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  • Summer Holiday – Results

    Summer Holiday – Results

    I don’t need to tell you how important the summer holiday period is for us if we are to achieve the financial results we set ourselves, but I’m delighted to tell you that this summer was our best on record for the number of visitors welcomed.

    Between Saturday 21 July and Sunday 2 September, we welcomed 73,036, compared to 68,335 for the same period last year; that’s growth of over 6%.

    Year-to-date it means we’re nearly 7% ahead of both 2017 and our forecast as we head towards the Autumn/Winter events programme.

    Visitors of all ages seemed to get in the spirit of the Historic Holiday Fun activities and it was great to see the late-night Fridays growing in popularity in this, their second year.

    I particularly enjoyed the further trials of the first person performances and I’ll be interested to see the results of the visitor evaluation we’ve been doing around these and the Friday evening Black Country Touring performances.

    Such success is, as ever, down to a huge team effort, whatever your role, and I want to thank everyone for their commitment to the Visitor Promise, even during such a busy (and at times, very hot) six week period.

    Thank you

    Andrew

  • Staff Winter Events Tickets On Sale 3 Sep

    Tickets for our Winter events go on sale to the general public at 10am on Monday 3 September.

    As usual, from this date 50 staff tickets will be available for each of the Christmas evening events until two weeks before the date of the event (Santa Hunts excluded).

    Staff will receive 50% discount off the price of each evening event ticket.

    Each member of staff may purchase up to 4 tickets (of any combination) per event at the discounted rate and may purchase a maximum of 10 additional tickets at the
    standard rate.

    Please refer to the ‘Staff Tickets for Events Policy’ in the documents tab of the intranet for more information about when and how to purchase staff event tickets.

  • BSL Filming Volunteers Needed!

    Would you like to be featured in a new welcome video for the museum? And learn a new language all at the same time?

    On Saturday 1 September, Chantelle our Community Engagement Assistant and Emma, British Sign Language interpreter will be on site filming a welcome video for the deaf community.  Filming will commence at 10am until 12pm with some of our staff to introduce those who will be on the BSL Tours at the Museum.

    Emma is a specialist in British Sign Language and has taught a few of our staff Level 1 & 2 in BSL already. She will be present behind the camera teaching you BSL to ensure you are ready for your close up.

    If you would like to get involved and want learn some basic British sign Language feel free to email [email protected] or call on ext 209.

  • BCLM: Forging Ahead – Lea Road Infant Welfare Centre

    To coincide with the seventieth anniversary of the NHS, we’ll be launching our public call-out for memories of Lea Road Infant Welfare Centre tomorrow (18th July). Do you have any personal stories or family connection with the Centre? Were you taken as a child and dosed with cod liver oil? If you do have anything you would like to share to help in our re-creation of the shop, please pop in and see the Collections team in the Rolfe Street offices.

    A bit about Lea Road Infant Welfare Centre

    This centre was opened in 1928 to serve the Penn Fields area of Wolverhampton. It was designed as somewhere for new and expectant mothers to meet, learn about their and their babies’ health, and have their children fed, weighed and vaccinated. Twenty years later, the Centre became part of the new National Health Service. Visitors to Lea Road in the 1950s and 1960s would have found a busy environment, overseen by staff and volunteers. The main hall was a waiting room, but doubled up as a venue for ante-natal and “mothercraft” classes, baby clothes sales, and as a social gathering for new mothers – always with a fresh cup of tea in hand. Worried new mums could receive advice on anything from birthing anaesthetics to family planning – though this was strictly for married women only. Babies were weighed and checked regularly, and vaccinated against a range of diseases. Outbreaks of measles, smallpox and polio still occurred from time to time, and diphtheria was a particular Black Country problem: at points during the 1950s, for example, Coseley was responsible for a third of all cases nationally! Most memorably, the centres also distributed welfare foods: vitamins, bottles of thick, sticky orange juice, tins of National Dried Milk, and the hated cod liver oil.

    Why Lea Road?

