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  • Shutdown Training Programme Live

    2019’s shutdown training timetable will run from Monday 7th January to Friday 18th January, followed by the Staff Social on Monday 21st January.

    The training programme contains mandatory training which all colleagues will need to attend on either the 9th January or 11th January for a full day as well as some mandatory training sessions for specific colleagues in First Aid, Cash Handling and Tessitura on other days.

    There are also shorter sessions on various topics which you can sign up to attend if interested and these range from Personal Financial Planning to Personal Well-being.

    Last but not least we have sessions planned specifically for managers focusing on sickness absence management and contracts.

    If you are interested in attending any of the optional sessions shown then please contact your manager to sign up. Your manager will let you know which mandatory sessions you will need to attend.

    You can find the programme at Useful Contacts & Support/HR/Training & Development/Programme of Museum Training 2018 & 2019

     

  • HLF Round 2 Bid Submitted

    HLF Round 2 Bid Submitted

    On Monday 3 December, after a nineteen month Development Phase, we submitted, as planned, our Round Two application to the Heritage Lottery Fund.  At £9.4m, it is the same level when we received, against huge odds, our Round One pass in April 2017.  It represents the largest, but not the only remaining piece of the funding jigsaw, to get us to £22.2m and a fully-funded project.

    Work will carry on until March next year, when we expect to have a decision from the HLF on our application.  In the meantime, and at this hugely important milestone, I want to thank you all for the work you have done and the enthusiasm you have shown, to get us to this very positive position, and the opportunity you have helped create for the future of this museum.  It is a tremendous application and project and therefore, I am extremely optimistic about the outcome.

     

  • UPDATE – Doo’s staff & volunteer rooms refurbishment

    The refurbishment works to Doo’s staff & volunteer rooms are complete. We now enter a brief period of snagging and cleaning, during which we will be ordering new furniture based on feedback from Staff Forum.

    We are aiming for the rooms to be ready for use early in the New Year. In the meantime, the existing temporary arrangements will continue. To re-cap:

    Guide Hut/Mine Office for:

    Cast Iron

    Colliery

    Toll House

    Jerushah

    Morralls Ground Floor Office using kitchen upstairs for:

    Hartills

    Morralls

    Gregorys

    WI

    School

    Upstairs staff room and kitchen of the pub for:

    Anchor Makers

    Doos

    Nash’s

    Street Games

    Back to Back

    Level Street for:

    Boat Dock

    Metal Workers

    Volunteers, Street Characters and Learning Assistants can use any of these spaces taking account of availability of space.

     

     

  • December Pay Date

    This year’s December pay date will be Friday 21st December.

    This will apply to both salaried and hourly paid colleagues.

    Hourly paid colleagues will be paid for the four weeks ending 23rd December while Casual staff will also receive their holiday pay for the 13 weeks to the 9th December.

    Pay dates for 2019 can be found on the intranet at Useful Contacts & Support/Finance & Payroll/Payroll/2019

  • Grant Bird appointed as Acting Director of Visitor Engagement

    Grant will take up the interim position on Monday 10 December for a period of 6 months.

    Most recently covering the combined Marketing Manager maternity cover & Audience Analyst role and before that, being part of the Collections Team as a volunteer and curator respectively, Grant has worked for the Museum for 2 and a half years.

    Before that he spent seventeen years working in branding and communications and brings a wealth of management experience to the role, providing additional interim support to this area of the Museum’s operation.

    Interim marketing team arrangements will be communicated in due course.

  • Thank you!

    Thank you!

    In the early hours of Friday 16 November, many buildings within the Museum were unfortunately vandalised.

    Whilst this is a truly frustrating incident, I am grateful to every member of staff who pitched in to clear up the mess, fix the damage and have the Museum open to visitors as usual by 10am. This was a wonderful team effort and I would like to thank everyone involved!

     

     

  • Museum Wins “Day Out With The Kids” Award

    Day Out With The Kids is a website dedicated to recommending exciting ideas for days out ideas to families across the nation. This year, the site created their first ever Family Favourite awards, to “recognise the attractions going the extra mile to deliver a great family day out”.  Nominations were put to a public vote, and we’re pleased to announce that we have been awarded “Best Educational Day Out” for 2018 in the Midlands.

    We are thrilled to have won the award and are so thankful to all that voted for us. We are especially proud considering the competition in our category which included such other high profile attractions as Warwick Castle, ThinkTank Birmingham and Tudor World.

