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Category: TV Feed News Scroller

  • #ProudToBe – Black History Month 2021

    This year’s Black History Month UK is celebrating the theme of ‘Proud To Be’. Across the country people are sharing their stories and inspiring others to take pride in Black history and culture.

    In collaboration with Rites of Passage Productions, Black Country Living Museum has produced four short films that celebrate the lives of four remarkable Black people. This work spans stories from the nineteenth century up to the present day and is designed to encourage us all to think about how we are making history all the time in our own ways.

    These videos will be premiering throughout this and next week – to view exclusive previews of all four films ahead of their launch, watch below!

    #ProudToBe RESILIENT – Cyrille Regis

    The first of our films is ‘Proud to Be Resilient’: featuring Stefan Davis as West Bromwich Albion and England icon, Cyrille Regis. The film is a dramatic re-telling of Cyrille’s rise to the top flight of the beautiful game and how a shocking incident ahead of his England debut in 1982 spurred him on to event greater success.

    This film is made in loving memory of Cyrille Regis, 1958-2018

    #ProudToBe COURAGEOUS – Henry Box Brown

    In the second of the series, we discover the story of American-born abolitionist lecturer Henry Box Brown. Born into enslavement in North Carolina in around 1815, he became famous after he escaped by mailing himself in a wooden box to abolitionists in Philadelphia. Following this he fled to England in 1850, and embarked on a successful publishing and performing career and became an important campaigner for the abolition of slavery.

    #ProudToBe CARING – Nurse Brown

    In the third film in our Proud To Be series, we meet “Nurse Brown”. Her portrait is part of the collection at Wolverhampton Art Gallery, yet little is known about her – a symbol of the difficulties historians face when seeking to uncover hidden histories of people of colour from the past.

    #ProudToBe Me – in conversation with Tonia Daley-Campbell

    In the final film of the series, we sit down with Tonia Daley-Campbell. An inspiring actress, writer, director and mentor, Tonia shares with us the story of her educational and professional journey. She discusses her proudest career moments and shares advice for young people in the industry today.

  • Parking Update – Wed 13 Oct

    For all staff that use the car park, please can all staff park at the far end of the main car park (at the bottom end on the gravel) on Wednesday 13 October rather than the usual staff area. This is to allow for Balfour Beatty to carry out scanning work.

  • Action for Happiness: Optimistic October

    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 Optimistic October.

    Especially when things are feeling a bit tough, it can help to set some goals.  Making goals achievable and ensuring that you have a few short term as well as longer term, more ambitious goals helps us feel we’re making progress. It doesn’t matter if your goal for the day is something really small, the important thing is to give yourself the opportunity to feel like you’ve achieved something and to celebrate that! This month’s calendar is full of ideas to help you think about how you can put this into practice.

    Let’s all use their calendar below, or the Action for Happiness App, to celebrate our achievements no matter how small.

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

  • Update on Museum Covid-Safe Measures

    Face Coverings

    The Government’s advice is that it expects and recommends that members of the public continue to wear face coverings in crowded and enclosed spaces where you come into contact with people you don’t normally meet.

    Therefore, the Museum will continue to recommend to visitors that they wear facing coverings in our indoor settings.  And so, in line with that, the Museum requires all staff that are in an indoor setting, where the public are present, and where they are unable to maintain a distance of 2 metres away from members of the public, to wear a face covering. The face covering can either be one in the form of a mask, of an appropriate style and colour or a clear face visor. 

    Social Distance

    • Staff should continue to maintain a 2 metre distance from visitors where possible

    The limits in meeting rooms will be removed with immediate effect. Users should  ensure that rooms are ventilated during meetings and face coverings are encouraged.

    • Staff bubbles  & staggered shifts will cease with immediate effect, but mixing within teams in social spaces remains discouraged
    • Morning briefings will remain separate for the moment
    • The guide hut can return to being a changing area
    • Screens will remain in place
    • Limiting  visitor numbers in small buildings will  remain and signage will be updated accordingly

    One Way & QR

    • Where access is limited or entry is narrow, we will maintain the one-way flow and the signage in these locations.
    • QR codes will remain for the moment

    Sanitisers

    Sanitisers  remain on site and all buildings and we propose no change to this at the moment.

  • A message from Andrew

    How heartening it was to see the crowds return over the summer holidays, and for the Museum to offer such an enthusiastic welcome.  There will be anxious times ahead, I have no doubt, but considering what we have all come through, I think we can be very proud.  So a big thank you from me to everyone for your resilience and the continued strong desire to do the best for the Museum and our visitors.

