Dear Subscriber,

Firstly – I hope that you and your family are keeping well. We’ve been relatively fortunate in the West Country, but I know these are worrying times for everyone. Obviously, the current situation has impacted the Project, but our amazing – and growing – team of volunteers and partners has made some important progress, which I’ll tell you about here.

Keep an eye out for more regular project updates as we aim to keep you updated on a monthly basis from now on.

We’ll also be shining a light on the many people helping us restore the Cleveland Pools. Without our volunteers, in particular, this wouldn’t be happening!

Our people

We’re delighted to welcome Alice Le Page as our new Learning and Community Engagement Trustee.

We asked Alice to write a few words about why she is getting involved:

“Since leaving Bath to study and build a career in museum and heritage learning, I’ve been lucky enough to work in some amazing places. I started out volunteering (at the Herschel museum in Bath almost twenty years ago!). Then, after completing my MA in Museum and Gallery Education, I’ve held a range of learning and engagement roles across London and the South of England. I now focus more on the project management side of things, but I still enjoy getting involved with family arts activities or school visits when I can.”

“I was keen to build a new relationship with the Pools and stay connected with the city I grew up in – not least because, having researched my family history, it’s quite possible one of my ancestors was a patron when the Pools first opened. I am so delighted to be volunteering in Bath again but this time using my professional experiences to support the next exciting chapter of the Cleveland Pools history.”

Our community

Despite lockdown, our volunteers have continued to work on three priority projects to keep the restoration of Cleveland Pools on track for the community:

• The Ladies’ Pool project team has been writing content and choosing objects to tell the story of the pools for our new Exhibition and Learning Centre. This will be based in the area that was the Ladies Pool.

• The Walking Trail project team is developing early versions of our Family-Friendly Walking Tour in time to test them at Heritage Open Days in September.

• The Virtual Cleveland Pools Pop-Up project team has been busy creating an online event to showcase stories about the pools and test out early content prepared by the Ladies' Pool Team.

Like many of you, we have been learning how to make the most of Zoom to stay connected and progress our work… with great success, mostly!

Would you like to volunteer too?

We’re always keen to hear from anyone interested in volunteering with us. There are lots of opportunities to help develop our various community-engagement projects. Interested? Click here: https://www.clevelandpools.org.uk/volunteer

The Pools

We’re moving the construction project ahead as best we can in these difficult times, but some delay to our original programme is unavoidable. At the moment we’re working with our main contractor Beard to add the finishing touches to design, and hope to be in a position to sign a contract in late summer.

Don’t forget us

As we can’t welcome you to the project site at the moment, here’s a photo taken this time last year to remind you what’s so special about the Cleveland Pools.

If you would like to donate to our ongoing fundraising efforts, you can do so by following this link: https://bit.ly/2MxFkhv

Stay safe, and do please stay in touch.