After a day full of activity, I headed home for a quick change to go back out for a meeting – a reminder, if I needed one, that the work the museum does with communities is not confined to the opening hours!  Lisa and I were headed to the Everyman Theatre in Spennymoor to talk about a potential project focusing on the Spennymoor Settlement. The settlement at Spennymoor spurned many well-known artists such as Norman Cornish, Tom McGuiness and Sid Chaplin and was part of the wider settlement movement of the 1900s.  As part of the new 1950s town, the museum will be replicating the home and studio of Norman Cornish.  However, there are lots of other stories connected to the settlement that the Museum would like to be able to tell and share and this was a chance to sound out the team on a few of the ideas.

At this stage I can’t say much more about the plans but it was great to be able to visit the Everyman Theatre.  It is still very much a functioning theatre, serving the local community with performances from ballet to pantomime as well as providing a space for young people to attend drama sessions at the Theatre.