A SMALL award-winning volunteer-run museum in North Yorkshire has been praised in a national research study by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, a prestigious charity which supports the arts in the UK.

The study hailed Ryedale Folk Museum in Hutton-Le-Hole in the North York Moors National Park as “remarkable” and a beacon of best practice for the whole museum sector.

Now the museum, which won the Best Employer and Education Link award in The Press Business Awards 2009, is being offered a chance by the foundation to bid for initiative funding over the next four years to develop its community volunteering model further and share its work with other museums in the UK.

In 2009, the Paul Hamlyn Foundation selected 12 museums across the UK for an in-depth investigation of how they placed community needs, values and participation at the core of museum and gallery work, resulting in communities having a deeper, stronger and more meaningful sense of ownership of their museums and galleries.

Two years of research and working with the selected organisations resulted in the 148-page report, titled Engagement at the Heart of Museums and Galleries.

It praises the excellent work of Ryedale Folk Museum, its 200-strong army of volunteers under the “visionary leadership” of museum director Mike Benson and its partnerships with other organisations, including local schools and the probationary service.

Gary Verity, chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, said: “This is just what Yorkshire needs and can only help to raise the county’s profile even further.”

The author of the report, Dr Bernadette Lynch, of Manchester University was particularly impressed with the partnership between Ryedale Folk Museum and the Probationary Service.

Young offenders and museum staff work together, on projects which have a long-term use for the community, such as the museum’s full-size reconstruction of an Iron-Age roundhouse.

Built without the use of 21st century tools, and with authentic materials, the project has become a well-used learning space for visitors.

Museum director Mike Benson said: “The young offenders feel a real sense of ownership of roundhouse – new workers on the scheme visit the roundhouse and are really proud that this was built by their predecessors.”