Tag: heritage

Audience Initiative Award 2019

Posted on by Amy Shakespeare

In March, Cornwall Museums Partnership and South West Museum Development hosted the annual Cornwall Heritage Awards to celebrate and champion the amazing work that’s taking place across museums and heritage organisations in Cornwall.

This week we are showcasing the Audience Initiative Award category, which highlights successful projects that reach and attract new audiences for heritage.

Audience Initiative Award – Winner (Larger Organisation)
Royal Cornwall Museum: RCM x Truro Foodbank Pilot Scheme

 

Royal Cornwall Museum, winners of the Audience Initiative Award.

 

Following a conversation with a volunteer, Royal Cornwall Museum approached Truro Foodbank with the suggestion of including free-entry passes with food parcels over the summer holiday period. It was felt that those who might benefit most from the museum’s family-focused activities over the summer holidays were potentially being excluded by the entrance fee. The trial saw 80 passes handed out with a staggering 90% take-up rate, far surpassing expectations and delighting museum staff. The scheme gained local and national press coverage, leading to similar trials popping up across the UK.

 

A photograph of a foodbank and a culture pass from Royal Cornwall Museum

 

Audience Initiative Award – Winner (Smaller Organisation)
St. Cubert Church: Sacred Land, Saints and Sand

 

A photograph of St Cubert Church with their Audience Initiative Award.

 

Aiming to engage with new audiences who may not have visited before, St. Cubert Church ran a series of free workshops exploring some of the skills that feature in the church architecture, including stained glass and stone carving. The art workshops encouraged hands-on interaction with the heritage of the space, a chance to have some quiet time and to learn a new skill. Examples from the workshops also formed the basis of a handling box that was taken out for sessions in memory cafes and care homes, facilitating a church experience for those less able to access the space. The feedback from these sessions found that the participants enjoyed the interaction and generally felt happier afterwards.

 

Photograph of a person carving a pattern out of sandstone.

 

Audience Initiative Award – Highly Commended (Larger Organisations)

 

Cornwall's Regimental Museum and Museum of Cornish Life collecting their certificates.

 

Museum of Cornish Life, Helston: Can We Really Fit It In?

 

Spotting that the story of RNAS Culdrose in Helston was missing from the Museum of Cornish Life, a volunteer who also worked at the naval base, wondered if she could help fill that gap by creating a small display of archive material. After developing the relationship with RNAS Culdrose, the exhibition grew from a small display to a large temporary exhibition which included the tail-end of a Sea Hawk helicopter. The exhibition brought in a new audience to the museum, recognising the importance of the naval base to the history of Helston and Cornwall.

 

Screenshot of a helicopter tailwing being positioned in the Museum of Cornish Life, Helston.

 

Cornwall’s Regimental Museum: Fun Palaces Bodmin

 

In 2018, Cornwall’s Regimental Museum took part in the Fun Palaces campaign for cultural democracy. Fun Palaces are free events for everyone, encouraging everyone to be a scientist and everyone to be an artist. Working with six other organisations across Bodmin, they created a town-wide Fun Palace for a weekend packed full of action. It was the first time that the museum had got involved with activities that encouraged audiences to travel across the town. The pebble hunt was a real success and many visitors were arriving at the museum and asking for their stamp to show how many Fun Palaces across Bodmin they had visited. The Fun Palaces resulted in the largest number of visitors to the museum in a single day ever.

 

A photograph of a child and their grandfather at Fun Palaces in Bodmin.

 

Audience Initiative Award – Highly Commended (Smaller Organisations)

 

A photograph of the smaller organisations collecting their Audience Initiative Award certificates.

 

Fowey Museum: In Search of Tywardreath

 

Inspired by the memory of a local resident with a passion for heritage, Fowey Museum embarked on locating the site of an ancient Priory, situated somewhere in Tywardreath. What started with tea and chat sessions for older people, recording memories and oral histories, rapidly became more inclusive. A broader range of activities shared learning with the community and involved more people in the discovery of their heritage. Working with the Cornwall Archaeology Unit, the museum organised supervised community digs, test pits in private gardens, family open days with identification of finds, and staged exhibitions in community venues. The project reached over 800 people and provided a reason for many people who would normally be facing issues of rural isolation, to come together and make a meaningful contribution within their community.

