Thank you to everyone who made our soft launch preview possible on Tuesday 28 July. The feedback from visitors has been incredibly positive and a provides great boost of confidence ahead of full opening on Saturday.
We wanted to share some of the feedback with you:
The weather forecast for Saturday is looking positive, so with such positive feedback and sunny skies, we’re in a great position to welcome visitors back and to bring the Museum to life once again.
With less than a week to go until the Museum’s preview day of its reopening programme, ‘Unlocking the Black Country’, there’s lots of activity taking place on-site. Screens and signage are being installed in relevant indoor areas, catering deliveries are arriving on-site, and colleagues are attending the Covid induction and other training sessions in preparation for reopening.
Museum reopening soft launch – Preview Day on Tue 28 Jul
The chance to book tickets to our soft launch preview day on Tue 28 Jul was offered to Members, Passholders, and others who completed our survey about reopening. The free preview tickets were launched on Thu 16 Jul and were all reserved within 30 minutes! We were heartened by the strong demand and hope this is a positive indicator of people’s interest in returning to visit the Museum.
Ticket available for staff wishing to visit on the afternoon of Tue 28 Jul
Tickets to the afternoon of the preview day are now available for members of staff who have not yet had an opportunity to return to site and who would like to have a sneak preview of the visitor offer before general opening later in the week on Sat 1 Aug. We’re therefore able to offer one free ticket per staff member who would like to attend the preview as an afternoon visitor. Please note that tickets are only available for the personal use of BCLM staff and are not transferable to friends or family. Unfortunately, we’re unable to admit staff into offices and back of house areas who have not yet attended the Covid induction. Therefore, we’d request that you keep to the public areas of the Museum and enjoy the experience as a visitor when attending the preview.
Tickets must be pre-booked and will be valid for use for the 2.30 pm entry time on Wed 28 Jul.
How to book a ticket to the preview
We’ve adapted the general ticketing site just for this afternoon session, so you may see some text that may not appear relevant to you.
Book your preview ticket here.
BCLM Express & Star interview
You may recall last week that we mentioned Andrew had given an interview to the Express & Star ahead of reopening. You can read the full interview here.
General admission and pre-booked entry timed tickets
General admission tickets and pre-booked timeslots have now gone on sale via our website – we’ve seen a good response so far from people wanting to share in the story of the Black Country and we’re keeping a close eye on sales over the coming days.
We hope everyone is keeping safe and well and look forward to seeing our visitors in four months at the preview.
This week’s update is brief compared to the volume of news there was to share last week. However, that doesn’t mean that things haven’t been busy behind the scenes at the Museum. Preparations for reopening are gathering pace with the installation of protective screens, signage, and sanitising units in key areas of the site as some of the most visible ways the Museum is being made ‘Covid-secure’.
Mapping ‘Unlocking the Black Country’
Following on from last week’s update about the forthcoming programme, we wanted to share the map that’s been designed for ‘Unlocking the Black Country’. Poster-size versions of the map will printed for display at the Museum and we’ll encourage visitors to take photographs of it on their phones so that they can refer to it whilst minimising handling (and saving paper!)
Covid Induction Sessions
Colleagues returning to the Museum next week will attend an induction on coming back to site safely and adhering to new protocols to make the Museum Covid-secure. Colleagues will be notified of the relevant sessions for them via line managers/PlanDay.
Welfare Calls
We hope that by now almost everyone will have received a welfare call from their manager. If you have yet to have your call/agree a time for your call, please do get in touch with your manager, or email [email protected]
And finally…
It’s been a busy week for the Museum in the media. Andrew has been interviewed for a pre-opening feature in the Express & Star, due for publication in the next few days, and also appeared on BBC Radio on Sun 12 Jul talking about the future of museums in the UK. You can listen to an excerpt of the interview here:
You’ll likely have seen from media coverage that this has been an important week for the cultural sector. The Government’s announcement of a £1.57bn funding package has been received positively by sector leaders given its size and scope. There will be much work to do over the coming days and weeks to understand how organisations can access the funds and how monies will be distributed. However, this is incredibly welcome news – particularly for performing arts venues, such as theatres, who still must remain closed due to restrictions around Covid-19.
ACE Emergency Response Fund
You may also have seen that, alongside other Midlands cultural organisations, BCLM has secured emergency funding from Arts Council England (ACE). A full intranet update on this is here. This support from ACE will play a crucial role in helping us to realise our plans for reopening, as well as contributing to some of the shortfall in income during our closure period.
Reopening Programme – Unlocking the Black Country
Last week, we promised an update on the reopening programme. The theme for reopening is ‘Unlocking the Black Country’.
There are two strands to this programme. Firstly, to ensure we are unlocking safely with measures in place for colleagues and visitors and, secondly, to unlock history in a way that engages visitors.
