The New Forum Centre

Our headquarters and main base of operations !

Our home, in the heart of rural Melton Mowbray, the beginings of this venue were formed in 2018, whilst association founder Carl was working in the same complex of buildings, for Pipe Organ Services as their tuner and voicer. This was where Carl met Chris the Estate Manager and fellow organ nut, having recently purchased the ex Forum Coventry Conacher organ, Carl had this stored on the site. As Chris is a prolific collector of Electronic Organs, Carl had one too many instruments in the house, and offered a spare Wersi Helios to Chris, a conversation over Sunday lunch, and a conveniently open roller shutter door later … And the New Forum Centre was born !

August 2019, the move was on ! We began the difficult task of moving the Conacher all of .. 30ft ! From the storage container it spent the last year in since its relocation from deepest darkest Kent.

Construction began immediately on transforming this industrial unit, into our base of operations, and a permanent home for Opus 1740, it was during this time that word got around about what we were up to, and the project morphed, first was the arrival of Estey Opus 1810, a 12 rank roll playing residence organ.

The Estey Organ now worked in to the plans, we set about exploring what we really wanted the venue to be, originally just a home for Conacher Opus 1740, it was now clear that the interest was there to form a museum around the instruments, and a centre to promote preservation, performance, and presentation of these instruments to a wider audience than just us local organ enthusiasts.

When designing the layout of the venue, Carl ensured that a great deal of room was left in the chamber area to accomodate further additions to the collection of instruments, the Estey space now earmarked, it wasn’t long before the next, and latest addition to the collection landed, Conacher Opus 1739, Ex Regal Cinema Rotherham !

This instrument, having spent the past 20+ years in Audley near Stoke On Trent, was offered to the collection in December 2020, and furthers our aim of preserving the work of this particular builder, a great deal of people remember this organ with fondness, and it will not be long before the instrument is playable again.

This brings us to the present day, the construction work on the venue continues, with the current schedule being the completion of the projection booth, and new workshop facilities, however we aim to have the first sounds from Conacher opus 1739 in late summer 2021 !