Earlier this year The Hockey Museum (THM) acquired the collection of the late Royal Navy hockey historian Lt Commander Alan Walker. It is a vast collection of memorabilia items and paper archives, which includes unique Royal Navy Hockey material dating back to the 1890s as well as spanning Alan’s life in hockey, from Navy to Combined Services Hockey, from coaching (and coaching coaches) to his time as England Under 21s and senior manager. THM President and Hon. Curator Mike Smith describes it with admiration as, "One of the last great hockey collections we are likely to acquire".
We have drawn on the help of our contacts locally to house Alan’s collection so that we can begin to work through it to catalogue and preserve its fascinating content. We have acquired temporary premises in town with the support of the Surrey Museums Partnership and the Surrey History Centre and now we need to pull together a team of volunteers to undertake the work.
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Above: A small part of Alan's archive, now in the care of The Hockey Museum but in need of much work. Below: The late Lt Commander Alan Walker at the Hockey Writers' Club lunch. |
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Volunteering on the project
We’d like to start work on Alan’s archive in July. You would need to be able to travel to Woking in Surrey to work on the material. Our aim is to have a minimum of two people working together on the project each week, Monday to Friday. You would be trained and supported by THM’s curatorial team making this is an exciting opportunity whether you’re retired and looking to get stuck into a project or keen to gain museum experience and learn new heritage skills.
Click below for the full role description – you can apply to volunteer with us directly or through the Volunteer Woking website.
Volunteers for the Alan Walker Hockey Archive Project for Hockey Museum (The) | Volunteer Woking
Funding the materials
This project is going to need a lot of conservation materials and they don’t come cheap. If you cannot make it to Woking to help with work in person, perhaps you would consider making a donation to support the project costs?
We’re confident of acquiring a grant for £1,000, but our initial costings suggest we need to spend in the region of £3,500 to complete the work!
Please make a donation to support the cost of conservation materials. Click the link below.
