Behind the scenes

   I thought today I’d give a glimpse into the week of a Museums Education Officer. It’s been a rather varied week!

 Monday

Spend the day at King’s Meadow Primary School in Haddington where I delivered 3 sessions to their P6 classes on the Victorians. We did a Victorian washday, using tin bath and washboard, which was very fun but also very wet! Came back to the office afterwards and went through emails.

Tuesday

Met artist Tom Ewing at Prestongrange to discuss his artwork for the new ’shopping’ interactive at Prestongrange. Children will be able to visit a Victorian Prestonpans High Street and explore things like an ear syringe and a meat grinder! I stopped by Musselburgh Burgh and picked up the Old Toys Loan Box the P1 classes had borrowed. Teacher said it had been very useful and they would request it again next year. Then I rushed over to Dunbar for a meeting with all the museums team.

Wednesday

After a flexi morning off, I spent the afternoon going through applications for our Seasonal Museum Assistant posts - we mark them all along the essential and desirable personal specifications. It’s hard! Treated myself to a wheat-free chocolate biscuit and toffee shortbread biscuit half way through! One of our lovely volunteers, Hazel, had brought in the shortbread for Katherine and I due to our wheat allergies.

Thursday

Attended Excel training with the Council - have lots of ideas about how to improve the various databases I manage now! I keep one on all the events I’ve organised including visitor figures, cost, time, date, etc and now I’ll be able to do lots of calculations and very clever things.

 Friday

Meetings for today were cancelled, so have all day to get organised for the weekend. For our Storytelling event on Saturday for LGBT History Month, I need to buy some tacky Valentine’s decorations and print off posters to direct people around the Brunton. For Sunday, I need to remember to take our various cameras with us and to finalise the guidelines for participants- it’s our photography day for Wikipedia at Prestongrange and John Muir’s Birthplace.

Saturday and Sunday

Events, events, events…

What’s happened to you this week? Hope you’ve had an eventful week too!

I thought it was time to give a quick update on the John Gray Centre. You might have noticed, if you live or work in Haddington, that there is some activity happening outside the planned location on Lodge Street. Archaeological digging started in September - they’ve found nothing exciting as yet. No huge finds of treasure sadly.

Studioarc, the museum designers, are progressing with plans. As an Education Officer, I’m obviously really interested in the interactive side of the museum and it looks like it’s going to be really successful on that side of things. So far we have dressing up, postcard stamping, helping farmer John with his grandparent’s strange objects, unlocking secret boxes and much more!! 

I visited Wallyford P3s recently to ask for their advice on one interactive element called ‘Senses of the Sea’ (you might remember me mentioning it in an earlier blog). Their ideas were priceless, here’s a taster:

Smells of the sea - fish, seaweed, custard(?), seals

Tastes - hotdogs, chips, ice-cream, salt, beers…

Sounds - Children playing, splashes, laughing, speedboats, “icescream van jingle”

Touch - shells, sand, water, starfish, rubbish

I was particularly intrigued by one thing they all kept suggesting - “cheona”. Have you guessed what it is yet?

Of course, tuna.

They were a delightful class and their teacher Miss Reeves had them all enthusiastically talking about science, would you believe? I’ve asked if they will all be our tour guides when we open!

I was intending to come on here to write about how sad it was that the BNP were going to be appearing on BBC’s Question Time within Black History Month, when we’re supposed to be celebrating the postive contributions of Black people to British History as well as uncovering hidden stories within our own local and personal histories. However, after watching the programme last night, I have since changed my views….I now am extremely pleased that Nick Griffin was allowed to go on and air his views which were shown as false, bigoted and at points deeply upsetting that someone in today’s society can still hold (and preach) these views. Here at East Lothian Museums, we’ve been holding a series of events over the past month to celebrate diversity, many of which I’ve detailed in earlier blogs. Watching the programme last night, it made me even more determined that we should continue to hold events such as East Lothian’s Multi-Cultural Day in order to prevent segregation within our local society and to encourage people to see Britain, Scotland and East Lothian as places where a variety of different people can live together, with mutual understanding and respect for each other’s differences.

