Helpdesk

Iplicit

FuseMetrix

Planday

My ePayWindow

Intranet

Category: Key update

  • Action for Happiness: Do Good December

    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 Do Good December, encouraging you to carry out small acts of kindness!

    “This has been another difficult year of uncertainty and ups and downs for many of us. Kindness is contagious, and helping others has been proven to make us feel better too! Let’s try to focus on being generous with our time and attention rather than money – it’s free and better for everyone, as well as our planet!”

    Let’s all use their calendar below, or the Action for Happiness App, to do more good this month.

    Click on the above image to view a larger version.

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

  • Important Update – Current Covid-19 Guidance (30/11/2021)

    In light of the Government’s recent announcement regarding mandatory face coverings in certain settings from 30 November 2021, the Museum will require all visitors, unless they are exempt, to wear a face covering in the following areas;

    • All indoor retail settings; the Gift Shop (including Admissions), Morrall’s, Cakes and Sweets
    • On Public Transport
    • Hobbs and Village Fish and Chip Shop
    • The enterprise unit located near the mine (formerly Rock and Fossil)

    Signage across the Museum will be changed to reflect where a face covering is mandatory for visitors, and Admissions will be highlighting to visitors the areas on site where a face covering will be required. Colleagues are not expected to enforce this.

    All colleagues must continue to follow the Museum’s current requirement to wear a suitable face covering, unless exempt, in all indoor settings where the public are present. We also continue to advise all colleagues to follow the Government’s recommendation to wear a face covering in any indoor setting where they may come into close contact (within 1 metre) with those who aren’t in their household.

    As a reminder, all colleagues should continue to observe Covid-safe behaviours by;

    • Not attending the Museum if you have symptoms of Covid or have received notification to isolate.
    • Regular hand washing or sanitisation where hand washing is not possible.
    • Wearing a face covering as outlined above.
    • Maintaining appropriate safe distancing with colleagues and visitors.
    • Ventilating meetings rooms and sanitising after use.

    Please continue to contact your line manager and email the People & Culture team ([email protected]) if you test positive for Covid or receive a notification from NHS test and trace to isolate.

    The Museum will continue to review the need for any further precautionary measures in line with Government guidance and to mitigate any safety risks for colleagues and visitors.

    If you have any questions regarding the above please speak to your line manager.

  • People News Update 18/11/21

    People News Update 18/11/21

    Farewells

    John Hughes Project Lead ( Historic Development ) will be leaving the Museum at the end of this month. This is following a review of the Forging Ahead team, resulting in a decision to decentralise the Historic element of the project to sit within both Collections and Interpretation teams. John will be missed by his colleagues and we wish him the very best for the future.

    Louise Berrow Sales & Ticketing Administrator left earlier this month having secured a new role as an Administration Assistant with the NHS. Louise leaves with our sincere thanks and best wishes.

    Roger Colbourne from the Maintenance team has decided to retire after almost 32 years of service and will be leaving at the end of this month. Roger will be greatly missed and we wish him a long and healthy retirement.

    Welcomes

    Beki Challoner joined us last week as Visitor Welcome Manager, having previously worked for The Birmingham Hippodrome.

    Hannah Jameson, who previously worked for National Lottery Heritage Fund, joined us earlier this month as Development (Fundraising) Coordinator.

    Amanda Eeles and Teresa Bullows join us in Sales & Ticketing. Amanda has recently returned to the area to live closer to family while Teresa joins us from The Wolverhampton Grand.

    Olly Hipkiss who joined us a Trainee Gardener under the Kickstart team has joined the Cleaning & Porterage Team this week as Site Cleaner.

    We also welcome back Geoff Payne as a casual within the Historic Character team.

    The following new casuals will join our Enterprise team this month; Joanne Arnold, Sarah Gordon and Sharna Emery.

    Please join us in extending a warm welcome to our new colleagues.

    Other news

    Hannah Brown has been promoted to Audiences & Communications Manager. We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Hannah and wish her every success in her exciting new role.

    Joe Davies who joined us a Trainee Gardener under the Kickstart team will be continuing his employment with us as an Apprentice Gardener. We look forward to continuing to work with Joe and support him in completing his apprenticeship.

    We have also welcomed a number of Collections Care volunteers, please say hello if you see them walking around site and in staff areas leading up to Christmas and in the new year.


    From left to right:
    Carrie, Beth, James, Lauren, William, Bethany, Lauren, Chloe, Rachel, Rebecca, Kelly & Marika.

  • Christmas Greenery Appeal

    It’s that time of year again when we start thinking about decorating the buildings ready for the festive season.  We use traditional greenery for many of the houses and shops so we are appealing for your help.