 

A group of people excavating with Fowey Museum

 

Mevagissey Museum: Secondary School Collaboration

 

When contacted by a local secondary school student asking for support in his community work, Mevagissey Museum jumped at the chance of mentoring the student. The museum attended the school’s careers evening to promote the various roles and volunteering opportunities at the museum. They also showed a film of the Restoration of a Mevagissey Sunday School banner and the Walk With Me app, to highlight the fact that although the artefacts are old, the museum is in the 21st century. The project has helped build a relationship with the local secondary school, with the aim to inspire young people to become interested in heritage.

 

Job Vacancy: Collections Officer – National Trust

Posted on by Amy Shakespeare

Job title: Collections Officer

Based at: Godolphin Count House

Hours: 1 day a week, fixed term post until June 2020.

Salary: £3,986pa

Application deadline: Thursday 6 June 2019

Interview date: Wednesday 19 June 2019

The National Trust has got an exciting opportunity in West Cornwall to join them as a collections officer to help with managing and enhancing their Collections Management System database.

As a successful candidate, you will be working with National Trust property and consultancy colleagues to improve their collections knowledge, tackle any inventory backlog and help deliver their Collections Documentation plans.

This role is 1 day per week, fixed-term post until June 2020, and will be based at Godolphin Count House but with travel across the portfolio.

For more details and to apply please visit the National Trust job website.

Job Vacancy: Marketing and Impact Officer – Cornwall Museums Partnership

Posted on by Amy Shakespeare

Job title: Marketing and Impact Officer

Based at: Krowji, Redruth

Salary: £25,000 per annum + 4% pension and essential travel allowance

Hours: 37.5 hours per week – flexible working

Term: Permanent contract

Reporting to: NPO Programme Manager

Application deadline: Sunday 9 June 2019

We’re on the look-out for a creative and organised self-starter who can help us get our message across. This is an exciting opportunity to develop your marketing career with an innovative Cornish charity with a national reputation.  If you are a team player with great communication skills and an interest in heritage and culture then we’d love to hear from you.

As the Marketing and Impact Officer, your role would be to develop, coordinate and manage marketing campaigns effectively to increase support for museums and increase participation in Cornwall Museums Partnership’s services. To monitor, evaluate and review the effectiveness of the overall marketing strategy, as well as individual marketing campaigns. To ensure that evidence based market research is key to the development of new products and services.

Please take a look at the full job description and application form below.

Please send a completed application form to jenna@cornwallmuseumspartnership.org.uk by Sunday 9 June 2019. Interviews will take place on Thursday 20 June 2019.

Contact Emmie Kell (CEO) or Jenna Marrion (NPO Programme Manager) on 01209 500 750 for more information.

 

Job Vacancy: Director – Royal Institute of Cornwall

Posted on by Amy Shakespeare

Job title: Director, Royal Institute of Cornwall (RIC)

Hours: Full Time, Permanent

Salary: £55,000 (negotiable for an exceptional candidate)

Closing date: 12pm Monday 17th June 2019

Interview date: Wednesday 10th and Thursday 11th July 2019

The Royal Institution of Cornwall, a charity that runs the Royal Cornwall Museum, is seeking to appoint an inspirational leader who possesses exceptional strategic, interpersonal and ambassadorial skills. The RIC is interested in an individual with the ability to reimagine and transform the charity, and who possesses the necessary drive and focus to improve their impact over the next five years.

You will be a creative thinker, financially astute, with a track record of stimulating growth in both audiences and income with a clear aspiration to ensure that local communities and stakeholders continue to regard the RIC as a partner of choice. Crucially, you will be excited about the opportunity to effect significant and lasting change for the charity and their beneficiaries.

An emotionally intelligent leader, you will bring an authentic commitment to the purpose of the organisation and be able to get the most from the volunteers and dedicated staff team. With excellent influencing skills, the successful candidate will need to motivate, encourage and bring energy to the delivery of our goals with a real can-do approach and an aptitude for problem solving.

You must be a credible leader and an accomplished relationship builder, adept at leading the charity externally with key stakeholders and be able to demonstrate how to create an impact in the social, cultural and political environment in which the charity operates.

For an informal discussion about this role please contact Julie Seyler, Vice Chair, on 07969919871.

