When adding new people as members of your website Members Admin is the best one to use.  You can let them remain as members or become administrators from here.

If you change the permissions in ‘Permissions and Sharing’ this will override the Members Admin - eg  if you remove the administrator status from the website administrators groups you will no longer have administrator rights in Members admin, even if that indicates to the contrary.

The only time you need to use the ‘Permissions and Sharing’ facility is when you wish to make a person an administrator of a particular page.  Users have to be a member of your site.

A useful thing to remember... Do not amend any permissions relating to the groups of your site Community Administrators.  If individuals are administrators, even for only the standard or customised page, make sure this is what you want to do, as this will override anything in Members Admin for that page.  For more information see Help Sheet 2A 

Museum to Go is Colchester and Ipswich Museum Service’s van based, community focused mobile museum and has just taken delivery of its giant board game to add to this exciting FREE resource on the road!

Colchester’s history is taking to the highway, embarking on a new long and interesting journey into people’s lives, will take collections out to hard to reach audiences in a creative and innovative way.  This is all due to Colchester museums securing £100,000 of external funding from the Designation Challenge Fund Phase 4.

Caroline Mc Donald Museum to go Project Officer says - ‘It is a fun, innovative, exciting resource that seeks to engage non-museum users with a surprising experience of their past. It aims to be the opposite of a traditional museum experience and to shatter preconceptions.’

The van will bring this free, friendly and fun history service to communities in the Ipswich, Colchester, Maldon or Tendring areas.  A museum member of staff will help you discover, touch, smell, play, create, listen and look to find out about the people who lived here before us from the prehistoric to modern period.

There will be a ‘dig deeper’ corner where more in depth information will be available and a laptop which will also provide other info as well as the chance to explore ‘Virtual Colchester’ or take on the Romans in the game ‘Rome-Total War!’ (Kindly donated by Creative Assembly).  A second museum staff member will be there to help and answer questions.

A fifth, smaller theme will be reminiscencence boxes for use with elderly people in care homes.

To find out more, discuss your needs or to book call the team on 01206 507846 or email: museumtogo@colchester.gov.uk

Grants available for Charities, Voluntary and Community groups in Essex, Southend and Thurrock 

Essex Community Foundation is a local, grantmaking, charitable trust (registered number 1052061).  The Foundation was established in 1996 and manages Funds on behalf of individuals, companies, statutory agencies and charitable trusts which want to channel money to support local charities, voluntary and community groups in Essex, Southend and Thurrock.

The average grant awarded is around £3,500.  More information, application forms, deadline dates and criteria can be found on the Foundation’s website www.essexcommunityfoundation.org.uk or do call their grants team on 01245 356018 who will be happy to answer any queries in advance of an application being submitted.