Museum Anniversary

Firing Line celebrates its 10th Anniversary

As we approach the 10th Anniversary of the opening of the Firing Line Museum, Managing Curator Rachel Adams reflects on the journey that the organisation has been on and those challenges yet to come. 

“10 years ago, I can remember the excitement of this very same weekend in June 2009. Not only was Cardiff the host of the National Armed Forces Day commemorations but it also marked the opening of the Firing Line Museum by HRH The Prince of Wales.

Following the closure of The Welch Regiment Museum at Cardiff Castle, this eventful moment saw 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards and The Royal Welsh coming together to showcase the contributions of the Welsh Cavalry and Infantry side by side. After several years of designing and building the museum; the building that had once resembled a car park now was a shiny, bright and contemporary museum showcasing the contributions that the Welsh Soldier made throughout history. This had been the first capital museum project that I had been involved in as a Curator and as we opened our doors to the public I have never felt prouder of everything that we accomplished. This is a pride I still feel about the museum and our fantastic team, who continue to work so tirelessly to make the museum a success. 

As we celebrate our first decade as a museum, the event is tinged with sadness. We had hoped that this week would have been a joyful celebration of how far we have come, where we could welcome the public in to enjoy celebratory events with us. Instead, as the nation attempts recovery from the global COVID 19 pandemic our doors remain closed. No hustle and bustle of visitors to’ing and fro’ing, our museum stands still…..for the time being.

We had hoped to announce plans to redevelop the museum this week, instead with a furloughed museum team and a skeleton crew working behind the scenes, we find ourselves planning to open our museum once more and just get back to normal, whatever normal means. We have all missed our visitors and we cannot wait to welcome you all back again soon. 

So as we celebrate 10 years and look forward to re-opening, developing and improving; we have never needed your support more. That is why I am using this opportunity to ask anybody who enjoys the Firing Line Museum as much as we enjoy working for the organisation to support our fundraising campaign.

As a registered charity, donations and charitable giving makes such a huge difference to what we do………small change can lead to BIG CHANGE. 

Donations can be made to support the Firing Line Museum at http://paypal.com/gb/fundraiser/charity/3998488

I’ve always believed that there is no crisis or challenge that can keep a good team down, and at Firing Line we are blessed to have a team or people who are passionate and enthusiastic about the museum and our visitors. I would like to thank all of our staff and volunteers for their hard work over the last 10 years.