HERITAGE organisations in South East Cornwall feature strongly on the shortlist for the first Cornwall Heritage Awards.

Volunteers working on a wide range of projects - from an archaeological dog on the moor to a family history day in Liskeard - are in line for honours.

There are 20 different organisations competing throughout six categories, selected by a small shortlisting committee with Ellie Collier, museums consultant for Arts Council England, as the head judge.

The awards are being organised by the Cornwall Museums Partnership, and £10,000 in prize money will be shared.

Lostwithiel Museum and Saltash Heritage are both in contention for the Innovation Award.

Saltash Heritage has been nominated for its approach to involving volunteers who no longer find it easy to get to the organisation’s base to contribute - packages of work are taken to people’s homes for them to work on. The approach has been used in the Nepean papers project, transcribing the papers of a prominent Saltash family of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Archivist Terry Cummings said the project had been so successful he now has several other tasks in mind.

‘The approach is brilliant,’, said Bryony Robins, museum development officer for the Partnership. “Volunteers can maintain their involvement and their contact.’

Lostwithiel Museum has been nominated for two reasons - for its successful window displays sponsored by local businesses, and for its fund-raising calendar which included a photographic competition for all ages on the theme of ‘historic Lostwithiel’.

‘The window displays are mini-exhibitions in their own right, linked to local businesses’ said Bryony.

Lostwithiel Museum is also on the shortlist for the Family Friendly Award thanks to its family trail, which involves youngsters matching children’s characters to the displays about the jobs that match their costumes as they go around the museum.

Cornish Heritage Award finalists include the South East Cornwall Museums Forum and St Neot Local Historians.

The Museums Forum has been shortlisted for its work organising Liskeard’s family history day, in which exhibitors across a wide range of themes and sources are brought together as a one-stop-shop of advice and information for people researching family and local history.

St Neot Local Historians organised a £24,000 archaeological excavation into a possible Bronze Age (c2000-700BC) settlement at West Northwood Farm, near St Neot, a project in which hundreds of local people got involved.

The Heritage Heroes award is aimed at individual teams of volunteers.

Nominated are the volunteers working on preserving cranes at the Wheal Martyn china clay museum at St Austell, and the team at Looe’s Old Guildhall Museum and Gaol who volunteer time cleaning, cataloguing and organising the museum.

The Judges’ Choice Award will be given to the project or organisation the judges feel most merits additional commendation, selected from applications from the six categories.

‘All these organisations and individuals do such a fantastic job,’ said Bryony.

Shortlisting judge Lynsey Jones, museum development officer and accreditation adviser North West, said: ‘They were all great projects, with some absolutely outstanding ones, and it was really difficult to try to compare them!’

The final judging process starts next week and the final results for all awards categories will be announced at a ceremony on March 20 at Scorrier House in Redruth.