Author: IT Team

On Saturday evening, the period frying range in Hobbs’ and Sons Fish & Chip Shop unfortunately experienced a small internal fire. There were no injuries to colleagues or visitors and the Museum remained open while it was swiftly dealt with by the fire brigade.

Thank you to everyone working on the day for the professional management of the situation and the care of our visitors, as well as the ownership taken by colleagues in ensuring Saturday evening’s Peaky Blinders Night was delivered smoothly – including an alternate food offer served from within Hobbs’ itself.

We take safety seriously. After a similar incident during the summer holidays, we undertook extensive work to repair the range and obtain the relevant sign off from specialist range engineers before opening again.

While we assesses the long-term options regarding the fryer and take professional advice, the range will not be used, however Hobbs’ as a trading unit will be able to continue to operate for visitors.

We still have a few places left for this opportunity to share your knowledge and develop your skills in visitor engagement.

This work builds on the work of the 2022 cohort and the work we have been doing throughout Forging Ahead to better understand and improve our engagement with visitors. Up to 10 people will work with Black Country Touring, for approximately 2 weeks w/c 27^th November.

We are looking for a range of people with diverse experience, whilst working at BCLM and/or elsewhere. We are asking participants to bring their thoughts, opinions and insight to the table. We are not looking for a group who might consider themselves “performers”, “actors” or who are looking to be trained in these areas, but rather people who have a common goal in wanting to develop and harness the strengths of the Historic Character team. We would especially like to hear from people interested in a creative and collaborative process, visitor focused and are passionate about telling the stories of the Black Country.

You will be…

• Open minded and willing to contribute positively to a collaboration that will experiment with the most impactful ways of interacting with our visitors
• Have an interest in the visitor experience and be open to hearing and responding to feedback from their perspective
• Be available to work from 10-4pm for a total of 8 days across Monday – Sunday between November 27th to December 10^th
• Have experience of and enthusiasm for engaging and interacting with visitors (not necessarily at BCLM) in and out of character

If you would like further information, please look here. If you have any questions get in touch with Izzy Taylor [email protected]

If you are interested in taking part in the next cohort to share and develop your engagement skills, please read below and complete the short Expression of Interest form by midday Monday 20th November. 

Do you have rampant ivy or holly that needs pruning?

Do you have excess Christmas/ fir tree cuttings?

Or do you have other evergreen materials you can spare?

To support the workshops on Tuesday 14th November and Wednesday 15th November where we will be making decorations for the site – we need masses of lovely fresh seasonal greenery. If you have a garden, an allotment or access to any lush Christmassy greenery – don’t get snipping just yet.

We’d love you to bring in whatever you have, the deadline is Monday 13th November!

If you have an allotment, it might be worth putting the call out to other plot holders – as we can never have too much!

There will be buckets for you to pop the stems in to keep them nice and fresh at the compound at the top of site. The fresher the better so if you can leave it as late as possible to cut them and put it in water straight after cutting, we can make sure our wreaths, garlands and table decorations are as fresh and perky as possible for the festive season.

Did you know the longest lasting and most festive of the greenery is beech, oak, rose hips, pine, old man’s beard, spruce, conifer, holly, ivy, fir, magnolia, hops and rosemary? We also welcome any pine cones or other festive finds. What a good excuse for a ramble in the woods!

During the festive period, once buildings are decorated, if you are working in historic buildings and you are looking for greenery to refresh your building, please contact the Collections team. If you have any questions about decorating the buildings for Christmas, please speak to the Collections team or email [email protected].

As part of our ongoing commitment to improving the visitor experience, we are about to launch a second cohort of character development work with historic characters.

This work builds on the work of the 2022 cohort and the work we have been doing throughout Forging Ahead to better understand and improve our engagement with visitors. Up to 10 people will work with Black Country Touring, for approximately 2 weeks w/c 27^th November.

We are looking for a range of people with diverse experience, whilst working at BCLM and/or elsewhere. We are asking participants to bring their thoughts, opinions and insight to the table. We are not looking for a group who might consider themselves “performers”, “actors” or who are looking to be trained in these areas, but rather people who have a common goal in wanting to develop and harness the strengths of the Historic Character team. We would especially like to hear from people interested in a creative and collaborative process, visitor focused and are passionate about telling the stories of the Black Country.

You will be…

• Open minded and willing to contribute positively to a collaboration that will experiment with the most impactful ways of interacting with our visitors
• Have an interest in the visitor experience and be open to hearing and responding to feedback from their perspective
• Be available to work from 10-4pm for a total of 8 days across Monday – Sunday between November 27th to December 10^th
• Have experience of and enthusiasm for engaging and interacting with visitors (not necessarily at BCLM) in and out of character

If you would like further information, please look here. If you have any questions get in touch with Izzy Taylor [email protected]

If you are interested in taking part in the next cohort to share and develop your engagement skills, please read below and complete the short Expression of Interest form by no later than Sunday 12th November.