How to Support or Join the British Balloon Museum & Library (BBM&L)

Updated

The British Balloon Museum & Library (BBM&L) offers two direct ways to support its work: a Join Now membership option and a Make a Donation option, both listed on its homepage. The charity's stated purpose is preserving items associated with hot air and gas ballooning and other forms of lighter-than-air flight, and its site frames support as helping "save the past for the future." If you want to get involved, joining or donating are the routes the organisation itself puts forward.

What the BBM&L Is

The BBM&L is the official museum of the British Balloon and Airship Club. A small group of balloonists formed it in 1979, and it is a registered charity. Its objective is preserving the many different items associated with, and used in, hot air and gas ballooning, and other forms of lighter-than-air flight.

One practical detail matters if you are deciding how to engage: the BBM&L has no physical museum to house its collection. Instead, thanks to the National Lottery Heritage Fund, many items in the collection can now be explored online for the first time. The site notes that adding collection items to the website will be a gradual process as more items are catalogued and photographed.

Ways to Support the BBM&L

The homepage presents two actions side by side:

Option What it is Where it appears
Join Now Membership with the organisation Homepage, alongside the donation option
Make a Donation A charitable donation Homepage, alongside the membership option

Both are framed by the site's own line: "Help save the past for the future." The National Lottery Heritage Fund is credited with supporting the work of making the collection available online, which is a concrete example of how external funding has already advanced the charity's mission.

The site does not publish membership fees, donation amounts, or payment methods in the material available here, so check the Join Now and Make a Donation pages directly for current terms.

Other Ways to Engage With the Collection

Support does not have to mean money. Because the collection is now largely online, you can engage with it directly:

  • Explore the Collection — browse categories including Hardware (balloons, baskets, burners), Books, Oral history (audio interviews with key people), Advertising (posters and handbills), Clothing, Photographs, Post/Postal items, Art, Moving films, Memorabilia, Trophies & plaques, Records (logbooks, certificates, stationery), Publications, and 3D models.
  • Search the Collection — use the search box to find a particular item, person or event.
  • Featured Object — the site highlights individual pieces, such as an open weave wicker basket made by Thunder Balloons (early design, c.1973, with no burner supports and cow hide around the top). The site explains this open weave design as a throw-back to the gas balloon era, which dominated balloon activity from the late 18th century until the modern hot air balloon was invented in the 1960s.
  • Latest News and Events — the BBM&L posts news items concerning people, balloons and airships, plus event details as they become available.

If you have ballooning-related items, records, or knowledge, the collection's gradual cataloguing process suggests the organisation is still actively building its archive — the Join Now route is the natural way to make contact about that.

Quick Answer

To support or join the BBM&L: go to bbml.org.uk and use either Join Now (membership) or Make a Donation (one-off or ongoing support). Both options are on the homepage. If you would rather explore first, the online collection and its search tool are open to browse, and the Latest News and Events section shows current activity.