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The History and
Background of the IMW
The IMW developed as a direct result of the UK’s foot & mouth
epidemic in the early spring of 2001 Link to Wikipedia. The Mills on
the Air event was having issues due to the restriction on the
public's movement around the UK's countryside and with so many of
the windmills and watermills being located out in the countryside,
amateur radio enthusiast's access became somewhat difficult. I got
my head together with a local amateur who had keenly supported the
Mills and decided that a good alternative offering might be a
museums event, as museums were most often near cities and towns and
not generally affected by the epidemic. In addition to which, there
were many more of them and operating from them we would be more in
the public's eye.
My friend thought that the museum curators would be reluctant allow
amateurs to put such events on in their prized museums, so by the
way of a bit of ‘market research’ and forever the optimist, I
approached several of the largest, most imposing and least likely
museums in my area - to see how they might accept the idea of
bunches of radio amateurs tramping around their museums. I described
what we would be doing, what facilities we would need etc.. and in
all cases they agreed in principle that it might work.
This was only two or three months from the Mills event date and the
intention was to run the ‘Museums on the Air’ event at a similar
timing to the Mills event in 2001. With such a short time to get the
event set up, I asked one of the Mills organisers agreed to set up
the initial web site – I really had no idea where to start in
setting up a web site back then and no time to learn. In the
meantime I concentrated on advertising the new event and encouraging
amateurs to take part. It was only really intended to be a once only
event to cover for the foot & mouth year, but the following year I
was asked to keep it going for another year. I was also asked by
those from outside the UK, to allow them to also take part - so I
then had to rename it the ‘International Museums Weekend’. From
there it became a regular and popular event in the radio amateur
calendar alongside Mills on the Air and CASHOTA.
A regular problem each year, had been that of being asked to adjust
the date because of clashes with other events and clubs other
commitments. So the next change was to test it as double weekend, to
allow some choice. That proved to be a very popular change in the
event indeed and many of the clubs now take part on both weekends.
Having run the site on my own for a
few years 2013 saw big changes in the admin team. Dave M1TWO joined
the team to help with the day to day Admin and IT matters.
Another recruit to the team is John M0HEM, who took on the post
of IAW Manager In May 14 we were joined by Sue G6DDS as Publicity
Manager.
Harry M1BYT
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