For further information and application form please contact Ian Wall at ian.wall@royalcornwallmuseum.org.uk or go to https://www.royalcornwallmuseum.org.uk/about-the-museum/jobs-and-vacancies.

 

Innovation Award 2019

Posted on by Amy Shakespeare

In March, Cornwall Museums Partnership and SW Museum Development hosted the annual Cornwall Heritage Awards to celebrate and champion the amazing work that’s taking place across museums in Cornwall.

This week we are looking at the Innovation Award, which highlights projects or initiatives that have made an organisation more resilient.

We would like to thank PH Media for sponsoring this award.

PH Media logo

 

Innovation Award – Winner (Larger Organisation)
Wheal Martyn: Clay Stories

 

A photograph of Wheal Martyn, winners of the Innovation Award.

 

Every two months the staff pick at Wheal Martyn pick a theme to be represented across all aspects of the museum. These ‘Clay Stories’ are shared on social media, installations are shown in the atrium, and a range of themed children’s activities are created. A particularly successful theme was ‘The Kettle Kid’ over the summer in 2018. This theme included an interactive trail, children’s workshops, and a special Kettle Kid café menu. The different themes have proved very popular, gaining coverage from ITV News and BBC Radio Cornwall.

 

 

Innovation Award – Winner (Smaller Organisation)
Old Guildhall Museum and Gaol, Looe: Kids Take Over the Museum

 

Old Guildhall Museum, winners of the Innovation Award.

 

Last year, the Old Guildhall Museum and Gaol in Looe took part in the national Kids in Museums’ Takeover Day. As part of the event, staff from the museum went to Looe Primary Academy to talk to pupils about how the museum is run. After researching their different jobs, the children then took on the roles of stewards, marketing, front of house, artists, managers, education officers, and curators for the day. The event was a big success. The museum volunteers have learned a lot about engaging with different audiences, and many of the children wanted to help at the museum again.

 

School children taking part in the Kids Takeover Day at the Old Guildhall Museum and Gaol, Looe

 

Innovation Award – Highly Commended (Larger Organisations)

 

A photograph of Museum of Cornish Life and Cornwall's Regimental Museum, highly commended for the Innovation Award.

 

Cornwall’s Regimental Museum: Museum Late by the Young Curators

 

The Young Curators are a group of 16 – 18 year-olds who meet weekly at Cornwall’s Regimental Museum. As part of the Kids in Museums’ Takeover Day, they created, planned and delivered a Museum Late. With the theme ‘India: Empire and Influence’ they explored new ways of talking about the controversial subject of British rule in India. Creating an exhibition of previously unseen photographs from the collection, a series of talks examining the objects, and an escape room experience based on the Viceroy’s office.

 

 

Museum of Cornish Life, Helston: Becoming the Museum of Cornish Life

 

Staff, trustees, and volunteers were all involved in rebranding the museum to better reflect who they are, and what visitors will experience at the museum – a glimpse of social history and industrial life on the Lizard Peninsula. They now have a strong visual identity and a clear brand including a new website, leaflet, signage and a new set of photographic images.

Museum of Cornish Life logo

 

Innovation Award – Highly Commended (Smaller Organisations)

 

photograph of The Castle, Bude and Perranzabuloe Museum, highly commended for the Innovation Award

 

The Castle Heritage Centre, Bude: Temporary Exhibition Space for National Loans

 

A ‘Ready to Borrow’ grant enabled the Castle Heritage Centre in Bude to renovate an existing gallery to become a new temporary exhibition area. The renovation included new showcases, improved security, and temperature/humidity monitoring.  The museum is now able to showcase significant objects from major museums, with the aim of getting some of Bude’s important artefacts back to the town. The new temporary exhibition space has also increased the number of local visitors to the heritage centre.

 

 

Perranzabuloe Museum: ‘Memory and Now’ Perranzabuloe Scrapbook Project

 

Working with local artist Felicity Tattersall, Perranzabuloe Museum has built a new relationship with a local art and wellbeing group. Through workshops, they created artwork to go into a new scrapbook inspired by a historic 19th century scrapbook held in their collection. The scrapbook has opened up a different way of looking at history, focusing on the idea that ‘we are the history’. The scrapbook has some empty pages in the hope of further collaborations with other groups in the future.

