In this update we’d like to share news of the Museum’s plans for re-opening, changes to the Board of Trustees and an update on Forging Ahead.
Plans for re-opening
Following publication of the Government’s Roadmap, the Museum will re-open at Step 3 in line with other museums and indoor attractions. Step 3 is currently scheduled to begin from Monday 17 May, and this is the date we are working towards for re-opening.
Opening the Museum at Step 3 will enable us to welcome visitors back with a full, but socially-distanced offer in a similar manner to August 2020. Therefore, we hope that we can take what we learned from last year and make this year’s re-opening just as successful.
More detail will follow in the coming weeks about the programme and what the re-opening means for working patterns, including training. Line managers will be in touch with colleagues in due course. If you have any questions in the meantime, however, please do email [email protected].
Please note that all dates quoted in the Government’s Roadmap are ‘no earlier than’ dates and are subject to change should criteria including infection rates and hospitalisations begin to increase again.
Also a reminder that in line with Government’s current ‘stay at home’ rule, which will be in effect until 29 March, colleagues should only be at the Museum for essential work. Although the ‘stay at home’ rule will end on this date, people should continue to work from home where they can and minimise the number of journeys they make where possible, avoiding travel at the busiest times and routes.
Please note that the decision to open at Step 3/17 May has not yet been communicated to the general public. We’ve chosen to leave this slight gap between internal and external comms so that all colleagues will have the chance to learn the news before we make it public. We will communicate publicly via our website and social media early next week. In the meantime, we’d ask that you avoid posting this news on social media, or making public comments about our re-opening plans. Thank you.
Changes to BCLM Board of Trustees
We’re pleased to announce changes to the Museum board. Dr Paul Belford has been elected as Chair of the Board of Trustees and Jonathan Badyal and Vikki Jessop have been appointed as Deputy Chairs. You can read more about this here.
Forging Ahead
Major works on Forging Ahead continue. Balfour Beatty are progressing work by digging trenches to provide cabling and services to buildings.
The de-build of Woodside Library in Dudley has begun and architectural items from the building have started to be delivered to the Museum. One interesting item that has been discovered as part of the take-down of the building is a piece of architrave that was signed by the joiner – a Joseph E. B. Round – who installed it during the building’s original construction in 1894. There may be a family connection between Joseph Round and a contractor working on Woodside now, which would be a fitting story if one generation of a family helped to put the building up and another generation helped to take it down and bring it to the Museum for preservation! The piece of architrave is now in the Museum collection and is shown below:
We’re expecting the first pallet of what will be a total of 400 pallets of bricks to arrive on-site in April, with the translocation of all materials from Woodside scheduled to be completed by the end of May this year.
Overall project timings for Forging Ahead are currently on schedule, enabling us to open the Visitor Centre in Spring 2022 and the Historic Development in Spring 2023. We’re planning to run some Forging Ahead familiarisation sessions as part of re-opening training, so please watch this space for further details.
We’re looking forward to sharing the next steps on plans for re-opening in the next update on Wednesday 24 March. In the meantime, we hope you keep safe and well.
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