Museum teaches old-style banking at farm’s front room

ENKHUIZEN – The historic village, the Zuiderzee Museum, which consists of buildings that were reassembled after the move from their original site somewhere around the IJssel Lake, has contracted the Rabobank for sponsoring its new 2011 theme, ”Jaar van het Doen” (which translates probably best into Year of Activity). The museum plans to focus on old trades by involving visitors beyond just watching what a cast of characters is doing, by participating, hence the theme. One of the things young visitors are invited to do while looking around is to do some banking the historic way of over a century ago. In the early 1900s, an official of the usually small cooperative farmers’ bank would hold a session in the front room of a designate farmer’s house. The Zuiderzee site acquired such a farmhouse at the Frisian village of Baard, which was used as a Raiffeisenbank branch at one time. The museum will focus on a different trade each month.