 

Images from Perranzabuloe Museum's Memory and Now Scrapbook project.

Environmentally Responsible Award 2019

Posted on by Amy Shakespeare

In March, Cornwall Museums Partnership and SW Museum Development hosted the annual Cornwall Heritage Awards to celebrate and champion the amazing work that’s taking place across museums in Cornwall.

This week we are shining a light on a new category for the 2019 awards. The Environmentally Responsible Award highlights projects or initiatives that have made an organization more sustainable or environmentally responsible.

We would like to thank Tevi Cornwall for sponsoring this award.

Environmentally Responsible Award – Winner (Larger Organisation)
National Trust Godolphin: Energy reduction at Godolphin Count House

 

The National Trust facilities team has taken on a series of measures to reduce the energy consumption of Godolphin Count House. The building’s lighting has been switched to LED bulbs and motion sensor light switches installed in the bathrooms. The main achievement in reducing energy consumption was replacing the two oil boilers, which together used over 8000 litres of oil a year, with one biomass pellet boiler, which now supplies hot water and heating to the whole building. This has all contributed to Godolphin House reducing its energy consumption from 54,806 KWh to under 11 KWh per year, saving money and allowing the National Trust to invest more into their conservation work.

 

Environmentally Responsible Award – Winner (Smaller Organisation)
Newquay Heritage Archive and Museum: Plastics in the Ocean

 

A photograph of Newquay Heritage Archive and Museum, winners of the Environmentally Responsible Award.

Newquay Heritage Archive and Museum has worked with various local partners to promote greater awareness of plastic waste in the town, and the danger of plastics in the oceans. The museum’s partnership with Fistral Beach Cleaning Group provided material for the mobile Vintage Beach Rubbish display, which portrays the striking messages about the longevity of plastics and other packaging along the beaches. Items shown in the display include crisp packets that are over 30 years old! The displays have reached over 5000 people, encouraging many people to reduce their own plastic consumption.

 

Environmentally Responsible Award – Highly Commended (Larger Organisations)

 

A photograph of Museum of Cornish LIfe, Helston and Telegraph Museum Porthcurno highly commended in the Environmentally Responsible Award.

 

Telegraph Museum Porthcurno: Planet PK

 

The Telegraph Museum Porthcurno is embedding ‘global citizen’ ideals into the core values of the organization. Under the initiative PlanetPK the museum is working on a number of projects with the National Trust and Cornwall New Energy. To show that everyone within the organisation is committed to improving their environmental responsibility, the museum director is training as a Marine Mammal Medic and their gardener Paddy has offered his expertise in installing and managing several bee hives, which staff members have volunteered to maintain.

 

Museum of Cornish Life, Helston: Evergreen Maintenance

 

Over the summer months and into winter 2018, two dedicated volunteers from the Museum of Cornish Life, Helston carried out visual inspections of the museum’s 50 plus windows. They found that some of the windows were in a bad state and embarked on repairing, sealing, and painting all the doors and windows at the museum. Their work has extended the life of the windows saving them from landfill, as well as improving the look of the museum building.

 

 

Environmentally Responsible Award – Highly Commended (Smaller Organisations)

 

A photograph of staff from The Castle, Bude and The Old Guildhall Museum and Gaol, Looe.

 

Old Guildhall Museum and Gaol, Looe

 

A change in volunteers at the Old Guildhall Museum and Gaol, Looe created the desire for the museum to be more integrated into the Looe community, and take a more environmentally responsible position. The museum decided to write an Environmental Policy to guide their decision making, they have started their long-term commitment by installing LED lighting, increasing recycling, and finding environmentally friendly suppliers. UV film has also been installed in some of the windows reducing the need for heating and allowing some of the older paintings and artefacts to be on show again in the museum.

 

 

The Castle Heritage Centre, Bude: Making Café Limelight More Environmentally Sustainable

 

The Limelight Café at The Castle Heritage Centre has introduced multiple initiatives to support the Greener Bude campaign, to make Bude the greenest town in the UK. The café has eradicated single-use plastics, offers free refills of tap water, a discount if visitors are using their own reusable takeaway cup, and is focusing on finding more local food suppliers to cut down on food miles.

