Page 127 - QDG Volume 9 No. 5

1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards The Abandoned Soldier Statue, located in our Memorial Garden
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Firing Line
The mission of the museum is to protect,
commemorate and celebrate regimental
history and tradition whilst being profes-
sional, educational and inspirational.
We certainly have the audience!
At 81,255 visitors, the financial year
2023-2024 saw a 17.5% increase in
the museum’s footfall compared to the
previous year. At the time of writing,
visitor numbers are on course to surpass
this during the financial year 2024-2025
with numbers estimated to come in close
to 100,000 by the end of March.
On the theme of professional, one high-
light of our year has been the renewal of
our museum accreditation, awarded in
May 2024. Accreditation is vital to our
museum and ensures working practices
adhere to high standards. We have also
had our Firearms license renewed which
allows us to hold all types of firearms
within the law.
Activities and Exhibitions
Moving towards the themes of educa-
tion and inspiration: Firing Line Museum
continues to focus on the development
of our floor displays to focus on exciting
and personal stories showing the culture
and ethos of the regiments. Our aim is
to bring Firing Line to a point whereby
visitors go away remembering the name
of our regiments and hopefuly inspiring
them to find out more for themselves.
The redevelopment of the Waterloo
Room is one of our main goals for the
year and to this end, we are working with
a variety of designers to increase interac-
tive potential with the goal of making it an
even more impressive and rousing space.
This will be available for private or corpo-
rate bookings. We are also in the process
of bringing in a new area in the museum
dedicated to Franz Josef, the Austrian
connection and regimental music. To this
end, the QDG Heritage Trust arranged for
an interview to take place with Markus
Habsburg in the Kaiservilla at the end of
2024, which will be shown on a screen
alongside the display.
Aside from the development our
permanent displays, we also routinely
develop a series of changing tempo-
rary exhibitions at the museum. Recent
highlights of the temporary exhibition
program have included:
•
the installation of a banner exhibi-
tion commemorating the Korean
War to coincide with the seven-
tieth anniversary of the signing of
the Armistice Agreement.
•
a photodocumentary exhibi-
tion commemorating the 1st The
Queen’s Dragoon Guards involve-
ment in peacekeeping in Kosovo
in 1999-2000. We were delighted
to have the launch of this exhibi-
tion opened by the Colonel of the
Regiment and Leader of Cardiff
Council,Councillor Huw Thomas.
•
the development of a Beirut
exhibit telling the story of the
Queen’s Dragoon Guard’s involve-
ment in the 1983 peacekeeping
mission.
In June, our team were delighted to
host A Squadron QDG for a talk and
to look around the museum, followed
by a tour around Cardiff Castle, before
the Squadron went on to an evening
of engagement with the South Wales
Branch of the RCA. What a fantastic day.
That same month, we were lucky
to be able to host the Welsh Veterans
Awards Finalists for a day of filming, and
our fortnightly veterans’ hub continues,
established thanks to the generosity
of Adferiad and V4P. This hub is under
the guidance of Abigail Warburton, the
Armed Forces Liaison Officer at Cardiff
and Vale of Glamorgan. The memorial
garden continues to be tended to by
veterans from Boots on The Ground,
overlooked by the Abandoned Soldier
Statue which all provides a peaceful
place of reflection.
We have a sustained demand for
professional research, which has been
conducted throughout the year by Mark
and a research volunteer, so do get in
touch if you would like any research to
be undertaken.
Education Programme
The Education programme remains
strong with Firing Line seeing an
increase in the number of schools
booking sessions compared to the
previous year. Activities are a mixture of
on-site and outreach sessions, with the
newest addition to our offering being
days based around Remembrance. Our
furthest education session this year took
us to Rydal Penrhos school in Colwyn
Bay – whose Combined Cadet Force is
affiliated with QDG – where we worked
in partnership with the QDG Regimental
Engagement Team to tell the story of both
the historical and present-day regiment.
The museum also continues to host
visits from cadet and regimental groups,