The first Annual General Meeting of the Lowewood Museum Trust CIO will be held on Wednesday 21 September 2022 at the museum. Doors will open at 6:45pm for a 7pm start.
Please keep an eye on the website for copies of the Trust’s Annual Report for the year 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022.
If you would like to attend the AGM, please contact the Trust’s Secretary Steve Whitlam on steve.whitlam@broxbourne.gov.uk by Thursday 16 September so that the Trust can plan for catering and seating arrangements.
Lowewood Museum is now under the management of the Lowewood Museum Trust; a new charitable incorporated organisation. In this series of posts, meet the members of the Trust Board, with this article featuring Steve Whitlam.
Steve Whitlam lives in North East London with his wife and two children but has worked in the borough of Broxbourne since 2005. He is Broxbourne Borough Council’s Community Development Manager. Steve and his team are responsible for youth work, children’s playschemes and holiday hunger initiatives, sports development, the Active Herts health programme, support to vulnerable people, environmental sustainability, liaison with the community / voluntary sector, child safeguarding and culture and heritage.
Prior to joining Broxbourne Council, Steve worked in the Department of Health as a knowledge manager within the NHS Modernisation Agency.
Outside of work, Steve is a keen follower of Norwich City Football Club and has run the Flown From The Nest website for almost 25 years which is devoted to the careers of former players. This has led to Steve writing a column in the official Norwich City matchday programme for each home game for the last 13 seasons as well as contributions to newspaper articles and other publications.
Steve is also a trustee of All Saints Highams Park where he and his wife have been part of the leadership team for almost ten years. Other interests include British police procedural novels, real ale and trying to find the time to go running.
He says “I am excited for the future of the museum building upon the good foundations established before but re-imagining the service to engage with a wider range of residents and visitors by taking advantage of the many new opportunities as they present themselves.”
Lowewood Museum is now under the management of the Lowewood Museum Trust; a new charitable incorporated organisation. In this series of posts, meet the members of the Trust Board, with this article featuring David Dent, the Chair of the Trust.
David Dent has lived in the Borough of Broxbourne for most of his life. His family connections with the village of Wormley date back to the 1880’s.
David is a keen local historian and has collected information and old images of Wormley, Turnford, Broxbourne and Hoddesdon since the late 1970’s. Some of his collection appeared in two books, Hoddesdon’s Past in Pictures and Broxbourne and Wormley’s Past in Pictures, which were published in the 1990’s. His interest in local history was actively encouraged by two Cheshunt and Waltham Cross historians, Jack Edwards and Peter Rooke. Although they are sadly no longer with us, David acknowledges that their contribution and their donations to Lowewood Museum have added greatly to the wonderful collection housed there.
He is a former chair of the Friends of Lowewood Museum and is still a committee member. He is also a committee member of the Friends of Wormley Open Spaces.
David retired in 2017 when the family business of H. Dent and Sons, started by his late father, closed after nearly 60 years.
The long-term future of Lowewood Museum is something David cares very passionately about and he and his fellow trustees are determined to make it an asset that the local community can be justly proud of.
Lowewood Museum is now under the management of the Lowewood Museum Trust; a new charitable incorporated organisation. In this series of posts, meet the members of the Trust Board, with this article featuring Pete Dockar.
Pete Dockar lives in Broxbourne with his wife and two young children, having moved from London 10 years ago to be closer to his wife’s family who have lived in the area for many years.
He is responsible for customer and digital banking propositions at Virgin Money UK and is a director of a number of the bank’s subsidiaries. He was previously at HSBC, holding senior UK and European positions including UK Head of Mortgages.
Pete has a keen interest in Broxbourne’s rich history and local architecture. He is hugely excited about the opportunity for the museum to be a hub that by connecting people to their heritage, strengthens communities and deepens family ties.
In his spare time, in addition to history he also enjoys running as well as composing and performing music.
Lowewood Museum is now under the management of the Lowewood Museum Trust; a new charitable incorporated organisation. In this series of posts, meet the members of the Trust Board, with this article featuring Claire Haggarty.
Claire Haggarty is a qualified primary school teacher and volunteer manager from Bedfordshire. “I began working in museums as soon as I graduated from university taking on various seasonal visitor services roles and freelancing as a museum educator. I had great fun working in museum education using costume and theatre to bring history to life. It offered balance to the sometimes stressful duty management of busy visitor attractions dealing with anything from ticketing problems, or visitor complaints right through to first aid calls and broken-down cars in the visitor car park.”
Claire received a Highly Commended at the 2016 Volunteer’s in Museums Awards for Supporting, Managing and Encouraging Others in her work recruiting and training volunteers on the Painted Hall Project at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. The project which received £7.7million from the Heritage Lottery Fund was a unique opportunity for visitors to see the conservation of 40,000 sq feet of fresco ceiling up-close, and volunteers were recruited to lead visitor tours on the 60-foot internal scaffolding.
