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  • The Vaccination Centre at BCLM

    On Sunday 27 June the NHS will deliver their final vaccination at the Museum and then during July will be decommissioning from Halls 1 and 2. As we mentioned in May, the NHS has moved to the second phase of vaccination programme and some sites, such as BCLM, have been replaced with new locations at community pharmacies and more capacity at existing sites. This second phase is part of the plan to enable the NHS to begin restoring services to pre-COVID levels while keeping vaccination capacity the same.

    We’re incredibly proud to have played our part in supporting the NHS to inoculate our local community against COVID by hosting the Vaccination Centre at BCLM and a huge thank you to all the teams who have support them during their time at the Museum and for everyone’s patience as we have worked alongside each other.

    From Monday 28 June Duty Manager hours will revert to the Museum’s office hours, 8am to 6pm (including the car park being locked at 6pm) and staff access to the Museum outside of these hours must be agreed in advance.

    While we remain in Step 3 anyone who has been accessing or leaving the Museum, at the beginning or end of their shift, via the brown gates should continue to do so to avoid crowding in Admissions. Morning briefings and break spaces remain unchanged.

  • Black Country Studies Centre online talks: The Nostalgia Series

    Black Country Studies Centre is hosting a series of free online talks discussing topics around the theme of Nostalgia. The latest talk, “Nostalgia and Oral History”, is now available to book via our website.

    Date: Thursday 24th June, 2021

    Time: 7pm – 8:30pm

    Venue: Zoom

    Introducing the Nostalgia Series

    Nostalgia is a contentious issue. Whilst for some it is a harmless, helpful, rose-tinted view of the past, it has also been viewed critically, as a form of regressive, reactionary and sentimental escapism. Yet there is a steadily increasing body of work that reassesses nostalgia in a more positive, active and empowering light. Through this research network series, we seek to gain a greater understanding of nostalgia, and its impact on museums, regional and local history, lifelong learning and communities.

    The Talk: Nostalgia and Oral History

    At a History Workshop conference held in Leeds, in 1985, Malcolm Chase declared that ‘[o]f all the ways of using history, nostalgia is the most general, looks the most innocent, and is perhaps the most dangerous’ (Chase, 1985, p. 26) . In the C17th nostalgia was considered to be ‘a disorder: a psychic and bodily languish leading to emotional outbursts, melancholy, depression and suicide attempts’ (Hoffer, 1688). In subsequent years both historians and social scientists were warned against the inevitable distortion and pervasive nature of nostalgia – ‘history as loss’ – mourning for a previous era (Tosh, 2015, p. 15).

    Nevertheless, historians and sociologists who utilise oral interviews within their research may well conclude that nostalgic reminiscences can enhance our understanding of the past and the present. Researching into the lives of post-war teenagers means an inevitable encounter with memories/nostalgia, but this can be harnessed to navigate the fluctuating connections between past and present. It is interesting to discern how references to images, diaries, fashion, and music, within interviews, can help respondents to recall incidents, emotions, and occasions that had long been forgotten, revealing fresh insights and helping the narrator (and the historian) to reconstruct autobiographical accounts of self, identity, and belonging.

    Despite warnings of the adverse effects of nostalgia on oral testimony, many oral historians see nostalgia as a means of understanding change and mediating memories. Using interviews with respondents who grew up in the post-war Black Country, this talk will examine the relationship between nostalgia and memory and the utility of nostalgia in mnemonic recall. Images, music, advertisements, memoirs, diaries, social media and a plethora of other aides-memoire can stimulate the senses and contribute to the process of remembering. These, in turn, can contribute to our understanding of the past.

    The event will be held on Zoom and a link will be sent shortly beforehand. It is free to attend.

  • Birmingham Clean Air Zone

    To encourage cleaner, greener and more sustainable methods of transportation, on 1 June 2021 Birmingham launched its Clean Air Zone.

    It operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and has been introduced to help reduce traffic and pollution levels in central Birmingham. Subsequently, a charge is now applied daily for older non-compliant vehicles driving into the Clean Air Zone – the area includes all the roads within the A4540 Middleway Ring Road, but not the Middleway itself.  

    Whilst the SEAT Pool Car is exempt from the new charge, the museum’s older fleet of vehicles do not qualify for an exemption and must not be driven into the Clean Air Zone without prior authorisation. 

