The Friends of Southend Museums, or FOSMs as they are known, is a support group for the Museums Service.

As a registered charity they raise funds for all the museums, including the Art Gallery, as well as helping with events and voluntary work (the picture shows a FOSMs member helping at an outside Shakespeare production at Prittlewell Priory).

The Friends are committed to preserving Southend's heritage and helping the museum present it in a lively and interesting way.

Meetings
Evening meetings are held every month, except for a two month summer recess, at Southend Central Museum at 7.30pm. Meetings are usually on a Wednesday or a Thursday and centre around a talk, with a break for refreshments. Non-members are welcome to attend meetings, for a small charge.
In the evenings, parking at the Central Museum is easy. After 6.0 pm there is free use of the pay and display car park just north of the library.

The programme is very varied with topics ranging from tradesmens' reminiscences to local wildlife, with many talks linking to museum themes. A social highlight is the Christmas Party.

Newsletter
'Southend Museums News' is an eight page newsletter sent to members about once every three months, giving updates on museum and art gallery news and FOSM events.

Helping out
Members enjoy lending a hand at events throughout the year. Sometimes it's a case of manning a tea stall (FOSMs has a regular booking to provide refreshments during performances by Southend Shakespeare Society in the parks in July each year). At other times, members have helped as stewards in special exhibitions.
 

Other Contributions from the Friends have been:
 
* A cash contribution to the Discovery Centre in Southend Central Museum, an exciting new hands-on activity area. Members also helped steward during a public consultation exercise.
 
* Purchase of Emma and Dorothy, two realistic (and therefore very expensive) Victorian mannequins for room settings in the Central Museum.
 
* Cleaning and re-framing of four large paintings by Alan Sorrell at Prittlewell Priory Museum. These works are of interest in the history of historical reproduction paintings, being the first major venture into this field by Sorrell (1904 - 1974), who was later to become well known for such work.
 
* Purchase of a group of Southend souvenir pottery, mainly Victorian, from a private collection which was being sold.