You can access the video by typing in the password ‘fishandchips’ below.
Category: Key update
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Weekly update – 22 April
It is now 5 weeks since we closed the Museum to the public. With the recent announcement of a further three weeks of lockdown, the Museum will remain closed until the Government advises that it is safe for us to open to the public. We hope that you and your friends and family are well and safely self-isolating.
As you will know, we have now furloughed 95% of the Museum’s workforce and in total just 13 staff are currently still working. Alongside Duty Managers, Maintenance and our Horse Handlers who are doing a great job ensuring that the site and our animals are safe, there are a small number of office staff still working behind the scenes. Their work falls broadly into 5 main areas and we are enormously grateful to those staff members including Di, Abby, Tom, Liz and Andy who continue to work from home on the following:
- Online Content. Work has been continuing behind the scenes to create a series of content that highlights key Black Country stories and supports at home learning for both adults and children. A new child-friendly learning hub has been set up on the website under the name ‘History at Home’ (bclm.com/HistoryatHome) and includes interactive ‘learning packs’ designed by the Programme Developer specifically to aid homeschooling. This has been extremely popular and is now the fifth most visited page on the site. The project has so far focussed on various topics including the life of a Black Country coal miner and the rise of the canal network in the region, with upcoming topics covering everything from a Victorian childhood to the highly topical ‘health and hygiene’. This content has had a positive impact across social, particularly on Instagram and Twitter. All resources and content can be accessed via bclm.com/HistoryatHome. Tom and Abby will also work closely with Jenny in her role as Black Country Studies Centre Coordinator to prepare adult-specific content which will go deeper into the subject areas.
- Finance and Administration. Members of the Finance team continue to coordinate payroll to ensure that everyone receives their salary at the end of April, pay invoices for our regular suppliers many of whom are also affected by this lockdown, submit gift aid claims to HMRC, and in the last couple of days submit information to the Job Retention Scheme allowing us to receive financial support for furloughed staff. In sales & ticketing the priority has been contacting all schools regarding their bookings, as well as well as responding to ticket holders for our May and June events which we announced last week would be either cancelled or postponed.
- External Financial Support. Work also continues behind the scenes to secure additional financial support, on a small scale this has included donations via Justgiving and promoting the purchase of the unchained pass with a message of ‘buy now, visit later’. It is heartening to see the amount of affection for our Museum on social media, and the desire to see it come through this difficult period with the promise of visiting once we are able to re-open. On a larger scale we have been talking to our major grant funders and particularly to Arts Council England which has this week released details of emergency funding that the Museum, as a member of the National Portfolio, is eligible to apply for.
- Planning of the future. As we look to the future, it is important that we consider a range of high level scenarios and cash flow models. The current situation and the forward financial planning is being reported to the Board on a weekly basis, with the Board meeting (via video conferencing) every two weeks – the next being tomorrow 23rd April.
- Finally, being part of the National and International discussions regarding our sector. It is important to realise that we are not alone as we find our way through this crisis and so keeping in touch with colleagues in other museums, heritage organisations and the arts sector, across the West Midlands, UK and Europe is especially important. In particular, we are keen to see how the public behave in mainland Europe once restrictions are lifted, given progress of the disease is more advanced. Especially important has been regular contact with the National Trust. As Chair of the Association of Independent Museum, Andrew is heavily involved with supporting museums across the UK, and ensuring those at greatest risk are heard by public-sector bodies able to offer financial support. The Museum’s membership of various WM and national bodies supports this work, and in-turn BCLM. For several weeks Andrew has been part of an arts/museums/heritage group making representations to Government, including a weekly conference call chaired by a Gvt Minist
So there is a huge amount of work still going on in the background to ensure that our Museum can come out of this crisis looking to the future with optimism.
And finally, a couple of good news stories from around the museum:
At the time of writing, our Senior Seamstress Hayley Cropp has created nearly 40 scrubs to meet the national shortage. Bravo!
Michelle, Kev and Chris decorated one of our carriages and created to signs to support the national #ClapfortheNHS movement, and even got one of our chickens involved too.
If you have a good news story, please message [email protected] – we’d really love to hear about all the things you’re getting up to during quarantine. Until then, stay tuned for further weekly updates, which will usually be each Wednesday on the intranet.
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Weekly update – 15 April 2020
A photo taken by Kev this week, who is still acting as Duty Manager on site alongside John Ryan. We hope that you, your friends and family are keeping safe during this difficult time, and that you had a pleasant Easter weekend.