    Do you have rampant ivy or holly that needs pruning?  Do you have excess Christmas/ fir tree cuttings?  Or do you have other evergreen materials you can spare?

    If you have any of the above we would be grateful for donations of greenery.  We are looking for people to bring greenery in on Monday 22nd & Tuesday 23rd November and continue the following week. We may also need additional greenery in December, to refresh the buildings.

    If you are able to help, please can you put the greenery in bags or containers and leave outside the red barn doors for the Collections team to pick up.

    During the festive period, once buildings are decorated, if you are working in historic buildings and you are looking for greenery to refresh your building please contact the Collections team.

    If you have any questions about decorating the buildings for Christmas, please speak to the Collections team or email [email protected].

    Thank you!

  • Christmas Programme 2021

    We’re so excited for Christmas to be back at the Museum this year! Our season of events has proven incredibly popular with Santa Hunts and Christmas nights selling out by the end of October.  We now have only limited tickets left for our brand-new experience, An Enchanted Christmas. Please read on to find out more about this year’s Christmas Programme.

    An Enchanted Christmas

    Having had to postpone from 2020, we’re looking forward to finally hosting An Enchanted Christmas, our completely new pre-ticketed event aimed at families and those visitors who consider themselves young at heart.

    On Sat 11th, Sun 12th, Sat 18th and Sun 19th December the Museum will be transformed for festive fun. Santa and his elves are busy preparing for Christmas, but the Rat King and his pesky partners are trying to sabotage the preparations! Visitors will have the chance to meet Christmassy characters, take part in activities and help the Nutcrackers save Christmas from the rats.

    We’ve created a storybook to help our visitors understand the different zones and characters that they’ll encounter. This experience will encompass the whole site, so we’d ask all teams to take a look at the storybook and find out what’s in store for this event. Follow the link to our website to view the storybook by clicking here:

    Read our Enchanted Storybook

    You can also watch our character video here: thanks so much to those that were involved with creating this film! This is a brand new event for us, which we think will attract new audiences to the Museum by providing something a unique experience that will enable families to enjoy the Museum in a different way.

    Santa Hunts

    Santa is making a welcome return to the Museum this Christmas, with a brand-new storyline for Santa Hunts for 2021.

    Our jolly vintage bus will collect visitors and take them to Santa’s workshop, but Santa’s fallen asleep thanks to the magical Christmas dust! With the help of the Museum’s elves, visitors will explore the Museum to hunt down festive ingredients to help wake up jolly old Saint Nick.

    Christmas Nights

    Proving incredibly popular with visitors and selling out in record time, we’re pleased to be welcoming visitors back for a cosy Christmas night on Fri 3rd and Sat 4th December.

    We’re inviting visitors to enjoy the atmosphere of Christmas on our gas-lit streets, explore decorated shops and houses and enjoy festive food and entertainment.

    Unwrapping Christmas – daytime general admission

    For our visitors that are simply looking to enjoy a festive step back in time during December, our general admission offer will be exploring a Black Country Christmas through time. From the traditional tales of a cosy Victorian winter through to a swinging 1960s Christmas, visitors can discover new stories and meet new historic characters this winter season.

    If you have any questions about any of our Christmas events, please do speak to Tom Dipple in the programming team.

  • Museum road safety update

    Dear colleagues,

    An important, timely reminder for everyone in order to ensure our safety around the museum site.

    For the full duration of each closed day at the museum through the winter period, our site roads are very much ‘live’ and can be busy with traffic at any time. The same goes for days that we open to the public, before 10am and after 4pm.

    Not only are the Forging Ahead contractors able to move around outside of their hoarding with heavy duty machinery during these times, but there’s also our own site maintenance vehicles and external deliveries too.

    With that in mind, please follow these simple steps to keep everyone safe;

    • Keep to pathways where available
    • If you see or hear traffic approaching, STOP, step to the side and WAIT until it has passed
    • Don’t wear headphones when walking around the site

    As a reminder, site traffic should maintain a 5mph limit at all times and personal vehicles should not be brought onto site.

    Finally, any construction vehicle or lorry reversing anywhere outside of hoarding/fencing should always have a ‘banksman’, in high-visibility clothing, stood at the rear of that vehicle. All members of the museum community should report to the Duty Manager where they don’t see this critical safety precaution in place.

    If you have any questions or queries in relation to the above, don’t hesitate to speak with your line manager who can signpost you to the best person to help.

    Thank you.

