East Midlands that is
open to the public for at least 20 days a year.
The judges will consider how well each entrant has used the resources available to them –
so smaller, voluntary organisations have the same chance of success as larger museums
and groups. The awards will be presented at an evening ceremony at the Nottingham
Conference Centre on Tuesday 9th June 2015. Award winners will receive a plaque and
significant local and regional promotion. Runners up will receive a certificate. All shortlisted
entrants will be recognised at the Awards Ceremony.
Please find below, all the information that you will need to enter this year’s awards. There
are 6 award categories:
 Customer Care
 Engaging Children and Young People
 ‘Heart of the Community’
 Innovation
 Wendy Golland Award for Quality Research
 Judges’ Special Award
Please have a think about all the different projects, exhibitions, outreach, events and other
work you have been doing over the past two years (from 1st March 2013 – 2nd March 2015
but not necessarily for the whole period of time) and enter as many categories as possible!
What has worked really well for your organisation and your visitors: open days; events; new
exhibitions; community work; research; talks and lectures; collections projects; work with
schools or other projects with children and young people? You can enter projects that
began before 1st March 2013 as long as they were completed before 2nd March 2015. The
closing date for submitting your entries is 5pm on Monday 2nd March 2015.
The Judges’ Special Award will recognise museums, heritage sites and projects that
demonstrate excellence in a particular area or broad range of categories that the judges feel
deserves recognition and rewarding. There is no entry form for this category as winners will
be shortlisted and selected from the information provided on the entry forms for the
categories above.
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Entry to the East Midlands Heritage Awards is free and they are a great opportunity to:
 Showcase your progress and successes, raising your public profile and recognition.
 Recognise the hard work of your staff and volunteers.
 Share best practice across the heritage and museums sector.
The East Midlands Heritage Awards Ceremony is a great opportunity for all those involved in
museums and heritage across the East Midlands to catch up with friends and colleagues,
share success, enjoy a magical evening and celebrate all the fabulous work taking place.
If you need any support in making your entry or wish to chat through a potential entry or idea
then please get in touch. Here are a few suggestions and reminders:
 Do link your entry and description to the information provided on each Entry Form.
 Don’t be modest – really ‘sell’ what you do!
 Do highlight the impact of the project/activity on the whole of your organisation
including you visitors, staff/volunteers and collections.
 Do check that you have included everything with your entry before sending it off.
Good luck & best wishes
Anita
Anita Hollinshead – 07876 166742 / anitahollinshead@hotmail.com
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East Midlands Heritage Awards 2015
How to Enter
The East Midlands Heritage Awards 2015 are organised by East Midlands Museums
Service, Museum Development East Midlands and Nottingham Trent University. Anita
Hollinshead is coordinating the Awards.
Who is eligible to enter?
The Awards are open to any organisation that operates a museum, heritage site or historic
house in the East Midlands (Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Rutland,
Nottinghamshire and Northamptonshire) that is open to the public for at least 20 days a year.
Contractors and suppliers are not eligible to enter in their own right; however their work can
be featured in an entry submitted by a heritage organisation. We also welcome entries from
a group of organisations or partners.
The activity in your entry must have been undertaken between 1st March 2013 and 2nd March
2015 (but not necessarily for the whole period of time). You can enter projects that began
before 1st March 2013 as long as they were completed before 2nd March 2015.
You can enter as many categories as you like but your organisation can only enter each
category once.
How to Enter
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To enter the East Midlands Heritage Awards 2015, you will need to complete an
application form for each category that you are entering. These are available to
download from the Museum Development East Midlands website http://mdem.org.uk/,
the EMMS website http://emms.org.uk/ or by emailing anitahollinshead@hotmail.com.
You may also have received copies of the forms by email.
Please submit up to 4 photographs to support your entry. These images must be
copyright-free and printed onto one side of a single sheet of A4 paper. Each image
should be labelled with a caption and a credit (if necessary). The A4 sheet should be
labelled with your entry title. You must also complete and sign the Photography
Clearance Form (included in the Entry Form) to confirm that the images are copyrightfree and that photographs including identifiable images of people are cleared for use.
We also need one CD or memory stick containing all your images in a JPEG format.
Other supporting information can include press releases, DVDs, publicity material,
feedback from users, visitors, partners, volunteers etc. Please mark this clearly with
the title of your entry and, if possible, provide four copies of each piece of supporting
information.
Entries will be assessed on the information supplied on the application form and any
supporting materials. Please ensure you make it as easy as possible for the Judges to
gain an understanding of your organisation and the project you are entering into the
awards. They may know nothing, or very little, about your organisation
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Use of Entries
The organisers reserve the right to use any information and images that you submit unless it
is clearly marked ‘not for publication’. This use may be before, during and/or after the 2015
Awards and may be in printed materials, digital communications, verbally and/or on screen.
Therefore you must:
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Ensure that all information is accurate and factually correct
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Mark any sensitive/confidential information as ‘not for publication’
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Complete the Photography Clearance Form section of the Entry Form to confirm that
all the photographs you submit are copyright-free and have been cleared for use by all
people whose images are identifiable in the photographs.
Judging
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Depending on the number of entries in each category, a shortlist of finalists may be
drawn up before the final stage of judging. You will be told whether or not your entry
has reached the final stage of any award category by Monday 16th March 2015. All
shortlisted entries will be displayed on the EMMS website www.emms.org.uk and the
Museum Development East Midlands website http://mdem.org.uk/ and will be
announced during the Awards Ceremony. The judges’ decisions are final and no
correspondence will be entered into about their decisions.
If your organisation is shortlisted, it must be represented by at least one person at the
Awards Ceremony in Nottingham on the evening of Tuesday 9th June. There is no
charge for this event and organisations can request up to four tickets.
The judges reserve the right to move entries between award categories where
appropriate.
Submitting your Entries
Please send four hard copies of all necessary paperwork to Angie Minton, Museum
Development Support Officer, Leicestershire County Council, Room 500, County Hall,
Glenfield, Leicester LE3 8RL.
This should include:
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Your Entry Form
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A sheet of photographs
3.
Any supporting information
The closing date for entries is 5pm on Monday 2nd March 2015.
Entries should be collated into sets and stapled in the top left hand corner. Please do not
bind them or put them into folders. Please do not send your entries by email.
Entries submitted in any format other than that described above cannot be considered.
If you need any further information or would like to discuss your application please contact
Anita Hollinshead on 07876 166742 or anitahollinshead@hotmail.com
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