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  • 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.

     

     

  • Staff Social – A Date For Your Diary

    To say a big thank you to all colleagues for their hard work in 2018 a celebration of success will take place on Monday 21st January.

    Keep an eye on the Intranet in December for further updates and how to RSVP.

    If you have any ideas or suggestions for the theme of the event which you would like to put forward, you can contact Ben Careless in HR either via email at [email protected] or via phone on extension 201.

  • 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.

  • Black Country Studies Centre launches

    On Wed 21 Nov the Black Country Studies Centre launched.  This new education partnership between the University of Wolverhampton and the Museum will provide new learning opportunities for communities across the Black Country.  The partnerships’s aim is to deliver learning outcomes that will help local people to develop their employability skills, raise aspirations and encourage community cohesion.

    The Centre will offer guest talks, taster courses, student placements and research projects to create unique learning opportunities for the region and which build on the history of the Black Country.

    Commenting on BCSC, Andrew Lovett said, “The Black Country Studies Centre has been created to formalise our current relationship with the University. Together and through a programme of inspirational activities we will continue to explore the history of the area and how that history informs our understanding of ourselves and our communities.”

    Click here to find out more about Black Country Studies Centre.

    Wednesday’s launch evening also included Snidge Scrumpin’ – an experiment to map smell and memory in the Black Country.  Run by the University of Wolverhampton as part of the Being Human Festival 2018, the experiment exposed participants to a range of different smells and asked them about the memories and places they triggered.  The results will be published in January and we hope they can input into the Museum’s interpretation plan for our 1940s-1960s town as part of Forging Ahead.

  • 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

  • Professional Exchange: Visitor Services Knowledge Circle

    Applications for the Visitor Services Knowledge Circle 2018 close at 5 pm on Wednesday 28th November. Have you applied?

    This fantastic opportunity which is fully funded to include travel and accommodation, gives two BCLM colleagues, in a visitor facing role, the chance to spend 5 days with one of our partner Museums which include The British Museum, National Trust and Leeds Museums to name a few.  The aim of the programme is to enable colleagues to gain knowledge and insight which they can bring back and apply to their role.

    Interested? You can apply by filling out an application form and sending it to Lucy Bennett, Head of Human Resource Development. Find out more on the Intranet at Documents/Useful Contacts & Support/HR/Training & Development/Secondments.