Many of you will be aware of the Government’s COVID-19 Job Retention Scheme (JRS), which has been set up to support employers to continue to make payments to staff whose earnings have been impacted by the Coronavirus. Until last week we were unsure if we could include colleagues who work under Casual Worker Agreements. However, after further clarification from the Government last week, we are pleased to confirm that we can now include our Casual Workers within this scheme.
Later today we will be publicly announcing changes to our events programme. Due to the social distancing measures currently in place, the necessary preparation for our events cannot take place and therefore all events scheduled for May and June have been cancelled or postponed. Our main priority has been to postpone and re-schedule events where possible, however where we haven’t been able to find an alternative date, we’ve had to take the reluctant decision to cancel. The changes to our May and June programme affect both special daytime events where you can visit with an UnChained Annual Pass and our pre-ticketed evening events. In particular, Red by Night has been postponed until Saturday 10 October 2020, and the new Finding the Fifties event until 2021. Information on all other events can be found on the Museum website.Some of you may have seen the Midlands Today news yesterday, but for those that haven’t it featured the Museum and an interview with Andrew:
The Museum has donated surplus fabric from the costume department, and our seamstress Hayley is utilising this to make scrubs for NHS staff. These plain clothes are being used by an increasing number of NHS staff as part of their personal protective equipment and with the need to change these more frequently, this has led to a nationwide shortage. Hayley can be seen with one of 22 sets (top and trousers) that she has made over the past twelve days. If anyone else is volunteering or supporting our key workers and would like to share this with colleagues, we’d love to hear about them! Please send your updates to [email protected] and we will include as many as we can in these weekly bulletins.
We’ll continue to update you on a weekly basis, but until then, keep safe, healthy and happy.
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Andrew’s weekly update – 8 April 2020
It’s now three weeks since we closed the Museum and our thoughts continue to be with everyone at this difficult time; but especially those who have been affected directly by the virus, and their family and friends.
John and Kev (our duty managers) alongside Chris and Michelle (horse handlers) and Martyn (maintenance) continue to ensure the site and animals are being looked after and that essential works can take place. Blue skies but no visitors is definitely not the normal Easter holiday combination. And it’s not just us missing the Museum, one Facebook commentator has posted photos of their garden which they’ve decorated with photos of the Museum for their daughter’s 14th birthday as we’re her favourite place!
Members of the Programme, Research and Marketing teams who remain working have been busy producing History at Home content – the first of these videos was uploaded this week so remember to check our Twitter and Facebook page for updates.
We want to thank everyone for their ongoing perseverance and commitment during this time and that you continue to keep safe and well.
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Museum Update – Wed 1 Apr
We hope that everyone is continuing to keep safe and well during these unprecedented times.
In the last week our Duty Managers and horse handlers have continued to visit the Museum site daily to ensure the safety of the site and the welfare of the horses – as you can see below this includes looking after the boats!
Many of you will have been speaking to your managers this week about the Coronavirus Job Retention scheme and how we are approaching this as a Museum. Whilst we now move to having only a handful of colleagues who are not furloughed for reasons of business continuity, safety of our estate, and the welfare of the Museum’s animals, we will continue these weekly updates so you can feel up-to-date about Museum activity still.
We’ll also be sharing content on social media when we can, so remember to check our Twitter and Facebook page for updates. You’ll see some great archive footage of Wolverhampton’s record-breaking Sunbeam Slug car (linked to our very own Broome’s Garage) on there now.
We want to thank everyone for their ongoing understanding and perseverance during what is a difficult time for all.
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Weekly update – Wed 25 Mar
We hope that everyone is keeping safe and well during these difficult times.
Following the Prime Minister’s announcement on Monday evening to increase social distancing and stay at home measures, only essential staff have been on-site in order make the Museum safe and secure during the period; this includes our Duty Managers and horse handlers in daily and Maintenance and IT teams supporting from home but ready to be onsite in case of an emergency.
The Museum Board will be meeting, via video conference, tomorrow (Thursday 26 March) and the sole agenda item is how we are responding to this once in a generation event.
You’ll have also seen the measures that the Government has announced to support employers and employees; including the Coronavirus Job Retention scheme. This very important, and welcomed, policy offers a lifeline to heritage organisations like ourselves and we will continue to communicate with you via separate notices about how we will be moving forward with this.
Following the announcement of the Museum’s temporary closure, we’ve been heartened by the messages of support we’ve seen from our visitors and local community, particularly on social media. In response, we’ve launched a donation (https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/supportBCLM) and ‘buy a ticket for when we re-open’ campaign that has been received very positively. This will help us to raise funds and keep the Museum top-of-mind for visitors when we re-open and we can welcome people back. Some of the fantastic comments we’ve received are below:
‘I have many happy memories of this place and hope to make many more in years to come. It’s a wonderful place and I am happy to show my support. Stay safe everyone and I look forward to seeing you.’
