Newsletter: June 2025
Welcome to the latest edition of the Royal Mint Museum Newsletter. The Royal Mint Museum team embarked on exciting new projects in June. Read on to find out more.
Short Story Competition Reading Day
We recently announced the winner of this year’s Short Story Competition. The winner was selected by our guest judge, BAFTA award-winning TV presenter, Michaela Strachan. She chose a story by 8-year-old Myra Saindane – our youngest winner so far!
The Education and Learning Manager and the Museum Assistant had the pleasure of delivering the prizes to Myra in person at her school.
Myra was presented with an illustrated print of her story, along with an annual set of commemorative coins. In addition, she won a £5,000 voucher for her school’s library and, as well as celebrating her win with her parents and teachers, she will also share the good news with the rest of the school in a special assembly.
Our annual short story competition has now been running for five years and gives children from across the United Kingdom the opportunity to win investment in library of their own school or a local library. Preparations are already in place for next year’s competition, details of which will be available towards the end of the Autumn term here
Collections Assistant
As his one-year contract came to an end this week we were sad to say goodbye to our Collections Assistant Richard Phelps.
Together with a colleague, Richard catalogued more than 20,000 items and added more detail to existing records. This work has been instrumental in putting our collection online and making it accessible to people around the world. With the support of the Museum’s Board of Trustees, this project will continue, and we thank Richard for his hard work and wish him well for the future.
Visit to London
The Education Manager and Information and Research Manager were invited to the end-of-year degree show at Central Saint Martins University of the Arts, London. We previously completed a project with Graphic Design students at the college focusing on coin design and we are working on plans another collaboration in the future.
Whilst in London the Education Manager also attended the Postal Museum’s summer party and the opening of their new exhibition, Voices of Resistance: Slavery and Post in the Caribbean. We have strong links with the Postal Museum as the Royal Mint produced stamp printing plates in the early twentieth century and we have collaborated with the Museum on exhibitions in the past.
As well as these social networking events, the Education Manager also visited the Young V&A to find out how they approach engaging with young audiences.
Museum Podcast
New content alert! Go behind the scenes of our first podcast series, Coins and the Sea, with a suite of bonus episodes. Featuring extended cuts of interviews with our fantastic Coins and the Sea guests, these shorter episodes are miniature deep dives into the most interesting parts of each interview.
From exploring how it felt to undertake underwater archaeology on a shipwreck, to looking into how the gold in British coins helped to shape the formation of an empire, join our guests for a series of extended discussions that support and elevate the Coins and the Sea podcast.
With episodes being released weekly throughout June, July and August, find each one on our website, or search Coins and the Sea on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or your usual podcast provider.