    Where practical, public transport should always be prioritised as the preferred method for undertaking a journey. But if you do have to use your own vehicle whilst on Museum business, charges associated with entering the Clean Air Zone will not normally be reimbursed, unless the final destination is within the Clean Air Zone and prior approval has been obtained from your line manager. 

    For more information on the Clean Air Zone please visit: https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/info/20076/pollution/1763/a_clean_air_zone_for_birmingham

  • 1940s Weekend Promo Film – An Exclusive Sneak Preview

    We wanted to share an exclusive preview of our promiotional film for 1940s Weekend ahead of the public premiere on our YouTube channel at 7.15pm on Wed 9 Jun.

    This video is a special collaboration with the D-Day Darlings who will be peforming across 1940s Weekend and headline our special VE-Day-themed celebration during 1940s Evening.

    Tickets for 1940s Evening go on-sale to the general public tomorrow (9 Jun) and the video will support sales for the Weekend as a whole over the coming weeks.

    This video wouldn’t have been possible without the support of colleagues from across the Museum. Sincere thanks to everyone who agreed to appear in the video, but also a special thank you to colleagues in the Transport team, Engagement Ops team, Duty Managers, Development team and Audiences & Communications who worked hard behind the scenes to make things work on the day.

    We hope you enjoy the film. You can see it here. If the video takes a little while to download, please refresh your browser and don’t forget to press the play button at the bottom of the screen as the film won’t play automatically.

    If you’d like to join the watch party on our YouTube premiere and put a question to the D-Day Darlings as part of the chat, log-in via this link from 7.15 pm on Wed 9 Jun.

    This preview is exclusively for Museum colleagues ahead of the premiere. Please do not share publicly on any channel.

  • Action for Happiness: Joyful June

    Action for Happiness is a movement of people committed to building a happier and more caring society.

    Each month they release a “Monthly Action Calendar” which are packed with actions you can take to help create a happier and kinder world.

    This month’s theme is “Joyful June”. This is all about finding the joy in life, even when things are difficult.

    Let’s all take daily actions, using their calendar below or the Action for Happiness App, to train our brains to find the joy.

    Find out more about Action for Happiness and view their previous monthly action calendars.

  • Loff Out Loud in the News

    As we enter the final weekend of Loff Out Loud, we wanted to share a short article from the Express & Star.

    The images speak for themselves in showing the wonderful costumes and characters that have made half-term so popular with visitors.

    Article here.

    Thank you to everyone for helping to deliver such a great visitor experience!

  • Million Follower Milestone on TikTok

    As many of you may already know, our BCLM TikTok account hit an important milestone on Monday – a million followers!

    This amount of followers is of course impressive enough, but it’s the impact of this following and what it can mean for us going forward that really matters.

    The account has had a significant impact on our ability to reach younger and more diverse audiences – we’ve seen a 30% uplift of visits to the website from 18-24 years olds compared to the previous period where we weren’t active on TikTok. On top of this (as I’m sure many of you already know from direct experience) this has started to trickle down to on-site visits. We (roughly) estimate that about 25% of visits are because of the channel and I’ve personally spoken to multiple parents whose children have begged them to visit. And, if that wasn’t enough, in the last six months of 2020, we were the most engaged with museum media channel in the entire world. That’s more engagement than the MET, the British Museum, the Smithsonian, the V&A, and any other museum you can think of.

    Of course, none of this would be possible without our wonderful staff. It is your open-mindedness to new challenges and your drive to tell the stories of the past that really makes the magic happen – TikTok has simply shone a light on what was here all along. You should all be incredibly proud!

  • Colleague tickets for events

    Colleague tickets for events

    We’re about to launch ticket on-sale for our first special event of 2021: 1940s Evening. Tickets will go on-sale to Members from 12 noon on Wed 2 June and discounted tickets for colleagues will be available for purchase from Fri 4 June.

    1940s Evening 2021 is headlined by the D-Darlings and special guests who will entertain visitors with an evening of song, reminiscence and remembrance. We’ve recorded a special video with the D-Day Darlings to celebrate 1940s Weekend and we’ll share this with you all ahead of the public release soon.