Since then, Claire has gone on to work for organisations like Age UK and Bletchley Park as a Volunteer Manager advising on policy development and people strategy. She actively volunteers as a part of her hometown’s good neighbour scheme and as a steering committee member of the Heritage Volunteering Group, a group of heritage professionals who come together to promote best practice in volunteer management across the heritage sector through training and events.
A keen quilter and chef, Claire can otherwise be found in the garden or on her allotment.
Lowewood Museum is now under the management of the Lowewood Museum Trust; a new charitable incorporated organisation. In this series of posts, meet the members of the Trust Board, with this article featuring Bryan Hewitt.
Bryan Hewitt was born in 1959 in the same house as his father. Actually he lives in the same street in Waltham Cross where his family has lived for over a hundred years!
He has been working for the Lee Valley Regional Park , based at Myddelton House Gardens in Enfield, for 37 years where Bryan is their first Gardener/Historian. His interest in the Borough’s history was sparked by his father and encouraged by his early friendship with the legendary local historian Jack Edwards and later by Cheshunt historian Peter Rooke, both of whom became close personal friends.
A keen local actor for 50 years , he won the adjudicator’s award for best actor in the Hertford Theatre Week 1990. He is a member of Broxbourne Theatre Company and Potters Bar Theatre Company .
Bryan was a committee member of The Friends of Lowewood Museum for 10 years and is the author of “The Crocus King :E A Bowles of Myddelton House” (The Rockingham Press, 1997 , republished and updated 2017 ).
Lowewood Museum is now under the management of the Lowewood Museum Trust; a new charitable incorporated organisation. In this series of posts, meet the members of the Trust Board, with this article featuring Siobhan Monaghan.
Siobhan has lived in the Borough of Broxbourne for the last 20 years and became a local councillor in 2018. She took up the role of Cabinet Member for Housing & Community Services in 2019.
She started her career as a Picture Researcher for Sport & General News Services in London in 1982. Not only working with TV, newspapers and magazines but also assisting on the cataloging of an extensive glass plate negatives collection housed in a church crypt.
Following a period of time with The Heart Corporation in Soho working for Cosmopolitan, Company, Harper’s & Queen and Good Housekeeping, Siobhan moved in the world of Investment Banking and a career recruiting top graduates across Europe & America.
Always returning to her creative side she continues to develop her skills as a silversmith and is currently studying jewellery design.
She says “I see a museum not only as a link to the past but also a window to our future. I want Lowewood to be a place of discovery, excitement and somewhere you want to return to time and again. Working with this incredible team of Trustees & Volunteers the museum will be somewhere that you not only visit but will come to you. It is for everyone throughout the Borough & beyond.”
Siobhan is also a Foster Carer, Chair of The Police & Crime Panel for Hertfordshire, member of The National Association of Police Fire & Crime Panels Executive, The Fawcett Society, The Conservative Women’s Association and The Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development.
Lowewood Museum is now under the management of the Lowewood Museum Trust; a new charitable incorporated organisation. In this series of posts, meet the members of the Trust Board, with this article featuring Stephen Harris.
Stephen Harris has lived in the local area all of my life and has run a successful self drive rental business since 1977. He currently chairs the Events and Promotions Committee of the Love Hoddesdon Business Improvement District leading on Town Centre events.
He works on a voluntary basis in partnership with others, structuring/marketing/promoting/advertising many outside events including preservation rallies, heritage gatherings and street entertainment. He also report on such events as a correspondent for national journals.
His hobbies include; the history of British commercial vehicles; the heritage of the Country’s towns and villages; the culture of the touring shows and pleasure fairs and consequently has been made an Honorary Member of the Showmen’s Guild.
His other memberships include; The Fairground Association of Great Britain; The Fairground Society: and the Whitewebbs Museum of Transport.
Lowewood Museum is now under the management of the Lowewood Museum Trust; a new charitable incorporated organisation. In this series of posts, meet the members of the Trust Board, starting with Lee Rayner.
Leone ( Lee) Rayner has lived in the Borough of Broxbourne since 1971 and taught in a local school until 1991. She then worked as a free-lance tutor in films and TV, as well as providing private coaching in English and History for O and A level students.
She has enjoyed a long association with the Arts, most particularly with literature, theatre and music and has been involved in performing and directing in amateur theatre, locally, also creating some original material for performance and running children’s musical theatre workshops.
Since 2000, Lee has been Director of Programming for the Broxbourne Arts Forum (BArts) organising and promoting numerous ‘home-grown’ events and booking professional performances . For five years, from 2000-2005, she was Director of the Broxbourne Midsummer Festival.
Currently, in addition to devising an annual programme for BArts, she designs and produces publicity material for them, also for several other groups, and is creating numerous presentations and courses on Zoom, most recently a ten-week course on Shakespeare.
She has two daughters, six grandchildren, all grown-up, and seven great-grandchildren, ranging in ages from eleven to four.
Lowewood Museum 