SINCE its founding over a century ago the Lyme Regis Museum has revelled in its status as being run by volunteers.

Now with its first full-time professional curator the museum is entering a new era – but even she admits it will be a hard act to follow.

With 12,417 visitors passing through its doors in the first nine months of this year, up by around 600 on the same period last year, Mary Godwin knows she has a lot to live up to.

Ms Godwin says the museum has had a ‘very good year’, a lot of which she thinks is down to the bad weather.

She said: “The weather is an important factor. However marvellous the museum, in a location like this, there are all sorts of factors than can affect visitor numbers.

“We cannot sit back and rest on our laurels. All we can do is our very best to attract as many people as possible within our means, as we are a very small organisation.”

Managing the 12,000-odd visitors is possible thanks to the 65 volunteers.

Assuming each volunteer works the usual two-and-a-half hours, they will provide around 8,500 man hours, although Ms Godwin said the reality is many work well beyond that.

“If you start adding it all up, all that time and effort is phenomenal,” she said. But the museum needs more volunteers.

Ms Godwin said: “If we are recruiting volunteers it is important they have some sort of specific role and we look after them and make them feel important and valued.”

The contribution from volunteers is in addition to the support from the Friends of the Museum, who help with fundraising and organising events, and whose major project is to raise £50,000 towards a £3 million extension, needed to provide exhibition space, a study centre and an education room.

Education is a major priority for Ms Godwin, who became the museum’s first full-time curator just three weeks ago.

She said: “There are lots of volunteers interested in education so we will be getting together to talk about what schools and families want and come up with a plan to do some fun and interesting things education-wise.

“Generally we are going to do quite a lot of work on our programming and events. We have a lot of events already but we want to make more of them.

“We also want to do a few new things and if there is anyone out there experienced in organising events or interested in organising events on a voluntary basis, we would love to talk to them.”

Ms Godwin hopes to implement a computer system to manage the enormous collections, which are currently catalogued on index cards.

With a degree in history of art and a masters in the history of design, Ms Godwin admits she is a very ‘arty person’, but she is also keen to help people feel more confident about science.

“I think Lyme Regis is the perfect place to do that,” she said. “There is a really strong arts theme but also a really strong science theme. I think that is something a lot of smaller museums don’t have.”

Ms Godwin’s past jobs have included working at the Design Museum in London, as a company historian for Cable & Wireless, helping to set up the Porthcurno Telegraph Museum, and most recently at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum.

But Ms Godwin thinks Lyme Regis Museum is a ‘special case’. “It is a fantastic place,” she said. “I like being involved with an organisation where it’s not just doing a job.

“I like to have links with the community and be involved with people and Lyme is ideal for that because it is a place where people know each other and that is very important to me.”

The museum is open every day during half term. From November, the museum will operate winter opening hours, open Wednesday to Sunday, 11am to 4pm. It is closed on Christmas Day but open on Boxing Day through to the New Year.