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Year in Review | 2024 at CMT

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Year in Review | 2024 at CMT

Heritage Fund | New Staff | Food Festivals | Steam Days | Volunteer Records | Education

2024 proved to be a groundbreaking year for Cambridge Museum of Technology. From announcing our Heritage Fund project ‘Full Steam Ahead’ earlier in the year to ending the year with the annual Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, we really did have it all!

A massive THANK YOU to all our visitors (our greatest year on record!), our volunteers, our staff and trustees, our on-site hospitality partners, the National Lottery Heritage Fund, and all of our supporters. As an independent museum, support like this is essential, and we really could not do this without you all.


Along with our usual visitor hours, the museum played host to over 50 events throughout the year including:


As a Museum, we also celebrated some personal achievements!

In March, we announced that we had received a grant of £99,932 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund for an exciting heritage project, Full Steam Ahead. This grant allowed us to start work on our Engineer’s House so we can use it for community events in the future, as well as create three new roles at the museum and welcome two new staff members!

Joanne Hamilton, previously our Front of House Team Leader, stepped into the role of Communities and Visitor Engagement Officer. With this role, we will put community at the heart of our museum, and help make our exhibitions as welcoming and accessible as possible. Lindsey Bavin joined the team as our Museum Enterprise Manager, helping to adapt our events and hiring system, and lead on our Heritage Fund project. As our new education officer, Hannah Battersby has been charging along with developing our education offer, helping to get pupils in the museum and learning about all things technology! Our team is completed by Catherine Rooney, who as administrator, has helped keep the museum on its feet while we waited for new staff members, and now ensures everything is running smoothly!

The Museum received a record number of visitors through its doors, increasing on its previous 2023 record. As well as developing our exhibitions, we moved our shop this year to ensure the best visitor experience possible! This has really upped our shop sales, including the work done by our wonderful, generous craft group which brought in over £800 this year (well done team!).

Our volunteers recorded 6693 hours this year (with 4 volunteers recording over 500 each!). We also welcomed 14 new regular volunteers to the team, and five new trustees to the team – Amy, Kieran, Matthew, Bhagwat and our new chairperson, Vincent! 


The Future

As we head into 2025, the question of what is in store is on everyone’s minds. For us here at CMT, 2025 is hoping to be one filled with:

We strive to create memorable experiences for all our visitors, and we're already looking forward to welcoming you back next year. 2025 is bound to be an exciting one for the museum — stay tuned for updates on our upcoming events and special offers by checking our website or following us on social media. We can't wait to see you all again soon!

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Museum Year-in Review: 2023

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Museum Year-in Review: 2023

In 2023, the Museum of Technology hosted record numbers of ticketed visitors since its Heritage Lottery Fund redevelopment: thank you to all our visitors as well as the tens-of-thousands of patrons of our on-site hospitality partners. Find out how the Museum’s volunteers supported the community with events, exhibitions, festivals, education and much more!

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Celebrating our Steam Team | Silver Owls for over 25 Years Service

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Celebrating our Steam Team | Silver Owls for over 25 Years Service

Our last Steam Up was a very special one, for three of our volunteers received their Silver Owl Awards from Share Museum East!

Before our busy Steam Up on 22nd October, trustee John Sheppard presented our Steam Team volunteers, Stephen Attenborough, Andy Rowlinson and Chris Webb with their Silver Owls. Edward Hinde, another one of our Steam Team Silver Owl recipicates but sadly could not make the weekend (Edward you were missed!). Each of them have been volunteering with us for well over 25 years and we couldn’t be happier with their engery, dedication and commitemnet they have given to the Museum.

The award celebrated 25 years of museum voluntary service, and was awarded to 90 people in the region. We have a number of volunteers who were eligible for this, and these three were the first of ours nominees to recieve them.

Stephen Attenborough

Stephen has been volunteering with the Museum since he was a young boy, and has been a frequent volunteer at the Museum’s steam days (perhaps you have seen him on the HD engine or boiler?). Stephen brings a real sense of peace to the team, and his wealth of knowledge on steam is second to none!

Since starting volunteering with us, Stephen has moved away from Cambridge, and now drives in over 200 miles (as the crow flies!) just to come and get the engines going for you to enjoy - talk about dedication!

Andy Rowlinson

Andy started volunteering at the Museum after rowing past the chimney one day and getting curious. Since then, he’s been hooked! Andy’s sense of humour is out of the world, and he always knows how to cheer up the most miserable of days with his presence. Andy is perhaps best known to current Musuem regulars as the owner of Lulu, the boiler dog who can be seen sat by the fire on most steam ups.

Below is a picture of him on top of the chimney taken by Fred Dibnah himself! You can see Andy talking about his volunteer journey here.

Chris Webb

Chris has been a regular at the Museum since the 80s, and all the time he has put into the Hathorn Davey Engines will be a ridiculous number! Chris is our Hathorn Davey expert, and it is because of him we are able to pass on the knowledge of how to drive the engines to our newer volunteers!

Chris is a steady presence at all of our steam ups and his dedication to hard work is appreicated by all who know him! Like Stephen, he travels a long way to come see us and we are so grateful he does. You can see Chris talk about his history with the Museum here.

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