Multi-Cultural Day included a variety of performances, people and events. The highlight for many were the wonderful Indian Dancers dressed in fabulous costumes - in particular they had a performance using a mixture of Indian and Celtic music which was very clever. Tawona and Ernest, originally from Zimbabwae, performed a variety of poems, stories and music using their hand-crafted instruments. They represented the Seeds of Thought Urban Poetry Group. The noise of the instruments is difficult to describe but it sounded a bit like the chiming of a nursery rhyme in a wind-up toy, but alot faster and more musical. The Grants Braes Burns Club provided a traditional Scottish element to the day, performing some of Burns’ works along the themes of identity and told the well-known story that Burns almost went to the West Indies to become part of the Slave Trade. Coreen Scott was accompanied by Hamish on the Pipes and Scott on the guitar and produced a wonderful sound. We also had local Belly Dancers who performed an Egyptian stick dance. Their movements were amazing! The highlight of the day onstage for children was a French Puppet Show by Tania, who told the story of Lapin, who was very concerned with where his maracas were!

As well as all this we also had stalls by groups such as ELREC and the Dunbar Arts Hub, while local artist Ettie Spencer held a drop-in art workshop for all ages. Sheila Asante offered an object handling session within the Slave Trade exhibition, allowing people to get a close up view of objects such as cotton and tobacco. All in all, a wonderful day, which attracted people from many different cultures, including French, Spanish, Italian, Polish, English, Scottish, Zimbabwean, Ghanian, Brazilian, Indian, and many more. Some of the photographs are on our Flickr site. So many people said to us during the event that they were so glad we were doing an event like this in East Lothian. Draw your own conclusions from that!

But where would all these people who came and celebrated East Lothian’s diversity fit into Nick Griffin’s Britain? Yes, they probably wouldn’t and that’s why we need to continue celebrating the true diversity of our local area. Plans for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History Month in February 2010 are already underway, as are details of how we’re going to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day in January. So, where am I going with this blog? Well, your challenge is to come along and join us at some of these events, or to go and find out something about another culture this weekend, or watch Question Time and then share your views. It’s up to us…

   For those of you who are regular blog readers, you’ll know that Arun Gandhi was coming to East Lothian. I heard him talk on Monday and it was wonderful. He held a session for local school children in the afternoon and then the general public in the evening. He had lots of stories about how his grandfather (Mohandas Gandhi) had influenced his life and told them in such a reserved and calm manner. One story was about when he was a boy he threw away a pencil because he thought it was “too short” and was just going to ask his grandfather for a new one. However, Gandhi made him go back out and look for the pencil in the dark to teach him the lesson that man was over-using the world’s natural resources and that people consume things just because they can, but ultimately this means that others cannot access the same resources. Gandhi said Arun’s act was ”violence against nature”. It was interestingly a similar view to our own John Muir about the importance of protecting the environment, but before such issues had really reached the wider public conscience.

 We also went on a march on Saturday 10th October to commemorate the Suffragettes who campaigned for “Votes for Women!”. We had our own East Lothian banner, created by attendees at a Suffragette Coffee Morning back in September. A group of pupils from Preston Lodge High joined our group and managed to get themselves interviewed and in lots of photos throughout the walk! It ended on Calton Hill where speeches and singing took place. Sheila and I also walked to the very edge of the hill to get a few photos. It was a tad windy as you may be able to see from the photos!

 And as for the bellydancing reference in the title? Multi-Cultural Day at Prestongrange of course. We’ve got a variety of cultures represented including a French Puppet Show, Polish tour of the museum, an Indian Dancer, Zimbabwean Poets and the local Sangstream Choir and Grants Braes Burns Club. There will be a huge marquee outside the Visitor Centre and I’ll be heading there on Saturday to get it all set up and ready to go for first thing on Sunday. We have no idea what our visitor numbers will be for the day…hopefully the 144 chairs will be an alright guestimate!

If you’ve attended an event as part of Black History Month this year, do let us know what you thought!

 And it’s not even a trick title! Arun Manilal Gandhi is the fifth grandson of Mohandas Gandhi. As part of Black History Month 2009, Arun Gandhi is visiting the Brunton on 12th October and delivering a talk on his views on non-violence. It’s bound to be fascinating. Details on how to get your free tickets can be found here.