    That display of doing what is best for the Museum was very much in evidence during our first Peaky Blinder evenings, when every aspect of our operation is tested to destruction!  I came along on Saturday night and was mightily impressed by the programme, quality of service and when I sneakily listened-in on what visitors had to say. Those two evening events and the strength of our appeal is reflected in how well we have bounced back after reopening.  Since 17 May, when we reopened, we have achieved 72% of pre-COVID attendance, and during the month of August this was an astounding 94%.  That kind of resilience gives me a level of confidence in our future not thought possible this time last year.

    We are hoping to arrange a staff event in late September to celebrate our future, and I very much hope you’ll be able to join colleagues.

    With my appreciation and thanks.

    Andrew

    For an Express and Star report and pictures from last weekend’s Peaky Blinders Nights, click here

  • Action for Happiness: Self Care September

    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 Self Care September. This month we’re encouraging everyone to be kinder to themselves (as well as others), especially when things go wrong.

    Let’s all use their calendar below, or the Action for Happiness App, to increase our resilience and get more out of life.

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

  • Coming soon: BCLM Winter Events

    We’re due to launch on-sale for our winter events on Wed 1 Sep for BCLM Members, followed by general public access on Wed 8 Sep.

    This year’s programme is a great combination of old and new that we’re sure will appeal to a wide spectrum of our visitors. Here’s a preview:

    Halloween Nights – Monsters and Aliens (Fri 22/Sat 23/Fri 29/Sat 30 Oct)

    Visitors will experience a frenzy of fun as monsters and aliens invade the Museum for our spectacular Halloween Nights!

    Alongside the familiar favourites like trick-or-treat and the costume parade. we’ll also have mighty tree creatures and a steambuster robot to entertain families as they roam the Museum after dark…

    An Enchanted Christmas – special ticketed daytime event (Sat 11/Sun 12/Sat 18/Sun 19 Dec)

    Last year’s cancelled event has been brought back to life and updated for 2021.

    Santa and his elves are getting ready for the big day. The presents are being mined, the Christmas trees are being planted and the Sugarplum Fairies are busy making delicious treats. But mischief is afoot – the Rat King and his army are trying to ruin Christmas! Santa has called in the Nutcracker General and his friends to keep the Rat King and his pesky partners at bay. Visitors will have the chance to step into this magical world to help save Christmas!

    Santa Hunts

    Santa is making a welcome return to the Museum this Christmas, with a brand new storyline for Santa Hunts for 2021. (Sat 26/Sun 27 Nov, Sat 4/Sun 5/Mon 20/Tue 21/Wed 22/Thu 23/Fri 24 Dec)

    With the help of Santa’s elves, visitors will explore the Museum to hunt down festive ingredients to help wake up jolly old Saint Nick from his slumber by seeking out the smells, sounds and tastes of Christmas to bring Santa back to his old festive self. Children will of course receive a gift and a special memento from the man himself.

    Christmas evening event

    We’re planning on hosting a Christmas evening event on Fri 3 and Sat 4 Dec. The programme is currently being developed and will launch for on-sale soon. We’ll update you ahead of the public launch.

    Colleague special event tickets

    As ever, colleague tickets will be available for our special events. Evening events and An Enchanted Christmas will have an allocation of tickets at a 50% for colleagues to purchase. These will be available from Fri 3 Sep via the Sales & Ticketing team. Please note that discount tickets are not offered for Santa Hunts.

    Daytime programme – October half-term and Christmas holidays

    We’re working on a sci-fi themed October half-term and developing ‘Unwrapping Christmas’ for daytimes during the Christmas season. Look out for an update on this soon!

  • Museum Update: Changes from Mon 16 Aug

    You may remember an update on our Museum’s response to the ‘step 4’ Covid-19 roadmap changes that took place across England in mid-July.

    At the time, we as an organisation felt it important to take a more gradual approach to easing back to our normal ways of operating to ensure the continued safety and comfort of all our staff and visitors. To that end, we maintained important and effective safety measures including bubbling of team members and separated rest areas, reduced and timed slotted capacity to the attraction and other key areas (such as the cinema and school), one way routes through buildings and staff requirement of face masks in public areas.

    There has now been a good opportunity to understand how our visitors have responded to this latest point in the Covid-19 roadmap, and their attitudes and behaviours towards the measures we ourselves have retained.