Best Project on a Budget 2019

Posted on by Amy Shakespeare

In March, Cornwall Museums Partnership and South West Museum Development hosted the annual Cornwall Heritage Awards to celebrate and champion the amazing work that is taking place across museums in Cornwall.

This week we are focusing on the Best Project on a Budget, which highlights projects that have been achieved for less than £500.

Best Project on a Budget  – Winner
Saltash Heritage: Volunteers are the Lifeblood of our Museum.

 

Wishing to celebrate the dedication and commitment of their 48 volunteers, Saltash Heritage has sought to enhance their volunteers experiences through setting up training sessions, talks, and an annual awards ceremony. In the light-hearted awards ceremony, the achievements of the volunteers were recognised with bronze stars they could wear on their lanyards, these included awards such as ‘Museum Squatter’ for the volunteer with the most amount of hours and ‘The One to Always Leap Out of His Chair’.

 

 

Best Project on a Budget – Highly Commended

 

 

Lostwithiel Museum: Creating a Corporate Identity.

 

In February 2018, Lostwithiel Museum launched a whole new corporate identity featuring a new logo and corporate look for all communications including print, signage, and digital output. The new look has allowed the museum to strengthen its brand awareness, providing a cohesive appearance for visitors and allowing the museum to raise its profile. With the new signs, visitors on arrival to the town are able to instantly recognise the museum, that the museum is open, and that admission is free. Since the introduction of the branding, visitor numbers have increased by 60%.

Highly Commended – Bodmin Town Museum: Space Creation/Conservation

 

Through converting a small hidden cupboard into a new hanging storage facility Bodmin Town Museum have improved the conservation of their costume collection. As part of the process of creating the new storage space, each costume item was recorded, catalogued and photographed. The project has allowed the team at the museum to learn more about their costume collection, enabling them to display items and create better access to the collection in future.

Emerging Voices Bursary

Posted on by Amy Shakespeare

The Emerging Voices bursary supports museum volunteers or emerging professionals to undertake training, research or placement opportunities that enhance their skills and bring new benefits to their host museum.

We want to support people who are new to museums to take an active role in developing great experiences and sharing their knowledge with the widest possible audiences.

 

Who can apply?

To be eligible you must:

  • Have an existing relationship with your host museum (either as an employee, volunteer or participant in a regular programme of activity e.g. Citizen Curators or Young Curators)
  • Demonstrate the skills/training need, the benefit to both you as the applicant and your host museum and how this will lead to new approaches or ways of working.
  • Have sought approval from your host museum prior to applying

 

What can you apply for?

We will consider all applications on their individual merit and the difference they are likely to make.

Applications can be made for attending training, conferences or events, undertaking a placement or research opportunity where this leads to sharing of knowledge with audiences, activity which supports greater collaboration and skill-sharing between museums in Cornwall and organisations elsewhere.

You can apply to cover the costs of training, research, travel, back-fill of your time (if you are a member of staff), and any modest material costs that enables you to put your learning into practice. Equipment costs will not be covered.

 

What should your application demonstrate?

  • Value for money and need. We want to support activity which will bring real value to both the individual and host museum and that would not otherwise happen.
  • Collaboration. We want to support individuals, museums and other organisations to work together and to learn and share knowledge with one another.
  • Innovation. We want to support activity that will embolden museums to try new or different approaches. (You may not know exactly how you will put your learning into practice prior to applying however you should have demonstrated what you anticipate may happen as a result of your learning opportunity.)
  • Inclusive. We want to support activity that shares learning across the organisation with other staff and volunteers and which benefits, and makes a difference to, audiences.

 

How much can you apply for?

You can apply for between £500 – £2,000.

 

Sharing the learning

Successful applicants will be required to create two blogs (or vlogs), one prior to/during the activity and the second one after the activity has been completed.

 

How to apply

Send your completed application form to chloe@cornwallmuseumspartnership.org.uk by 9am Friday 24th May.

If you have any questions please call Chloe Hughes, Engagement Lead on 01209 500750.