At Prestongrange, we have a few events for Black History Month too. Sheila has a talk and tour on the Wedderburn Brothers on 8th Oct at 7pm, free tickets are available from the museum. 

On the 18th of October we have ‘Welcome: East Lothian Multi-Cultural Day’ from 12-3pm. It’s going to be amazing - just a few of the highlights are: a French Puppet show, Seeds of Thought Poetry Group, Live Music, Burns Recitals, Indian Dancers, and local artist workshops! We’ll also have stalls on Fairtrade, Edinburgh and Lothians Racial Equality Council, Family History and much more. Full details of all events can be found in the Black History Month programme for East Lothian.

 Apart from all that, we’re also coming to the end of another summer season. Dunbar Town House has remained busy with the exhibition Harvest of the Sea generating a wealth of paper fish! It is planned that the Town House will be closed next season for the refurbishment so make your last visits to the ‘old’ town house now!

A Museum for Musselburgh is coming along - you may have noticed the shop front on the High Street with all the lovely old photographs in the window. It will become a museum next year, run by Musselburgh Museum Committee.

Apart from all that, the other big news is that we’re now on Facebook! Become a fan and share your comments please!

Or share your comments with us on here, we’re awfully pleased to hear from you, whatever you’ve got to say. It’s something to keep us occupied over those long winter months… 

 If you are wondering where to play hide-and-seek, Prestongrange Museum may be a good idea. Prestongrange is the industrial heart of East Lothian in the story of Scotland’s Industrial Revolution. I took part in a workshop about how to make a ‘gas mask’, which was very interesting, and was run by Sarah Cowie on the site this summer. Children also played hide-and-seek on the green grass in the sunshine. It was very impressive to see that kids can play and learn at the same time around the industrial heritage at Prestongrange museum.
Furthermore, Prestongrange Museum has a coal mining heritage. The gold mining museum in Taiwan popped into my mind suddenly when I visited this museum. Well, as the guided tour said, it’s not just a museum, where people can visit, it’s a part of local history from the 18th -19th centuries about the industry revolution. The large steam engine is very impressive. I can imagine how difficult it must have been to move it from the port in the 19th century. I can’t believe that workers could stand the noise it made whilst running.

 It’s a very handling objects themed blog today. Hence the gloves. By that, I mean that I’ve been considering the importance of letting our visitors access our handling collection. 

 Plans for the John Gray Centre are rolling on. For those of you who don’t know, the JGC will be a new museum, library, archives and local history centre in the centre of Haddington.

 At the moment Studioarc, who are designing the museum part, have asked us to come up with more detail about what should actually go in the museum. We’re down to details such as the objects that will go with each display. More bizarrely they’ve asked me to come up with different smells relating to fishing. Any suggestions? It’s part of a multi-sensory display where people will be able to smell and feel what it’s like to be a fisherman. Lovely!!

We had a talk by Bobby Anderson, ELC Countryside Ranger, at Prestongrange Museum on Friday 15th May. The original idea for the event, called Creatures of the Night, was to have a walk outside but of course, that day it was heavy rain and strong winds so all the creatures, including ourselves, were in hiding. Instead he brought lots of stuffed animals and animal props into the Visitor Centre. One visitor got a fright when he produced a live mouse! It was amazing seeing things like a bat up close, and really made me think about the importance of presenting people with objects that they don’t normally get to see. On the other side of this, I was recently at Deep Sea World and got to touch a starfish. Do you know they are hard?! I really wasn’t expecting that! Any suggestions about things you all want to touch in the JGC are therefore most welcome!! Leave your comments as usual.

Finally, some of our wonderful volunteers are assisting with the improvement of our handling collection. Ken is writing up information to go out with our loan boxes so that those borrowing them know a little about the history of the topic. Jenny will be joining us over the summer to help whip our loan boxes back into shape and Catherine is working to develop and extend our costume collection. To quote our Prestongrange Museum Assistant Julie Anne; “Exciting times!”.

That’s it from me for the time-being. Now get out there and touch some museum objects (only those that you’re allowed to, of course).

   On Monday and Tuesday (30th-31st March), I had 6 Italians and 3&1/2 Hungarians visiting Dunbar as part of a EU funded project on collecting family photographs. The 1/2 refers to the son of Viki, one of the main organisers, who kept us all entertained during dull moments!

