The National Motorcycle Museum (NMM) has appealed for help amid the COVID-19 pandemic and is launching a raffle to help raise essential funds.

A statement from the NMM said: “Many visitors will not realise that the National Motorcycle Museum receives no external funding whatsoever. This means that, not only do we rely on visitors to the museum, but mainly on the income from our conference business and two sister hotels. Everyone knows that hospitality and leisure has been one of the worst hit sectors, and we don’t know when our National Conference Centre, Manor Hotel Meriden and Windmill Village Hotel Coventry will be able to reopen fully, let alone trade profitably.”

Museum Director James Hewing explained further: “The museum itself requires a surplus of around £500,000 per year just to break even. Without making this appeal, we may have to sell some of our reserve collection of bikes – the last thing we would ever have wanted to do. Unfortunately, all of our business activities are in one of the hardest hit sectors, and we simply don’t know how long they will take to recover”.

To help address this, the NMM has launched both a direct appeal for help and a raffle. On December 21, the NMM will hold a special COVID-19 Museum Appeal Raffle with the chance to win one of the following:

1st prize: 1977 Norton Commando 850cc
2nd prize: 1948 Ariel NG 350cc
3rd prize: 1959 BSA B31 350cc

Tickets are £6 each and will go on sale on July 17. They can be bought through the NMM’s website here, where you can donate directly to the reopening appeal fund.