Job Vacancy: Learning and Participation Manager – Cornwall’s Regimental Museum

Posted on by Amy Shakespeare

Job title: Learning and Participation Manager

Salary: £25,000 per annum

Hours: Full-time (40 hours per week)

Application deadline: 12 noon, Friday 24 May 2019

Interview date: Wednesday 12 June at Cornwall’s Regimental Museum, Bodmin

Would you like the opportunity to play a major role in the success of a vibrant independent museum? Do you have the knowledge, vision and project management skills to design and deliver a great programme of learning, community involvement, and events? Are you creative and great at involving and enthusing people of all ages? Can you bring people together to deliver positive results? Would you like excellent career development and networking opportunities to take your career to the next level?

If so, the role of Learning and Participation Manager could be for you. Cornwall’s Regimental Museum is looking for a person with great interpersonal and communication skills, an adaptable self-starter who will bring energy and commitment to the team. You will be solution-focused and flexible, able to develop, manage and deliver different strands of work simultaneously, and committed to diversity and accessibility.

Full details of the role and an application form can be found below.

Please complete the application form and return it to Mary Godwin, Director, Cornwall’s Regimental Museum, email: director@cornwalls-regimentalmuseum.org, by 12 noon on Friday 24 May 2019.

Contact Museum Director Mary Godwin on 01208 72810 for an informal chat if you would like more information.

Family Friendly Award 2019

Posted on by Amy Shakespeare

In March 2019 Cornwall Museums Partnership and South West Museum Development hosted the annual Cornwall Heritage Awards to celebrate and champion the amazing work that’s taking place at museums and heritage organisations in Cornwall.

The Family Friendly Award celebrates projects and activities in museums that create excellent all-round family visits.

Family Friendly Award – Winner
Padstow Museum: Padstow New Museum

 

A photo of Padstow Museum, winners of the Family Friendly Award

Padstow Museum’s move to a new location in the town has greatly increased the accessibility for families visiting the museum. The new museum has level access for pushchairs, a pushchair parking space, and new interactive displays where families can explore digital photographs, learning together to answer questions about the images.

 

Family Friendly Award – Highly Commended

 

 

Lostwithiel Museum: Toddler Trail

 

Lostwithiel Museum’s Toddler Trail is a free activity helping families with young children to engage with the museum’s collection. Families must explore the museum to find the 12 naughty little rubber ducks who have escaped the towns duck race and are now hiding in the museum. There is a quiz sheet for the guardians to fill in for the children as they spot the 11 ducks and one disguised as a red apple. When all ducks are found each child receives a reward sticker.

 

Newquay Heritage Archive & Museum: Children and Adult Cornish Project Cases

 

Newquay Heritage Archive and Museum have created a series of 10 Cornish Project Cases to engage visiting families to learn about various Cornish themes including local minerals, Cornish places, and learning about the Cornish language. Encouraging teamwork, each case has all the necessary books, information, and equipment for two to three people to complete tasks and learn something new about the theme of the case.

Heritage Heroes Award 2019

Posted on by Amy Shakespeare

In March 2019 Cornwall Museums Partnership and South West Museum Development hosted the annual Cornwall Heritage Awards to celebrate and champion the amazing work that’s taking place at museums and heritage organisations in Cornwall.

The Heritage Heroes award celebrates the dedication and achievements of heritage volunteers.

 

 

Heritage Heroes Award –  Joint Winner (Larger Organisations)
Cornwall’s Regimental Museum: Relaxed Opening Team

 

This amazing volunteer team was crucial to the success of Cornwall’s Regimental Museum’s first relaxed opening, designed for people with autism or sensory processing disorders. The insights of the team, who had experience in healthcare, nursing and teaching students with special educational needs, helped transform the museum; from adjusting levels of lighting and sound, to creating the sensory space and offering craft activities for children and young people of differing abilities. The team’s warm welcome and hands-on support meant they received lots of positive feedback. Their relaxed openings are now a regular feature at the museum.

 

 

Heritage Heroes Award –  Joint Winner (Larger Organisations)
Museum of Cornish Life, Helston: Helston Makes It!

 

Led by Jude Carroll, this group of five proactive, hardworking and truly collaborative volunteers developed and ran Helston Makes It! a two-week celebration of the town and the museum, experienced by over 1200 people. Building on the success of last year’s festival, the team took the sessions into schools, working with a local school to produce an animated film. Over the two weeks of the festival the team created an exhibition, a programme of 17 workshops, a screening of the local school’s animated film, and an end celebration event showcasing the skills of over 30 local makers.