Detailed information around protective measures, risk assessments, and new protocols to protect colleagues on-site will be rolled out as part of the return-to-work process and staff training. There will also be public comms about safety measures to provide reassurance to visitors.
In the meantime, we wanted to provide some highlights on how we’re proposing to ‘unlock history’. One of the key concepts behind the programme is to take an ‘inside-out’ approach. This means that, wherever possible, we want to make more active use of the outdoor space offered by the site. Part of the plan is to make more use of the Museum’s vehicle collection to create greater outdoor spectacle and to adapt some of the shows originally developed for school audiences into demonstrations that will engage visitors of all ages.
We’ve been working on creating distinctive themed ‘zones’ around the Museum site to give visitors the sense of travelling through time and the chance to hear about different facets of the Black Country story. In all, there will be five zones:
1. ‘Marvellous Machines’ – Located at Newcomen and areas below terrace
“From the Newcomen to the internal combustion engine, discover the manufacturing heritage of the Black Country”
2. ‘Black Gold’ – Located at Mine/Colliery area
“The story of Black Country coal and how it fuelled the industrial revolution”
3. ‘Victory Park’ – Located at Folkes Park
“It’s 1945 and the end of war in Europe has just been announced. Come and celebrate and help us remember those we’ve lost”
‘4. Village Voices’ – Located at Canal Street and Station Road
“A village of hardship and strife, but also of people working together to improve their lot”
5. ‘Workshops of the World’ – Located at the canal arm, Anchor Forge, Rolling Mill, Chain Shop
“Hear the stories of the people who crossed borders to keep Black Country industry thriving”
The programme is based on much of the existing learning that Museum colleagues hold. Where there are adaptations and new ideas to be tested, full training will be given to colleagues where this is relevant. We will update people on the timetable and plan for training in due course.
Our Food and Drink and Enterprise offer is being designed in parallel to complement the visitor programme.
The above information is meant to provide a taster of the offer. Further details will be published soon. The programme has been designed encourage visitors to travel around the site in a more structured manner than they usually would, and to encourage them to spend time in each of the zones interacting with colleagues in a safe, socially-distanced manner.
Keeping in touch – wellbeing conversations
Line managers are in the process of contacting all colleagues to have a wellbeing call and check-in. By the end of this week, all colleagues should have received a call and an opportunity to talk to their manager. Please do questions you may have regarding reopening with your managers, or if you have any questions you’d like to ask in confidence – please do email [email protected] Following on from these initial conversations, managers will be back in touch to discuss specific plans for each individual colleague.
In the meantime, we hope that you and your loved ones stay safe and well.
The Museum has received £1.175m of financial support from the Arts Council England Emergency Response Fund. This funding will provide a lifeline during such a critical time in the Museum’s history.
As for many other businesses and charitable organisations throughout the UK, these are difficult and uncertain times. During lockdown, the Museum has lost £3.1m in revenue and an anticipated 150,000 visitors. With 94% of Museum income coming from visitors, the lockdown has had a devastating financial effect.
This emergency support will go some way to help to fund the Museum’s plans for reopening and meet costs incurred during closure when the Museum was unable to generate visitor income.
The support we’ve received from ACE, other funders, and our fantastic Members and visitors has been vital to the Museum’s immediate survival but, given the depth of the financial losses incurred as a result of the pandemic, these much-needed funds will not completely offset the fall in income.
Therefore, we’re focused on doing all we can now to preserve jobs and livelihoods for the future so that we can keep operating the Museum as the remarkable community asset it has grown to be.
This latest video update from Andrew talks about plans for the re-opening of the Museum in August, a reminder about welfare visits to site and the latest news from AIM (Association of Independent Museums).
Video runtime is 12m 46s. Viewing over a wifi connection is recommended if you’re accessing via a mobile.
For a summary and useful links related to the highlights mentioned by Andrew, please read on:
As a reminder, if you’d like to make a welfare visit to the Museum, you’ll need to pre-book.
Here’s what you need to do:
Members of staff who believe it would benefit their wellbeing to visit the familiar place of the Museum and have a stroll around the site, can do so as long as they abide by social distancing guidelines.
We ask that staff only travel the Museum if it is safe for you to do so and we politely request that you do not post any pictures or comments on social media about visiting the Museum to avoid any potential confusion for the general public about the Museum remaining closed.
To book a visit and stroll around the Museum, please call the Duty Manager number, 07788 666161, between 9am and 1pm. Please be patient, as they continue to manage the site and may not be able to answer your call immediately. Leave them a message and they will call you back.
AIM’s virtual conference – Roads to Recovery – is taking place on 18/19 Jun. If you’d like to attend any of the sessions via Zoom click here to register. Attendance is free, but you need to pre-register for your sessions of choice.
AIM has published a Joint Statement of Intent for the Heritage Sector calling for a step-change in how the sector addresses racism. Click here to view the statement. The Museum fully supports this statement as a member of AIM.