    With this in mind and, once again, ensuring a measured focus on the overall safety of both staff and visitors, we will be making some minor amendments to the way we operate from Monday 16th August. These are:

    • To return Rolfe Street to a two-way visitor flow, with all guests exiting via the gift shop
    • A gradual return to an eat-in offer at the Tube Works Café, with a small number of tables
    • A move back to full visitor capacity in our cinema and school room
    • Removal of social distancing arrows on our main museum roads
    • A gradual increase in daily visitor capacity to the museum

    However, for the time being, and at least until the end of our summer holiday period, we will be continuing with the following precautions:

    • Maintaining the current staff bubbling and rest areas
    • Retaining the staff use of face masks in all public areas (and encouraging visitors to do so)
    • Keeping all existing safety screens in place (i.e. at till points and in historic buildings)
    • Continuing with one-way routes through historic buildings and down alleyways (re-painting messages where needed)
    • Keeping the current capacity limits in meeting rooms

    The Museum could not have delivered so many safe and enjoyable visits so far this summer without everyone’s dedication and commitment to maintaining these additional measures, and we should all be very proud of the way we have worked together as a team to make this summer happen.

    Please do discuss further with your line manager should you have any queries on these changes.

    Hopefully, the remainder of the summer period shall be as successful as it has so far, and thank you for all your hard work.

    Vaccination Survey & New Isolation Guidelines

    Thank you to all colleagues who have kindly completed the Vaccine Survey. Over 94% of colleagues are, or will be, double-vaccinated by the end of September.

    The Government guidelines on isolation are expected to change from Monday 16 August 2021. Those who are double –jabbed or under 18 and unvaccinated, will not need to self-isolate if they come into contact with  a positive case. Instead you will be encouraged to have a PCR test to confirm your covid status. If you test positive for covid, you will need to isolate for 10 days.

    Given the easing of restrictions it is now more important than ever that colleagues undertake twice weekly  lateral flow tests. Test kits continue to be available from People & Culture.

    The Covid flow chart for managers has been updated and added to HR/Wellbeing /Covid on the intranet.

  • BCSC Online Talk – “The Festival of Britain and Walsall”

    On Tuesday 17 August, the Black Country Studies Centre hosts its next online talk in its series on the Festival of Britain and its relationship to the Black Country. For this talk, join artist Sian Macfarlane who will be discussing the Festival’s relationship to Walsall. If you’d like to join this free online talk, you can get tickets here.

    Artsfest Online and the Black Country Studies Centre are pleased to present a series of events commemorating the 70 years anniversary of the Festival and its impact in the Black Country.

    Date: Tuesday 17th August, 2021

    Time: 7pm – 8pm

    Venue: online event

    ‘We Are Illuminated’, undertaken with The New Art Gallery Walsall, was a project concerned with the leisure life of Walsall; the history of the cinemas, fairs, Walsall Illuminations, and carnival queens in the area, exploring Walsall centre, and surrounding locations to situate the archival research in the present day. In this research, Sian uncovered a script for a Walsall play, performed at the Festival of Britain, 1951. This lengthy and detailed document presented the history of Walsall in a series of tableau, exploring key moments in Walsall’s past. The enactment of this script, with local students, became a key part of the project. The work resulted in an exhibition within the gallery, of video and original artefacts, exploring this rich history.

    In this talk Sian Macfarlane will outline the research into the Festival of Britain and Walsall that was undertaken as part of this project, and explore the ways in which this became a key element of creative work.

    The event will be held online and a joining link will be sent shortly beforehand. It is free to attend. To find out more about Sian’s work and to book a free place on this talk, please click here.

  • John Hughes Staff Award 2021 – Apply now – Closing Date Monday 16th August 2021

    John Hughes Staff Award 2021 – Apply now – Closing Date Monday 16th August 2021

    The John Hughes Staff Award is available to support the professional and personal development of individuals through funding for qualifications, conferences, workshops, short courses and research trips.

     This year the award is available to both permanent and casual colleagues who have worked at BCLM for a minimum of 6 months and are able to demonstrate how the award will support their professional and/or personal development whilst also benefitting the Museum.

    The award will be offered to one or multiple staff members following submission of an application form. Any supporting or additional information about the development opportunity should be attached to your application. The cost of the development opportunity should be no less than £200.

    Colleagues are required to discuss their interest with their Line Manager prior to completing the attached application. This is to ensure the application is suitable to be funded in this way and is not a requirement which may be able to be met by the Museum in other ways. Your application should be authorised by your Line Manager and submitted by you to [email protected] no later than Monday 16th August 2021.

    All applications will be subject to a ‘panel’ review which will be held shortly after the closing date. Successful applicants will be notified by end of August 2021.

    Click here to download the application form