Here’s a request from Blists Hill Victorian Town, part of the Ironbridge Gorge museums.  We spend quite a lot of time at Blists Hill and we find something new every time.  They rely on donations and volunteers to keep the museums open and the money will come in useful!

I hope that you can help.  As you may be aware, Blists Hill Victorian Town in Ironbridge has reached the Short-list of the Art Fund Prize for Museum of the Year 2010, the largest arts prize in Britain.

The Museum is up against some significant competition including the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and Ulster Museum, part of the National Museums of Northern Ireland.

Ironbridge has to prove strong support from its visitors and friends if it is to stand a chance of winning the £100,000 prize and you can help by voting on the Art Fund Prize website until 18 June 2010.  As a charity, Ironbridge does not receive any statutory funding from either central or local government and if the Museum was fortunate enough to win the prize, it would use the funds to create a new education and gallery space in the Museum of Iron for the many thousands of school children who visit each year from Shropshire and beyond.

Please can you vote by following the link http://www.artfundprize.org.uk/2010/vote/ – it should only take about 30 seconds and you can win a great prize just for voting.  If you can leave a nice comment too, that would be great!

Please can you also share this request with family, friends or, even better, your work colleagues.  We’d like to think that a vote for Blists Hill Victorian Town is a vote for Shropshire and the West Midlands too.

You can chart our progress by clicking http://www.artfundprize.org.uk/2010/vote/thank-you.php