    In line with previous years we’ve been able to ring-fence an allocation of discounted tickets for colleagues this event. A minimum of 30 tickets per event night at a 50% discount will be available for colleagues to purchase for 1940s Evening and for other special events that will go on-sale later this year. Due to current visitor capping and the lowering of event capacities, we have had to proportionately reduce the allocation of discounted tickets from the usual 50 to 30. We will review the number of discounted colleague tickets that we can make available, should we be able to increase the overall capacity for events as part of the Government’s future review of the Roadmap.

    Colleagues are able to purchase up to four discounted tickets and two additional full price tickets per event. (Subject to ticket availability.)

    For more detail on the ticketing policy, please refer to this document:

    [embeddoc url=”http://pmm.d88.mywebsitetransfer.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Colleague-Tickets-for-Events-Policy.-May-21.pdf” download=”all” viewer=”google”]

    Colleague tickets for 1940s Evening will be available to purchase from Fri 4 June. Due to high visitor levels in Admissions for half-term, tickets should be purchased from the Sales & Ticketing office in Canalside.

    As this is the first on-sale of 2021, the Sales & Ticketing team are likely to be busy answering Member enquiries initially. Therefore, we appreciate your patience in accepting a short delay between the Members’ on-sale date and tickets being made available to staff on this occasion. However, please be assured that discounted staff tickets are a separate allocation and cannot be accessed by either BCLM Members or the public.

    A polite reminder to all colleagues that whilst attending the Museum as a visitor, you continue be a representative of BCLM. Therefore, for the comfort of visitors and other colleages, all staff & volunteers should conduct themselves in a positive manner and avoid behaviour that could risk the reputation of the individual colleague, or that of the Museum. Thank you for your understanding.

  • Half-term and weekend parking arrangements – a reminder

    Half-term and weekend parking arrangements – a reminder

    A reminder of the parking arrangements for half term week and all weekends up to and including Sunday 27 June 2021.

    Colleagues working on weekends that fall on or between Saturday 22 May to Sunday 27 June 2021 are instructed to park on Dudley Zoo’s car park where you will also be required to show your BCLM staff or volunteer photo ID card. If you do not have this, please contact People & Culture or your line manager.

    All colleagues and volunteers working week commencing 31 May 2021 (half-term week) will also be required to park on Dudley Zoo’s car park for that week. To minimise the impact on the Zoo’s car park, those colleagues that can work from home are encouraged to do so during half term week.

    It is important that every member of staff has a BCLM staff photo ID card. For any staff and volunteers who do not work during the week, Ben Careless will be in Sunday 30 May during morning briefing for anyone who needs their ID picture taken.

    Below is a map of the Zoo car park for BCLM staff car parking arrangements:

    Also, a reminder that where possible, we would encourage colleagues to work from home in order to minimise journeys to teh Museum and ease the demand on car park spaces.

  • New food & drink discount in WI Cafe

    The Enterprise Team have launched a new Spring/Summer menu in the Worker’s Institute and would like to invite you to try it!

    From Mon 24 May, we are inviting all Museum staff to visit the WI to make use of our new trial discount of 50% off many food and drink items in the Worker’s Institute. Please note that there are only 6 tables available in the café to comply with social distancing. Therefore, please make use of our takeaway option so that we can accommodate visitors at tables where possible.

    Feedback from Museum colleagues, alongside input from our visitors, means we have introduced a more inclusive offer to try and cater for everyone. We now offer and range of milk alternatives so that everyone can enjoy a hot drink, vegan options and gluten free options. Therefore, we’d encourage you to try the range of food and drink now avaiable from the Worker’s Institute with your discount. Please note: if you have a food allergy, please speak to the team who have allergen manuals on hand to help you order.

    Ts&Cs: 

    50% off Food and Drink will apply to all hot food, cold food and hot drinks (i.e. sandwiches, paninis, salads, sausage rolls, coffee etc). Some exclusions apply, please speak to the team. Items such as cold drinks, crisps and sweets unfortunately will not be included. Discount cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer.

    25% will still be available at Hobbs Fish Shop and all other units as it was before. 

    This discount trial will run from the 24th May until July 18th but may be removed or extended at any time. 

    Any feedback would be much appreciated in helping the team deliver a more inclusive offer that works for both our teams, and our visitors. Please email any feedback to [email protected]. All feedback will be treated as confidential.