Army Flying Museum gets £29,000 of lottery funding

The Army Flying Museum has received £29,000 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to support its online lecture infrastructure, website, and museum operational costs.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown began the Museum has been reaching audiences across the globe with a successful lockdown lecture series and outreach programme.

Lucy Johnson, Army Flying Museum chief executive described the cash as a "lifeline."

"Thanks to the National Lottery and its players we can now continue our hugely popular online lectures, which have kept us engaged with thousands of people while they may have otherwise felt quite isolated."

"More than 17,000 people have watched our lectures around the globe. Two seasons are still available to watch, and a third season is being planned."

"Now we have reopened, with restrictions and guidelines in place, it's important that we continue to forge ahead with this broad offering to a much wider audience that otherwise wouldn't know about us or the story of Army flying that we tell. We're grateful that The National Lottery Heritage Fund is supporting us at this crucial time - it's a lifeline to us and others who are passionate about sustaining heritage for the benefit of all."

The funding, made possible by National Lottery players, was awarded through The National Lottery Heritage Fund's Heritage Emergency Fund. £50million was made available to provide emergency funding for those most in need across the heritage sector.

The UK-wide fund aimed to address both immediate emergency actions and help organisations to start thinking about recovery.

Ros Kerslake, Chief Executive of The National Lottery Heritage Fund, said:

"Heritage has an essential role to play in making communities better places to live, supporting economic regeneration and benefiting our personal well-being. All of these things are going to be even more important as we emerge from this current crisis. Thanks to money raised by National Lottery players we are pleased to be able to lend our support to organisations such as the Army Flying Museum during this uncertain time."