  • BCLM: Forging Ahead – Halesowen & Hasbury Co-operative

    Our next public call-out for memories and stories to feed into BCLM: Forging Ahead will be for the Number 11, ‘Hawne’ branch of the Halesowen & Hasbury Industrial Co-operative Society on 19 November. Did you or anyone in your family shop at the Stourbridge Road shop in the late 1940s/early 1950s? Do you remember your Halesowen & Hasbury ‘divi’ number and where you collected your share from?  Did you shop at other Halesowen & Hasbury Co-ops? If you have anything you’d like to share, please pop in and see the Collections team in the Rolfe Street offices.

     

    A bit about the Number 11, ‘Hawne’ branch

    The very first co-operative shop was opened by the Rochdale Pioneers in Toad Lane, Rochdale in 1844.  The Halesowen & Hasbury Industrial Co-operative Society was founded in 1871, opening its first shop in Peckingham Street. By the outbreak of World War One they had five branches. After the war it attempted to expand its operations to embrace the new residential areas in towns like Quinton and Blackheath. The Hawne branch on the Stourbridge Road was its eleventh opening, in 1930, after a strong period of expansion, well positioned to serve the large-scale development of the Short Cross area of Halesowen.  The building, with its distinctive steep pitched roof and square frontage, was designed by local architect, Stanley Beach and built by a local contractor, Mr Tate.

     

    Why the Co-op, and why this Co-op?

    Co-op shops were popular in the Black Country, stocking household names as well as their own Co-op brands, such as Pelaw Polish, Lutona Cocoa and Silvox beef extract.  Phyllis Taylor, who shopped at the Wollescote branch and later worked at the Colley Gate shop, recalls “They did all their own stuff, Co-op soup and Co-op rice pudding, it was lovely, and it was always a couple of pence cheaper… 99 tea, it was the biggest brand going, we used to sell boxes and boxes.”

    Like all shops, the Co-op was affected by wartime rationing, yet in this period the Co-operative nationally were at the forefront of introducing self-service shopping for the first time. Their first self-service store opened in 1942. The Halesowen & Hasbury Society experimented with self-service in three shops in 1949, one being the Hawne branch. It was promoted as a modern service, customers choosing their own products and not having to wait to be served.  There was some resistance from customers however. George Bishop, manager from 1958 at the Whiteheath, Oldbury branch, part of the Halesowen and Hasbury Society, said “People complained about the loss of personal contact with the introduction of self-service, but they soon got used to it.”

     

  • Your Museum needs you! Can you help with The Big Give Christmas Challenge?

    Your Museum needs you! Can you help with The Big Give Christmas Challenge?

    We are planning to film a short video on Sun 25 Nov to raise money for BCLM: Forging Ahead as part of the Big Give Christmas Challenge.

    The Big Give Christmas Challenge is a national fundraising campaign in which we have taken part previously to raise money for Racecourse Colliery.  The Big Give is a great campaign as it enables us to potentially double any donations made that week with match-funding.

    As the 1940s features prominently as part of our Forging Ahead story, we’d like to film 3 children between the ages of 5-12 years old tasting wartime food and capture their reactions. The video will be used throughout the week of the Big Give campaign to prompt people for donations.

    How can you help?

    If anybody is interested in having a go at preparing some wartime food we can use in the video, we would really appreciate the help! The Collections team have donated some recipes  that we can share with you – apparently potato chocolate spread is a must!

    Also we are looking for anyone who would be happy for their children to take part in the food-tasting and appear in the video.  Participants would need to be available for filming on Sun 25 Nov.

    Please get in touch if you are interested in getting involved in any way.  Email [email protected], extension number 242, or pop in to the Development team above Morralls.

    Many thanks

    Fi Howell

  • All-Team Briefing Follow-up

    All-Team Briefing Follow-up

    Thanks to those who attended one of the all-team briefing sessions; there were some good questions posed at the end.

    The majority of questions related to BCLM: Forging Ahead and so answers to those have now been posted in the Documents section of the intranet (About Us – Strategy & Governance – Forging Ahead – Project Overview – FAQs).

    There was also a question about car park security relating to some recent incidents involving damage to & theft from cars in the car park. I’d like to assure you that these incidents have been reported to the police, that CCTV is in place and that the barriers will be improved to ensure no vehicles can get around them. But, please do remember not to leave valuables on view, ensure your vehicles are locked & use anti-theft devices if you have them.

    Andrew