‘Keep up the fantastic work you do, you have built up a wonderful facility for all to see what it was really like to live and work in the Black Country. It would be a crying shame to see it disappear.’
‘Visited many times with my Brother who has now passed away! In his memory I am donating to your Museum!’
‘Glad to help this fabulous museum.’
‘Great place to visit with the young and old alike. We can’t wait to come back and enjoy another visit soon.’
‘Love BCLM, had some great memories there, hope this helps.’
We want to thank everyone for their patience, understanding and perseverance during what is an unprecedented time in history.
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Museum response to Government announcement on Fri 20 Mar
We are continually reassessing the impact of the COVID-19 on the Museum and, as previously communicated, our financial position as a charity largely reliant upon visitor income is very challenging. This challenge will increase while we remain shut and unable to generate income from visitors.
We were pleased to see the business support package announced by the Government on Friday 20 March and, in particular, the employee salary support measures. We are urgently looking into accessing the support from the Government in order to ensure job retention.
However, accessing this support will require the Museum to add a clause that is not currently in our contracts of employment that would enable us to furlough staff on a temporary basis. Therefore, following conversations with both Community Union and the Staff Consultative Forum, we will be in touch over the next few days to discuss this proposed contract amendment with you. Accessing the Chancellor’s support measures now will help secure the employment of our teams for better times in the future.
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Museum wins Silver Accolade at West Midlands Tourism Awards
We’re delighted to share the news that the Museum has won silver in the Large Visitor Attraction of the Year category at the inaugural West Midlands Tourism Awards.
The Awards highlight the best the West Midlands has to offer in travel, tourism, and visitor attractions and are designed to raise the profile of the West Midlands as a tourism destination – for both domestic and international audiences. Our award success recognises the Museum’s contribution to putting the West Midlands on the map for tourism and helps to raise our profile as a thriving and distinctive visitor attraction.
Following an exhaustive application and judging process, the Museum was shortlisted as a finalist for Large Visitor Attraction of the Year alongside National SeaLife Centre Birmingham and the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) who took bronze and gold respectively.
Our silver accolade is due to the hard work, skill and enthusiasm of all colleagues at the Museum. Thank you to everyone for making this possible.
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BCLM Forging Ahead: Burgin’s Newsagent
Black Country Living Museum are looking for memories from the 1940s – 1960s of Burgin’s Newsagent, Dudley. As part of its ambitious new development project BCLM: Forging Ahead, the Museum will be replicating Burgin’s newsagent’s shop from 167 Wolverhampton Street, Dudley, which until its closure in 2016, was one of the longest running family newsagents in the country.
The shop was founded by John Burgin (1831-1887), a travelling bookseller from Kidderminster, in 1868. It was an old building, built around 1795 and previously a fishmonger, but it served the family well as a place of business and a family home for John and Mary Burgin, and their eight children. The youngest, Alfred Burgin (1880-1951) took over the shop from his father and ran it until his death in 1951, when his widow Jane took over. Son of Alfred and Jane, John Burgin, married Cynthia Perry in 1954, who began to help her mother-in-law with the running of the shop, later taking over completely until her own retirement in 2016.
Customers visiting the shop ranged from workmen in local factories (such as Lenny Henry’s father, who cycled there to buy cigarettes) to doctors at the Guest Hospital (including Dr Messiter, who arrived by chauffeured car). The comedian and entertainer Billy Dainty was a childhood friend of John Burgin’s, and visited whenever he came back to Dudley; and before the war Duncan Edwards – who went to Wolverhampton Street School, just behind the shop – visited regularly with his father.
Burgin’s employed six or seven paper boys from the surrounding area, usually including some from the children’s home in St James’ Road. They covered a wide delivery area stretching from the Priory Estate to Russell’s Hall, including delivering to the council, Dudley College, the Library reading room, and the Guest, Burton Road, and Rosemary Ednam hospitals.
To help us to recreate this long serving newsagent, we would love to talk to anyone with memories of the shop. Did you buy your newspapers or sweets at Burgin’s newsagents? Were you a paperboy for Burgins? Can you tell us what it was like inside the shop or the home? Do you have any photographs of the shop in the post-war decades?
Please get in touch with us by emailing [email protected] or call 0121 557 9643.
For more information about BCLM: Forging Ahead, please visit www.bclm.com/forgingahead