Felixstowe Museum has been named as one of six of the county's outstanding museums. in this year's Suffolk Museum of the Year Awards.

A ceremony at The Hold in Ipswich on Monday 10 October at an awards evening hosted by Georgy Jamieson of BBC Radio Suffolk. 

The winners were: 

·                 Large Museum of the Year: Food Museum 

·                 Small Museum of the Year: Felixstowe Museum 

·                 Family Friendly Award: The Red House 

·                 Innovation Award: Bawdsey Radar 

·                 Working with Young People Award: Halesworth and District Museum 

·                 Volunteer of the Year: Steve Bell of Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum 

·                 Object of the Year (as voted for by the public in an online vote in September): Halesworth and District Museum for their Blythburgh coin.  

In addition, the following museums and volunteers were recognised as highly commended: 

·                 National Horseracing Museum in the Large Museum of the Year category 

·                 Dunwich Museum in the Family Friendly category 

·                 The volunteer team at Royal Naval Patrol Service Museum in the Volunteer/s of the Year category 

The awards are organised by the Association for Suffolk Museums to celebrate and champion the county's incredible museums and the hard work and dedication of their staff and volunteers.  

Winners were chosen by an independent judging panel, including representatives from SHARE Museums East, a museum development organisation, the University of Suffolk and Community Action Suffolk. They reviewed the 31 public nominations that were made for all of the award categories, representing 15 of Suffolk's museums. In the Object of the Year category, the Blythburgh coin from Halesworth and District Museum was the runaway winner, receiving 46% of nearly 600 votes from the public. 

Cllr Bobby Bennett, Cabinet Member for Equality and Communities, said: "The last awards ceremony was back in 2019 so it was wonderful to hear about the many ways museums in Suffolk have overcome the difficulties of the past few years and in fact continued to excel in offering fantastic experiences to their visitors and communities. It was a great evening of celebration and I encourage everyone to look up their local museum and see what they've got to offer!"