  • Car Parking – November

    Please be advised that Balfour Beatty are carrying out trenching works across the Museum’s car park for the next three weeks. The trench location will change daily. Please park where directed by Balfour staff when you arrive at the Museum.

  • Action for Happiness: New Ways November

    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 New Ways November, encouraging you to try something new!

    Learning something new is great for our wellbeing. Keeping our brains active is not only good for us physically but it can help you feel you are flourishing as you see yourself make progress with a new skill. And remember that it’s OK not to get it right first time – change “I can’t do it”, into “I can’t do it…yet!”

    This month’s calendar is full of ideas to help you decide what to do next, so let’s all use this, or the Action for Happiness App, to try something new this month.

    https://www.actionforhappiness.org/media/1056826/nov_2021.jpg
  • People News (Update 26/10/2021)

    People News (Update 26/10/2021)

    Farewells

    Mary Whitehouse

    Mary Whitehouse, our longest serving colleague, has decided to retire after 38 years of service and is leaving the Museum at the end of the month. Throughout that time, Mary has been an esteemed colleague and everyone, especially the Historic Character team, will be sorry to see her leave. Her warm personality, experience and exceptional knowledge will be missed by all. Mary has seen many changes to the Museum over the years and has worked in countless places across site. Throughout all this, her dedication and positive outlook haven’t faltered. We would like to thank Mary for everything she has done for the museum – for her many years of support and for bringing history to life for so many visitors.

    Mary is planning on spending some well-earned quality time with her husband John at their caravan in Wales. We wish her a happy and healthy retirement and hope to see her often when she visits.

    Other leavers this month are sadly the following:

    Abby Bird our Audience and Communications Manager is leaving the Museum later this month to relocate to Cornwall and work as a freelance consultant. Abby joined the Museum over 7 years ago and in that time has been an integral part of our marketing efforts. Most notably her amazing and innovative TikTok social media videos giving the Museum worldwide recognition. Abby’s creativity and enthusiasm will be very much missed, but we wish her the very best as she settles into the south coast.

    Kyron Nock, Enterprise Team Manager, left the Museum earlier this month, after almost 5 years’ service to further his career with Tesco. He will be managing the Café at their Dudley superstore, just up the road from the Museum! Kyron has been an established colleague within Enterprise and has worked closely with many teams around the Museum. We wish him the very best as he takes on his exciting new management post.

    Tracey Forrest, Historic Character, also left earlier this month. Tracey has been a key part of our Historic Character team since 2011 but has now decided to return to her former career in jewellery retail. She leaves with our sincere thanks and best wishes.

    Jean Homer, Enterprise Team, who most of you will know for her work in the sweet shop, has been with the Museum for 8 years and has decided to leave us to focus on enjoying home life. Jean’s experience in sweet making will be very much missed but we hope that Jean will return from time to time to share her skills with others.

    Martin Churchill from the Cleaning Team is retiring to spend more time with his wife. In the short term he will be sunning himself on a cruise booked for the new year. We wish Martin a long and healthy retirement.

    Welcomes

    New Casuals – Historic Character Team

    The following new casuals have joined our Historic Character team this month:

    Andrea Williams, Jack Fern, Lucy McWilliams, Emily Banks, Harun Bashir, Neil Fellows, and Jennifer Kettle.

    If you see any of our recent new joiners on site – please do be sure to say hello!

    Paul Crofts

    As referenced in an earlier update, Paul Crofts officially joined us last week, in the role of Chief Operating Officer, following a series of familiarisation days through September and October. You can read more about Paul’s role and his background on this intranet post.

  • All Colleague Briefings – Sign-up Required

    All Colleague Briefings – Sign-up Required

    As part of our continual Programme of ensuring engagement and communication of the Museum’s operational and strategic activity, we will be holding briefings to update all colleagues on the Museum’s progress since reopening in May of this year and the plans for 2022, a critical year for the launch of the first of the Forging Ahead buildings. These briefings will take place on:

    • Wednesday 3 November 2021
    • Thursday 4 November 2021
    • Thursday 11 November 2021

    All the briefings will be held in the WI and will commence at 9.15, finishing at 9.45.  Many of you will already be scheduled by your line managers to attend one of these sessions, if you have not then please volunteer your name on the attached sign up sheet.

    All contracted colleagues are mandated to attend these sessions. We would also strongly urge colleagues from both our volunteer and casual community to all attend.

    You only need to attend one of the briefing sessions.

    Refreshment will be provided in the WI.

    Can you please sign up using the following link: All Staff Briefings

    If you have any trouble signing up for the briefing because you do not have a BCLM email address then please speak to your line manager who will be able to add your name for you.