Museums And Archives

Building Resilience: Sustaining Macclesfield’s Silk Heritage to protect, share and enjoy stories of working lives

This urgent project seeks to develop Paradise Mill and the Silk Museum into a vibrant campus of economic activity, skills development and heritage participation to keep alive the stories of Macclesfield as the centre of the nation’s silk heritage. A time-sensitive project that transforms a vulnerable organisation into one that is sufficiently skilled and financed, with adequate reserves and resources to better protect and make accessible nationally important collections and buildings, with audiences at the heart of planning. Strategic initiatives achieve: 1. Financial resilience with double the voluntary and commercial income, a costed business plan and more supporters for future sustainability. 2. Organisational development with upskilled workforce, 50+ volunteers trained, endangered collections and silk weaving skills preserved, and stronger governance. 3. Audience development with new collaborations and digital marketing promoting a dynamic and inclusive offer, links with sporting/ social heritage increase relevance for more and a wider range of visitors.