    We are rebuilding this centre to tell the story of the birth of the NHS; the influx in junior doctors from countries such as India and Pakistan during the 50s & 60s; the lives of young women and children in this period; and also to help in our understanding of public health in the present day.

  • Planned Maintenance Programme – June Update

    Planned Maintenance Programme – June Update

    The latest update on 2018 planned maintenance is now available to view.  Please click below to see the latest progress and planned timings:

    Maintenance Programme Update Jun 18

    Should you have any questions, please get in touch with David Pitt.

  • Annual Report & Accounts year ending 2017

    Please note that the Annual Report & Accounts for year ending 2017 is now available to view in the museum documents.

  • Join in the fun & games – Staff Social (Tue 19 June)

    Following on from the success of January’s event, we will be holding another staff social on Tue 19 June.

    All staff and volunteers are invited to the event which will be held in Folkes Park from 5:30pm until approx. 8:00pm.

    You can join in the quiz (non-brewery related this time!) and games such as croquet, skittles and giant jenga. Or simply relax and enjoy an evening of music and light refreshments over a friendly chat with colleagues across the Museum. We hope to see you there!

    If you have any questions about the event, you can contact Lucy Bennett or Ben Careless in the HR Team.

    We hope that as many of you as possible are able to join us.

    Enjoy!

    In the case of inclement weather the event will take place in the W.I.  

  • BCLM: Forging Ahead – E. Minett

    We’ll be launching our public call-out for memories of Wednesbury-based E. Minett ladies’ clothes shop and haberdashery next week (commencing 18th June).

    Do you have any personal stories about the place to shop for Wednesbury’s most fashionable ladies in the 1950s? Did you, your family or friends go there to keep up with the latest trends in the 50s? Did you or anyone you know work there? If you do have anything you would like to share to help in our re-creation of the shop, please pop in and see the Collections team in the Rolfe Street offices.

    A bit about E. Minett

    Founded by Edith Dabbs Minett in the 1920s, E. Minett was known as the place to go for the best dressed ladies of Wednesbury.  Edith started the business in the 1920s in the front room of the family home in Pound Road before opening the shop at 83 Walsall Street.

    Minett’s was a family-run business. Edith’s husband, William, managed the shop’s accounts around the time of the birth of their daughter, Brenda. Brenda started working at the shop as a young girl, earning three pence a week by dusting boxes and assisting with other day-to-day tasks. She started working at Minett’s full-time when she left school and took over with her husband, John Greenhough, and ran the business until it ceased trading in 2006.

    Clothes for the shop were bought on mail order from trade catalogues or from trips to wholesalers in Birmingham.  Brenda prided herself on buying garments in advance for particular customers she had in mind and whom she knew would buy the item as soon as they saw what she had chosen for them.

    The shop operated a ‘20 Week Club’ which allowed customers to pay a 10% deposit for items, reserve them and pay the remainder over a twenty-week period.  The increasing use of this type of credit in the 1950s was popular with British customers, as it made expensive items accessible and contributed to the post-war boom.

    Why E. Minett?

    We will be recreating the shop from 83 Walsall Street, which will be set in the late 1950s, to tell  the story of the post-war revolution in female fashion as well as the changing role of women in society and the 50s economic boom when people ‘never had it so good’.

     

  • Available Desks and Hot Desks

    Desk space is at a premium and with volunteers, consultants and work experience students getting more involved in supporting our activities we have created a calendar to highlight available desk space and allow people to book it. You can access the calendar via the room list.

    You add your desk as available, if you are on holiday or out of the office, by booking an appointment in the calendar with no event title, but your name and the location as the location.

    You can book a desk by accessing the calendar and adding your name as the event title to any desks that are showing. If you only require for part of the day edit the availability by adding a new appointment for the time you require and adding you name and altering the original appointment to exclude that time.

  • Directors’ Bi-Monthly Report

    Directors’ Bi-Monthly Report

    Please note, the director’s bi-monthly report is now in the documents section of the intranet.