The Friends of the Norris Museum
	WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO MORE TO HELP THE NORRIS MUSEUM? WHY NOT JOIN THE FRIENDS?
	The Friends of the Norris Museum are a group of ordinary people who provide extra support for our Museum. They help us with fund raising events to support special projects, and some members are able to support our activities in various ways.     It's easy to be a Friend. You just pay an annual subscription and then you'll receive regular Newsletters to tell you what's going on. We usually hold a Barbecue in the Museum garden each summer and a Christmas party in the Museum itself. There is an annual coach trip to a place of interest while our Annual General Meeting each October includes a talk on some aspect of local history or heritage.       The Friends also act as the publishing arm of the Museum. They publish books on local history, with the profits going to support projects at the Museum, and every year they print a beautiful Christmas card showing a local scene - the ideal way to send seasonal greetings to your friends, customers or clients.
	WHAT'S ON - WHAT THE FRIENDS HAVE GOT PLANNED FOR THE COMING MONTHS
	WORK HAS STARTED ON OUR NEW OUTBUILDING St Ives architect David Pitts has designed the new building in traditional style, with a timber structure and a lead roof. We hope it will be put up in the early summer and will enhance the Museum garden, as well as giving us the chance to display the Earith fire engine properly - for the first time after 70 years. Thanks to the Friends of the Norris Museum! The Friends have pledged to meet the entire cost of a new building in the Museum garden. It will house and display an important item in the Museum's collections, an 18th-century fire engine from the village of Earith.   This unusual piece of local history was given to the Museum in the 1930s, but lack of space meant that it languished in a shed in the Museum garden until 1991. Then it was sent to London to be restored before being put on display with other historic fire engines at Ely Fire Station. Lack of space at Ely forced the Fire Service to send it back to us last year, so we're now taking steps to provide a purpose-made building to keep it safely and display it to our visitors.       OUR PROGRAMME FOR 2009   The Friends Committee will be meeting in February to plan our events for 2009. We're planning to hold our annual coach trip in May, when we shall be going to the historic Dockyard at Chatham in Kent. And later in the summer our ever-popular barbecue will take place in the picturesque surroundings of the Museum garden.   Photograph by Michael White