May Half Term Staff Survey

Thank you to everyone who participated in our May Half Term programme – Made in the Black Country! We’ve had some great feedback from visitors! And, as part of this programme, we introduced our first D/deaf character (David Smith) and so feedback around this has been and will be extremely valuable for us. As well as feedback around the programme in general, as always. So please take a few minutes to fill in our staff survey with your responses to the programme.

• 92% of visitors rated their overall experience of the programme as “good” or “excellent”
  87% of visitors said they learned something new about Black Country Heritage
  79% of visitors said they felt the museum represented their heritage
  22% of visitors said that they encountered our D/deaf characters or stories of D/deaf history

Here are some comments from visitors (both positive and constructive) about the programme in general:

• The man who acted as the director of Frankenstein was amazing to interact with and so good with the children. The bus driver and teacher were also great! The tour guide for the mines (an older fellow) was absolutely amazing.
• I liked the variety of things on offer and how interactive it is. The school experience was great. We also made a rosette and participated in the march.
• Children loved brick making and school.
• It was very busy and the queues for something’s were long …then people shut for lunch so came back and found there was another break so did not get into 1949s and 50 s house ..mine sweet shop or chip shop
• Some of the staff in character did not interact with the public openly, which was a shame. This missed a great opportunity to enhance the ambience, experience and overall feeling of the Black Country.
• Make the shows/events available to more people by putting on extra timeslots. Many people were disappointed because they couldn’t experience (for instance) the coal mine or mothers’ meeting.

And some additional comments from visitors about our new D/deaf characters:

• The deaf character as we had a profoundly deaf person with us who really appreciated having a great conversation in signing. This is a wonderful thing to do and it made his day.
• It was fantastic to see and engage with David and his friend. I learnt how to say hello and was given a leaflet which has now spurred me on to take sign language classes.
• We found the encounter very interesting, understanding their difficulties, particularly before the birth of technology.
• It would have been a much better idea to have based them (the D/deaf characters) somewhere rather than them ‘roaming round the 60’s street” – what we were told by the ticketing staff on admission. It would have been great to see them and we were very disappointed not to have that opportunity. Please can this be a feature in future.