On 6 November, we'll find out which is Britain's favourite lottery project, following a public vote for the National Lottery Helping Hands Award.
The award has been set up to celebrate ten years of the National Lottery, and the billions of pounds it has put into good causes - not least the £3bn that has been spent on museums and heritage through the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Add to that the funding from the Millennium Commission and the Arts Lottery, which funded projects like Tate Modern, the Eden Project and Magna, and the impact of the lottery is arguably the most influential since the Victorians built many of our great national and regional museums.
The museums and galleries up for awards (see www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/birthday) are the Holocaust Exhibition at the Imperial War Museum and Tate Modern, with the Lowry, Salford - which includes a gallery - up for the Magnificent Spaces award.
But to that could be added fantastic projects such as the Millennium Galleries in Sheffield, Manchester Art Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery's extension and the BM's Great Court, to name a few. And not to forget a wonderful array of objects and paintings including the Amarna Princess Egyptian statue, now in the Bolton Museum.
Tate Modern will be hosting a public party on the same day, and the BBC will air a TV special. It is a much-deserved opportunity to celebrate the achievements of the lottery and, for us, the Heritage Lottery Fund which, after a slightly controversial start, has shown itself to have vision and good judgment in the difficult task of deciding which of the many deserving projects it should prioritise.
But the anniversary celebrations are not an occasion for complacency. The current lottery period comes to an end in 2009, which means government thinking about the future of the lottery is already underway. There are a number of potential threats to this great cultural bonanza, not least the possibility, not yet realised, that revenues from the lottery game will decrease.
Few museums have done much to make the connection between the lottery game and its largesse explicit - maybe if it were a bit more obvious, more visitors (at least those without ethical or religious objections) could be encouraged to play the game and keep the money flowing?
We could all also do more to promote the Heritage Lottery Fund, given there is no guarantee at all that heritage will retain its current privileged provision (in continental Europe it is common for national lotteries to fund things like health, not culture). It is also hard for museums to balance the need to credit other sponsoring organisations, such as local authorities, and private donors, with the need to thank the HLF.
Private donors understandably want naming opportunities, and of course their generosity needs recognition. Yet all too often minority supporters, in funding terms, get equal billing. It is surely only fair that the lottery and the lottery ticket-buying public get their fair share of recognition.
Jane Morris, editor
The award has been set up to celebrate ten years of the National Lottery, and the billions of pounds it has put into good causes - not least the £3bn that has been spent on museums and heritage through the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Add to that the funding from the Millennium Commission and the Arts Lottery, which funded projects like Tate Modern, the Eden Project and Magna, and the impact of the lottery is arguably the most influential since the Victorians built many of our great national and regional museums.
The museums and galleries up for awards (see www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/birthday) are the Holocaust Exhibition at the Imperial War Museum and Tate Modern, with the Lowry, Salford - which includes a gallery - up for the Magnificent Spaces award.
But to that could be added fantastic projects such as the Millennium Galleries in Sheffield, Manchester Art Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery's extension and the BM's Great Court, to name a few. And not to forget a wonderful array of objects and paintings including the Amarna Princess Egyptian statue, now in the Bolton Museum.
Tate Modern will be hosting a public party on the same day, and the BBC will air a TV special. It is a much-deserved opportunity to celebrate the achievements of the lottery and, for us, the Heritage Lottery Fund which, after a slightly controversial start, has shown itself to have vision and good judgment in the difficult task of deciding which of the many deserving projects it should prioritise.
But the anniversary celebrations are not an occasion for complacency. The current lottery period comes to an end in 2009, which means government thinking about the future of the lottery is already underway. There are a number of potential threats to this great cultural bonanza, not least the possibility, not yet realised, that revenues from the lottery game will decrease.
Few museums have done much to make the connection between the lottery game and its largesse explicit - maybe if it were a bit more obvious, more visitors (at least those without ethical or religious objections) could be encouraged to play the game and keep the money flowing?
We could all also do more to promote the Heritage Lottery Fund, given there is no guarantee at all that heritage will retain its current privileged provision (in continental Europe it is common for national lotteries to fund things like health, not culture). It is also hard for museums to balance the need to credit other sponsoring organisations, such as local authorities, and private donors, with the need to thank the HLF.
Private donors understandably want naming opportunities, and of course their generosity needs recognition. Yet all too often minority supporters, in funding terms, get equal billing. It is surely only fair that the lottery and the lottery ticket-buying public get their fair share of recognition.
Jane Morris, editor
