AT the first meeting of their new season members of Thurrock Historical Society welcomed their speaker - Michelle Savage, curator of the Thurrock Museum.

She presented a project that details of a project that will be a boon to local historians - digitising the museum collection.

The thriving museum responds to enquires, provides education in-house and going into schools - the Stone Age to the Iron Age being part of school history. Children are invited to visit the museum and see behind the scenes, involving the Battle of Britain, rationing, WW2 air raids etc. The museum gallery has extensive displays, some interactive. It also hosts events and attends open days at such as High House and had a stand at the Orsett Show this year.

There are about 30,000 objects in the museum, which are undergoing an inventory, alongside digitisation. During lockdown some displays and cabinets were cleaned and refurbished. The museum relies heavily on the volunteers who help in research, social media, education etc. There are also three part-time staff to help with the important task of digitisation.

Michelle is looking to the future when maybe we could display the mammoth found at Aveley, on loan from the British Museum. She is keen to consistently record every object or collection, looking for the story behind it. More work needs to be done with schools and local memories such as evacuation. There is a long way to go, with lottery funding to kick start the collection inventory, some objects having no information. It all starts with an accession number, then logged onto a database, with efforts made to find out more. There are only the bare bones at the moment but it will be searchable. The audience was asked to suggest searches – Tilbury Hospital, Grays Fire Station, Grays beach, allotments and the Empire cinema were looked at, with variable success.

The next step is to make all this information accessible, eventually on-line. We need to identify what's missing and find out more about the objects we have, which may take years. At the moment the museum cannot take in more objects and maybe some of their collection could be donated elsewhere, freeing up space for new acquisitions relating to Thurrock heritage. They would like to use members of the public to help, maybe from home. Once digitising is complete more needs to be found out about objects, looking to see what's relevant to Thurrock, with more involvement with schools. There could be an education out-reach programme and satellite displays across Thurrock.

Michelle and her team are hoping to receive more funding for extra staff so that they can continue to identify, carry out research, record and share their findings. She concluded her talk by asking why is the museum important, how can we make it important to more people and what's the purpose of the museum? This was a very interesting presentation by Michelle, giving food for thought for all of us to be aware of the history around us.

At the next meeting on Friday ,21 October members will be celebrating 70 years of the Society, with a buffet meal.