Togryers Museum Newsletter

April – October 2025

 

Hello everyone! 👋

What an incredible six months it has been at the Togryers Museum! From community events to outreach, environmental activities, new educational offerings, and strong new partnerships, the museum has truly lived its mission. Here’s a quick look at what’s been happening at the Togryers Museum over the past months.

🎉 Events & Community

• International Museum Month kicked off our year with a Heritage Roadshow at Bella Vista High, exploring the 1825 Uprising and why heritage matters.
• In June we supported Crazy Socks 4 Docs, raising mental health awareness for healthcare workers.
• July brought one of our biggest collaborations — the Mandela Day 6.7km Fun Walk with 2feet4TB, Witzenberg Municipality, Ceres Tourism and Cape Winelands District Municipality The community helped collect 670 blankets for distribution to various entities.
• In August, Women’s Day, five local poets wrote pieces, honouring Klara Majola.
• Heritage Month (September) was packed with activities: an 1825 Uprising exhibition at John Steyn Library, participation in the Ceres Chase Amazing Race, a digital landmark photo challenge, an Anglo-Boer War talk by Prof Erik Holm, and a community flower-laying at the 1969 Earthquake Memorial.
• In October we continued with World Smile Day, where the team shared Ceres’ly Kind bookmarks in town.
• Local writers enjoyed another cosy open mic session at Homegrown Coffeeshop, sharing their work.
• As part of Mental Health Awareness Month, we hosted our annual Koekedouw Dam Wellness Walk with 44 community members.
• We celebrated local author Jadrick Pedro’s book launch, attended by around 40 supporters.

 

🌱 Projects

Our ongoing projects:

• The Ceres’ly Clean, Ceres’ly Green project, in collaboration with Ceres Tourism, Witzenberg Municipality and Cape Winelands District Municipality, continued with multiple clean-ups at the Dwarsriver, Bella Vista, Nduli and Rooikamp and entrance of town— collecting more than 100 bags in total.
• Phase 2 boosted recycling awareness, including a community visit to the local Material Recycling Facility.
• Our Ubuntu Winter Drive ended on a high note with a record 710 soup jars donated — with Warm Bokkeveld Correctional Services joining in for the first time.
• Our annual fundraising event with the Ceres Lions raised R13 600 for museum activities.
• Weekly book reading at House Peter Strauss
• October was special as we welcomed two new Yeboneers through the YearBeyond Youth Programme, focusing on oral history recordings.

 

🎒 Education

Our educational programmes reached learners of all ages across the area.

• We launched our brand-new Klara Majola educational programme, first presented to 99 Grade 3 learners from Bella Vista Primary.
• Our first Educational Loan Box on Jewish religious customs was completed and made available to schools.
• The museum’s anti-bullying programme reached a total of 780 of learners from Matjiesrivier Primary, Bella Vista High School, Bella Vista Primary School, Mooi Uitsig and Ceres Primary Schools.
• We presented our Outdoor Environmental and Cultural tour to 246 youth.
• The 1825 Uprising Roadshow was presented at Bella Vista High and Ceres Secondary.
• Koelfontein Primary enjoyed a memorable visit that included our first-ever stokbrood activity, now a new offering for school groups.

 

🌍 Special Visits

• Delegates from Essen, Belgium and a group of German students as part of a cultural exchange programme, visited the museum.

 

🖼️ Collections & Exhibitions

Behind the scenes, the collections team worked tirelessly:

• Hundreds of objects were scanned, photographed, audited and verified between April and October.
• Preventative conservation continued, including treating objects with oil mixtures and wax.
• An oral history interview was recorded with Basil de Wee and David Koopman, as part of the Rooikamp oral history project.

 

🤝 Friends of the Museum

The Friends continued creating awareness around our area’s wonderful heritage:

• They held their AGM in June with Prof John Parkington as guest speaker, talking about the meaning behind Rock art.
• They enjoyed an outing to Rhodana Farm in August.

 

📣 Marketing & Visibility

Throughout these months we stayed active across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and our.

The Togryers Museum received an award on Tuesday, 7 October 2025, at the Western Cape Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport (DCAS) Annual Cultural Awards at the Artscape. This was in recognition of its contribution to the promotion of social inclusion in the field of Museums, Heritage, and Geographical Names.

We also proudly represented the museum at:

• The SAMA Western Cape Conference (where we presented Rebellion to Reflection, 1825 Koue Bokkeveld Uprising),
• NAMPO KAAP, and
• The National Heritage Day celebrations in Oudtshoorn.

 

🔜 Still to Come

We’re closing off the year with our 16 Days of Activism Care Bags project, we’ll also be presenting four more anti-bullying programmes at local schools and hosting three outdoor educational tours to round off the year.

💛 Thank You

Thank you to everyone who supported and participated. Together, we continue to make the Togryers Museum a place where history, people, and stories come alive.

The Museum Team

Bertdene Laubscher, Anneline Dunn, Tania Brink, Rudowaan du Toit, Euan Fortuin, Lugaile Pieterse, Angelo Fortuin and Sakichea Williams.