 

 

Heritage Heroes Award – Winner (Smaller Organisations)
Lawrence House Museum, Launceston: Launceston U3A Local History Group.

 

 

The Launceston U3A Local History Group have been working for several years surveying and photographing the buildings within the old walled town and researching their history. Their work resulted in the popular ‘Launceston Buildings: Vernacular Buildings within the Old Town Walls of Launceston’ exhibition. Over a period of nearly 20 years, the History Group has also produced a series of other local history monographs, which provide a permanent record of the research by the history group and other volunteers. A copy of each monograph is sent to the Cornish Studies Library.

 

 

Heritage Heroes Award  – Highly Commended (Larger Organisations)
Telegraph Museum Porthcurno: Engineer Volunteer Team

 

 

The dedicated Engineer Volunteer team at Telegraph Museum Porthcurno give approximately 2,500 hours time to the museum every year. Their knowledge is essential to servicing and repairing the delicate and specialist equipment that is central to the museum’s Designated Collection and visitor experience. This includes the fully working Automatic Regeneration (Regen) system situated in the tunnels that forms the only authentic, working telegraph station remaining in the UK. This year the volunteers have been given a dedicated space in the museum to create the exhibition, ‘I Spy: The Secret Listeners’, which runs April – November 2019.

 

 

Heritage Heroes Award – Highly Commended (Smaller Organisations)

 

 

Padstow Museum: A New Museum for Padstow

 

When a member of the community left a generous bequest to the museum, the volunteer-led Padstow Museum focused their efforts and organised themselves into task force teams to move the museum to a new permanent location at the Old Station House. Determined to address the issues faced in their old building, the team set out to make the new museum family friendly and welcoming. This included having level access for pushchairs and wheelchairs and a hearing loop for visitors and new volunteers. Their hard work paid off as in the first five weeks, the museum received over 2,800 visitors – well above their usual number for that time of year and a great deal of positive feedback. They have also gained over £1,000 in donations – more than their previous annual intake.

 

 

Newquay Heritage Archive & Museum: Newquay Old Cornwall Presentation Team

 

The presentation team at Newquay Heritage Archive & Museum carry out the vital work of sharing the local heritage and publicising the museum. The team carry out large numbers of visual presentations throughout the year to schools, colleges, social groups and other organisations. These can cover geographically the whole of Cornwall and include not just Newquay-related historical and cultural topics, but also a wide range of Cornish subjects. Over the last year, the team carried out displays and exhibitions at ten local festivals and events interacting with over 2500 individuals, eight school and college activities with about 250 young people, 24 visual presentations, guided walks and site tours involving 850+ people. The friends and connections the presentation team make ensures the future of the museum.

 

Spotlight on: Imogen Crarer, Assistant Curator Intern at Museum of Cornish Life, Helston

Posted on by Amy Shakespeare

In this blog we catch up with Imogen Crarer, Assistant Curator Intern at Museum of Cornish Life, Helston.

Imogen’s six-month long internship is funded by Arts Council England through Cultivator and Cornwall Museums Partnership, and is one of five new internships supported by Cornwall Museums Partnership’s NPO programme. These opportunities aim to give hands-on, practical experience and create new pathways into the heritage sector.

Imogen moving a 1920s Flapper Dress ready for an exhibition.

Imogen says, ‘My role as Assistant Curator Intern is wonderfully varied. It is giving me skills and experience in collections management, exhibitions, community engagement and meeting the daily needs of a busy museum. I have enjoyed working with the supportive staff and volunteers at MCL, and interacting with our visitors has made my experience very fulfilling. Overall, the internship is valuable in building on knowledge gained from my MA in Modern History from King’s College, London, improving my future employability in the heritage sector through specific training and more generally by providing me with transferable skills.’

Hunting out objects in one of the museum’s store rooms.

Throughout her internship Imogen has regularly featured in livestreams on Museum of Cornish Life, Helston’s social media, telling the stories behind the museum’s collections. You can find these livestreams on Youtube or by following Museum of Cornish Life on Facebook.

Cornwall Museums Partnership’s NPO programme has supported the creation of 20 jobs, five paid internships and five apprenticeships. To find out more about CMP’s NPO programme click here.