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  • Action for Happiness: Jump Back Up July

    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 Jump Back Up July. This is all about resilience and understanding how we can build skills that will help us to bounce back.

    Let’s all use their calendar below, or the Action for Happiness App, for their daily suggestions on how we can build our resilience this month. 

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

  • Museum & Heritage Award Winners!

    We’re delighted to announce that BCLM won the Best Use of Social Media award for its TikTok channel at last night’s Museum & Heritage Awards (Thu 1 Jul).

    BCLM was up against some worthy competition in York Museums (who were highly commended for their work), the Tank Museum, National Museums Liverpool, and the Coffin Works.

    According to the award’s judging panel BCLM won due to its TikTok’s ‘seismic impact and for seizing the moment in such a robust way, connecting with a core target audience of younger people. The Black Country Living Museum is a real trailblazer.’

    Without the support of colleagues from across all Museum teams this success would not have been possible. Thank you to everyone. A very special thank you must also go to our talented team of Historic Characters who so consistently and wonderfully bring our videos to life and to Abby Bird for her desire to innovate and bring the Museum’s story to people in a bold, new way.

    With over 1.2 million followers BCLM is the UK’s most followed museum on TikTok and is providing inspiration for other heritage organisations in how to connect with future generations. We’re proud to be part of a movement that makes our sector a vibrant and stimulating digital space for people to engage with their history.

  • 125k jabs delivered by the BCLM Vaccination Centre

    Black Country & West Birmingham NHS CCG have shared the amazing news that 125,000 jabs were delivered to the local community across Jan-Jun during the opeation of the Vaccination Centre at the Museum.

    The impressive result couldn’t have been achieved with the hard work of NHS staff and volunteers as well as the support of the BCLM colleagues. Thank you to everyone.

    For the full story, see our news page

  • Colleague Tickets: Peaky Blinders Nights

    We’re about to launch the ticket on-sale for our much-anticipated Peaky Blinders Nights. Tickets will go on-sale to Members from 12 noon on Wed 30 June and discounted tickets for colleagues will be available for purchase from Fri 2 July.

    “Grab your flatcap and don your finest threads for a night of fun and revelry as you step into the smoky underworld of the 1920s. Explore the Museum’s streets and alleys and hear of tales about Birmingham’s most notorious gangs. Enjoy the roaring nightlife of the interwar years with music and entertainment around every corner.“

    In line with previous years we’ve been able to ring-fence an allocation of discounted tickets for colleagues. A minimum of 30 tickets per event night at a 50% discount will be available for colleagues to purchase for Peaky Blinders Nights. As per 1940s Evening we are currently able to allocate a total of 30 staff tickets per night, and may be in a position to 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.) To purchase staff tickets please speak to the Sales and Ticketing team in the Canalside offices from Fri 2 July.

    For more information on our colleague ticket policy please refer to our guiding document here.

  • 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.

  • 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!