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  • New Year…New Cafe Name

    After the recent staff poll to find a new name for Rolfe St cafe, there were two preferred choices –  Hilltop Foundry and Crown Tubeworks.

    From Wednesday 23 Jan, the cafe will be renamed the Crown Tubeworks Cafe but we’ll keep ‘Hilltop Foundry’ in mind for the cafe that will be located in the new Visitor Centre as part of Forging Ahead.

    Thanks for voting!

  • 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.

  • Meet the Volunteer – Janet

    In the first of our series of ‘Meet the Volunteer’ profiles, we hear from Janet who is a volunteer in the Visitor Engagement team:

    “I have been a regular visitor to the Museum for about 35 years, having started visiting with my children when they were growing up.  I now visit with my grandchildren who are 5 and 6.  I was always fascinated by the history and stories that the staff had to tell.  I remember the lady in the Anchor Maker’s house – Bessie, I think – and the wonderful gentleman in the glass engraving shop; they were so interesting.  I still love how everyone brings the museum to life.  It is the best museum I have ever visited.

    One day I was visiting on my own and I got chatting to one of the staff who told me that if I was interested, I could volunteer.

    I began volunteering by taking part in February half term’s Beyond the Petticoat.  It was so much fun and I was totally hooked; I loved being a small part of the event.

    After some wonderful training from the staff, I now volunteer regularly on a Monday across the Toll House, Jerushah, Anchor Maker’s and the Back-to-Back House.

    The first time a group of school children filed in and looked up at me with expectant faces,  I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me.  But, it was a brilliant first-time experience.  They even ended up thanking me!

    For me, the best part of volunteering is the people I ‘ve met who’ve visited the Museum from places like Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Germany, Russia, Hungary, Iran and Venezuela (to mention but a few).  In fact, I am slowly filling in a world map of where visitors come from.

    I just want to thank you for letting me volunteer.  I can’t wait for Mondays to come round for me to step back in time!”

  • Disposal of ash from fires in bins

    Disposal of ash from fires in bins

    Please use the ash bins provided for the disposal of ash, not the paths around the Museum.

    If the ash bin you would normally use is full, please ask the Duty Manager to get it emptied for you.

    In some areas ash is beginning to overflow onto the flower beds which is creating extra work in maintaining the grounds. Any path repairs that are needed will be carried out by the maintenance team when required.

    Your assistance with this is much appreciated.

  • 2019 Opening Times Published

    2019 Opening Times Published

    Opening dates and times have now been set for 2019.

    These are listed below along with a reminder about the rest of this year’s opening dates and times.

    A copy can also be found in the useful information folder within the Documents tab above.

     

    2018 Opening Times – Autumn & Winter

    Dates Times
    Now until Sun 4 Nov Daily, 10am – 5pm
    Mon 5 Nov – Sun 23 Dec Wed-Sun, 10am – 4pm
    Mon 24 Dec Daily, 10am – 4pm
    Tue 25 & Wed 26 Dec Closed
    Thu 27 Dec – Sun 6 Jan 2019 Daily, 10am – 4pm
    Mon 7 Jan – Tue 22 Jan 2019 Closed

     

    2019 Opening Times

    Dates Times
    Wed 23 Jan 2019 – Sun 31 Mar Wed – Sun, 10am – 4pm
    Sat 16 – Sun 24 Feb Daily, 10am – 4pm
    Mon 1 Apr – Sun 3 Nov Daily, 10am – 5pm
    Mon 4 Nov – Sun 22 Dec Wed-Sun, 10am – 4pm
    Mon 23 & Tue 24 Dec Daily, 10am  – 4pm
    Wed 25 Dec & Thu 26 Dec Closed

  • Museum vans booking

    As with the staff pool car we now have a calendar for each of the museums two vans, the small Peugeot and the large Citroen. Both can be used by any member of staff with a current driving licence going off site to collect items on museums business. Bookings will be managed by Ray though the dedicated shared calendars (details on how to do this are listed below).

    You will be responsible for the vehicle whilst it is in your position and we will be introducing a ‘use log’ similar to the one in the pool car in the coming weeks which are to be kept in the vehicles. This information will help us to understand how often the vans are being used, for what purpose and by which department.

    How to open and use the small or large van calendar

    • Open outlook and click the ‘calendar’ tab.
    • On the ‘home’ tab click ‘open calendar’ and then ‘open shared calendar’ from the list.
    • Type ‘Van – Peugeot (small) or Van – Citroen (large)’ and click ‘OK’ (the small or large van calendar should now open and appear on your list of shared calendars).

    How to book the van

    • Open the small or large van calendar and find the day you wish to book (you will see if it is available).
    • Click the time you want to start and pick ‘new meeting’ from the home tab and click ‘new meeting with all’ from the drop down list.
    • Complete the appointment request with your name as the subject. NOTE: make sure ‘Van – Peugeot (small) or Van – Citroen (large)’ is the only entry in the ‘to’ box (otherwise it will send invites to all of the calendars you have open at the time) and then send.
    • The request will appear as Tentative until Ray approves your request.

    Or

    • Open the calendar and find the day you wish to book (you will see if it is available).
    • select the time on your own calendar, right click and select ‘new appointment’
    • Complete the appointment request with your name as the subject, click ‘invite attendees’ from the appointment tab and enter ‘Van – Peugeot (small) or Van – Citroen (large)’ in the ‘to’ box and then send.
    • The request will appear as Tentative until Ray approves your request.

