Photographs of Today's Rally outside Apsley House

 Despite temperatures soaring into the 30s, there was a fabulous turnout today for the rally to ask for a rethink on the permanent closure/ non reopening of Apsley House the home of Swindon Museum and Art Gallery. I'm not sure how many people attended, certainly in excess of 100, maybe 200, but thank you to all those who made the event a tremendous success. People came with a variety of their own posters, we had flyers to hand out, the banner we had printed at Minuteman for the occasion didn't get a look in, because there were so many people in front of Apsley House, but we can save that for another day.

We were very lucky to have Stuart Harrison Photographers taking photographs which I'll share with you here. With children's workshops about to take place in a normal year, pre closure decisions, it seems appropriate to start with this little boy:

Wonderful expression, there's another:

 I'll add the photos in the order in wghich they were taken:

Fabulous support, and if you haven't signed the petition, please click here and do so:

https://www.change.org/SaveSwindonMuseumandArtGallery
 

Updates on Swindon Museum and Art Gallery

 Most people would assume that Apsley House, home to Swindon's museum and art collections, would be reopening on 19 July, however this is not currently the case.

 A report (Cabinet Member Decision Note) has been submitted to Swindon Borough Council recommending the permanent closure and disposal of Apsley House in Bath Road, the home of the Swindon Museum and the "magnificent and important" (to quote SBC) Swindon Collection of Twentieth Century British Art.  The plan is to put most of the art and artefacts into store to await the construction of a new Art Gallery in the proposed Cultural Quarter near Swindon Station.  There is as yet no funding for the Cultural Quarter and the suggested timeline for completing it is around 10 years.

There is a campaign to get Apsley House reopened and to keep it open until the collections can be put on public display in a more suitable location.  There can be no certainty that  if the doors remain closed now the collections will ever be reassembled.  The campaign group is "Save Our Museum and Art Gallery" (SOMAG).  

To publicise our campaign, we have started a petition:

 https://www.change.org/SaveSwindonMuseumandArtGallery if you haven't already done so, please consider signing the petition. We also have a Facebook page and are holding an event on Monday 19 July outside Apsley House, please see the poster below and consider coming along: