The Story Museum is one of 35 organisations to receive a Small Capital Grant in the current round of Arts Council England awards, announced in January. Our grant is worth £465,000, and designed to improve the sustainability of arts and cultural organisations across England. The funding will take us a step closer to the realisation of our plans to create a major international story centre in Oxford.

We still need to raise an additional £7.5m for our transformation but, if we can match this latest success with other bids in the pipeline, we hope to advance an early phase of the development in the current year. We have plans to improve the building’s accessibility and facilities, as well as create a cafe and shop.

Co-director Tish Francis said: ?This is a recognition and reward for all those people, from authors and illustrators to charitable supporters and volunteers, whose ideas and hard work have helped us transform dreams into reality over the past seven years. It’s been a tough time and we’re not yet at the ball, but the coach has just been commissioned. Cinderella is now on the hunt for footmen, horses and ballgown. And more fairy godparents to grant more wishes!?

Poet and broadcaster Michael Rosen, our patron and Curator of Stories said:  ?The Story Museum is a unique venue where people of all ages will be able to explore the transformational power of story. In a set of extraordinary buildings and spaces, people will be able to sit, climb, think, draw, listen, watch and tell stories themselves. It will be a place of many corners, many nooks as well as wide open performance rooms. This is an adventure which will draw in writers, artists, dancers, puppeteers, model-makers, story-tellers, film and video-makers creating new audiences as well as enriching the minds of regular museum and theatre-going people. Fairy tale or what!?