    PLEASE NOTE: both vans are to be returned empty of materials at the agreed return time as someone could have it booked out directly after you.

    Please contact David Pitt with any questions.

  • Staff Winter Events Tickets On Sale 3 Sep

    Tickets for our Winter events go on sale to the general public at 10am on Monday 3 September.

    As usual, from this date 50 staff tickets will be available for each of the Christmas evening events until two weeks before the date of the event (Santa Hunts excluded).

    Staff will receive 50% discount off the price of each evening event ticket.

    Each member of staff may purchase up to 4 tickets (of any combination) per event at the discounted rate and may purchase a maximum of 10 additional tickets at the
    standard rate.

    Please refer to the ‘Staff Tickets for Events Policy’ in the documents tab of the intranet for more information about when and how to purchase staff event tickets.

  • Directors’ Bi-Monthly Report

    Please note, the director’s bi-monthly report is now in the documents section of the intranet.

  • BCLM: Forging Ahead – E. Minett

    We’ll be launching our public call-out for memories of Wednesbury-based E. Minett ladies’ clothes shop and haberdashery next week (commencing 18th June).

    Do you have any personal stories about the place to shop for Wednesbury’s most fashionable ladies in the 1950s? Did you, your family or friends go there to keep up with the latest trends in the 50s? Did you or anyone you know work there? If you do have anything you would like to share to help in our re-creation of the shop, please pop in and see the Collections team in the Rolfe Street offices.

    A bit about E. Minett

    Founded by Edith Dabbs Minett in the 1920s, E. Minett was known as the place to go for the best dressed ladies of Wednesbury.  Edith started the business in the 1920s in the front room of the family home in Pound Road before opening the shop at 83 Walsall Street.

    Minett’s was a family-run business. Edith’s husband, William, managed the shop’s accounts around the time of the birth of their daughter, Brenda. Brenda started working at the shop as a young girl, earning three pence a week by dusting boxes and assisting with other day-to-day tasks. She started working at Minett’s full-time when she left school and took over with her husband, John Greenhough, and ran the business until it ceased trading in 2006.

    Clothes for the shop were bought on mail order from trade catalogues or from trips to wholesalers in Birmingham.  Brenda prided herself on buying garments in advance for particular customers she had in mind and whom she knew would buy the item as soon as they saw what she had chosen for them.

    The shop operated a ‘20 Week Club’ which allowed customers to pay a 10% deposit for items, reserve them and pay the remainder over a twenty-week period.  The increasing use of this type of credit in the 1950s was popular with British customers, as it made expensive items accessible and contributed to the post-war boom.

    Why E. Minett?

    We will be recreating the shop from 83 Walsall Street, which will be set in the late 1950s, to tell  the story of the post-war revolution in female fashion as well as the changing role of women in society and the 50s economic boom when people ‘never had it so good’.

     

  • Update – 1st Person Interpretation & Performance

    As you’ll know from the intranet post in April, we are trialling the use of first person interpretation and performance at the Museum, both as part of our daily offer and of special events.

    Here’s an update on where we are now.

    What is it?

    In the first person the character is telling their story from their perspective within their timeframe, using ‘I/We do’ rather than ‘They did’.

    By ‘performance’, we mean interactions that utilise elements of drama such as movement, imagination, role-playing, improvisation etc.

    Why are we doing this? What are we trying to achieve?

    • Bringing our vision to life:

    Our staff live in the Museum to welcome you into the inspiring stories of real people, their streets and homes, work and daily lives, so you too can see, taste, feel, smell, hear and join in 300 years of Black Country history.

    • Giving our visitors a fully immersive experience and, if they want to, the opportunity to be part of the interpretation, by interacting with our staff and volunteers and sharing their memories and experiences.
    • Providing visitors with the opportunity to step into and experience history, allowing them to learn from it rather than simply learn about it.
    • Evoking an emotional response. Interpretation shouldn’t be simply the repetition of facts, but stories and themes  that relate to our visitors’ experiences.

    When?

    We will be trialling a number of strands of work (see below) throughout Summer 2018, starting during May Half Term. This takes advantage of the peak visitor period and the support available through the Museum’s partnership with Black Country Touring and volunteer, Keith Robinson.

    How?

    There are four strands to this work:

    1. Event performances

    The development of performances for specific events. These will be developed with the support of Black Country Touring and Black Country Players.

    2. Street Performances

    Improvised and scripted performances exploring community conversations, gossip and daily life. These will form part of the daily offer and be developed by costumed staff currently in Street Character roles, supported by Black Country Touring and Keith Robinson.

    3. Character interactions

    First person interactions between Street Characters and other costumed staff and volunteers based on agreed scenarios, weekly themes and natural interactions/greetings.

    4. Visitor Interactions

    Interactions between visitors and costumed characters based in specific buildings or locations. The characters will be in first person.

    Who?

    Staff and volunteers will be invited to attend workshops and training sessions to develop this strand of activity, based on their current role and identified interest and prior experience. Any staff who are interested in getting involved, should let their line manager know. All staff will receive guidance and information about weekly themes and scenarios.

    These trials will require some changes to rotas and the allocation of workstations. Individual line managers will let you know if you are affected.