Our 2013 Weaving Well Being project, inspired by the Happy Museum Principles, led us (Monmouthshire Museum Service) to embrace the need for change within our organisation and gave us a strong taste of what a Happy Museum could be like. The project helped us to extend our responsibilities of stewardship to include the natural environment and begin to explore different ways of that active participation in collections could generate wellbeing. . During our weaving wellbeing project we became aware of the wellbeing benefits of “flow” that allowed some of the young carers participating in the scheme to experience the sensation of feeling relaxed for the first time when they were using their hands to weave a scarf. We want to explore this further.. Through the Affiliate Scheme we hope to learn from peers across the museum sector and share Happy Museum Principles with our colleagues within Monmouthshire County Council.

Abergavenny Museum