A heartfelt thank you to our volunteers
Volunteers’ Week takes place from 1–7 June each year. It’s an opportunity to recognise the incredible contribution volunteers make to our communities and to say a heartfelt thank you. At Shetland Museum & Archives, we are fortunate to have three wonderful volunteers who have been supporting collections work in our store week after week. Between them, they have dedicated more than 30 years of service, assisting our curators and helping to care for Shetland’s heritage
Recently, we added 26 hand-woven scarves and several headsquares to our collection. Woven in Shetland between the 1940s and 1960s, they represent a beautiful variety of colour and weaves. During this period, many weavers still worked from home, often producing pieces for local woollen companies rather than operating as sole traders.
Our volunteer Jen has been carefully creating custom tissue-cushion rolls for each scarf and is currently preparing a storage tube for one of the headscarves, ensuring these textiles are preserved for future generations.
Jen’s husband, Mike, is an archaeology enthusiast with a particular interest in Shetland’s rich archaeological collections. He spends a day each week enhancing the collections records and repacking archaeological finds.
Meanwhile, our volunteer, Jane, is a regular presence in the store, working on our Natural History Collection, with a particular focus on lichens in preparation for the digitisation of an exciting natural history project. More to follow! She also enhances catalogue records on our ship model collection which uses her knowledge as a keen sailor of Tall Ships and is a model maker herself.
This Volunteers’ Week, we would like to extend our sincere thanks to Jen, Mike and Jane, and to all our volunteers, for the time, care and expertise they bring to the museum. We couldn’t do it without them!