At the meeting we discussed our different activities taking place around the fotomemoria project. All the partner’s projects have been slightly different, some using Flickr to collect family photographs, some creating their own databases. It’s been a really varied project and it draws to a close in June. If you’re a regular blog reader, you’ll remember I went to Compton Verney last year as part of the same project.

 It was interesting having them in Dunbar and showing them Dunbar Town House, especially the Local History Society room as they said they didn’t have those types of groups in their own countries. They were fascinated by the Brrrr video about Dunbar’s outdoor pool (yes, I said outdoor pool) and couldn’t believe people would actually venture outside in anything less than scarves, gloves and a hat! And it was quite a warm day on Monday too!

They were encouraged by Gordon in the Town House to try the fish-based dishes at dinner on the Monday night, and they certainly did. The Smoked Haddock and Scampi and chips were very popular! On Tuesday before they left, we had fruit scones with jam and cream. They all agreed that Dunbar had been a lovely place to visit and that the scones were one of the highlights!

 Homecoming, pah, try Scone-coming, we’d bring in huge numbers…

 We’re obsessed with all things Scottish at the moment with 2009 being the year of Homecoming. I was at Knox Academy a few weeks ago doing sessions with their S1 pupils as they are creating their own exhibition for Homecoming. The pupils struggled to come up with famous Scottish people they actually wanted to research straight away. Many shook their head at David Tennant and pulled a face when Lorraine Kelly was mentioned! The queen of breakfast tv indeed!

 So the topic opened up to include a more general Scottish theme. What they came up with was interesting insight into how we view ourselves as a nation - Irn Bru, Haggis, Whisky, Tam O’Shanter, Sir Henry Raeburn, Andy Murray, William Wallace, and so the list goes on…I’m going tomorrow night to view the finished versions so I’ll report back (and hopefully add some photos to our Flickr site too).

John Muir’s Birthplace is also going Homecoming crazy this year with their programme of events. Their exhibition on at present is about John Muir’s links with Robert Burns. You should make a little trip along to see it, and if you’re lucky and can shove the children off it, you might get a chance to re-enact Tam O’Shanter on a stage. 

Wow, that’s twice I’ve managed to mention Tam O’Shanter during this post. But no one does Scottish better than the Americans so here’s my favourite version of the poem on YouTube. I like the fact Tam is wearing a baseball cap and that it got them extra credit in English lit.

Other museum news….Sheila’s been off to the Brunton to find all our paintings hanging about there, Ken is now working on a brand new loan box on fishing, the John Gray Centre plans roll on, and we’re about to recruit new seasonal Museum Assistants. Exciting times! If there’s any news in particular you’d like to hear about, let me know!

 Big news from the Museums Service…Kate is now back from maternity leave as our Principal Museums Officer! We are therefore nearly back to full strength now, although we still have a post vacant for our Assistant Museums Officer.

We will also be recruiting for seasonal Museum Assistants soon so we’ll have a whole new selection of faces. And we have a few new eager volunteers (more are always welcome!). I will endeavor to get at least one other person to write a blog. That’s my aim for the next year!

Holocaust Memorial Day

Did you know it’s Holocaust Memorial Day on the 27th of January? The theme for this year is ‘Stand Up to Hatred’. We’ve worked with Knox Academy to put photographs online of the models a Second year History class made to do with the Holocaust.

  P6 and P6/7 at King’s Meadow Primary in Haddington are also hosting an assembly on the day as part of a wider project. The pupils will be working with an artist and writer to create an exhibition which will be shown at Prestongrange Museum later in the year as part of the Slave Trade Exhibition.

February beckons…

February is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History Month. We’ve put together a programme of activities for the month, which you’re more than welcome to come along to. In fact, we’d love it if you came along because as it’s the first year the Council have marked LGBT History Month we’re not sure what kind of turn out we’ll get! You can come along to the concert by Edinburgh Gay Men’s Chorus, or join OurStory Scotland for a fun afternoon of storytelling around a ‘camp’ fire. 

 Anyway, as part of this, I am trying to identify either people or places in East Lothian which have a connection to the LGBT community. Any suggestions? (Just to beat you to it…Rhona Cameron.)