Behind the scenes

Thump, thump, thump. Hmm, what’s the noise coming from this box, I asked Bobby the Ranger. Oh that’s a few live mice I caught earlier to show people tonight. Eeek. We have (unfortunately) had mice at our museum before, but never carried through the front door in a plush box! For Museums at Night this year, Bobby Anderson, our local Countryside Ranger, took visitors on a night-time walk around the grounds of Prestongrange.

 Before we set off, Bobby had great photographs, skeletons and stuffed versions of animals so people could get up close to animals like the fox, badger and bat. Outdoors, we set up some moth traps and began to use a grey box with a black dial on it: “That beeps and tells you when there is a bat close by”, our youngest participant, aged 5, was able to tell us! Our group of explorers then set off with their torches around the site as Bobby showed us how to find different wildlife and creatures in the dark. I managed to see three moths and two bats. Although that doesn’t sound like much, people were caught up in the whole experience and gave really positive feedback. Many said that now they knew how to spot nocturnal animals, they would start looking in their own neighbourhoods. 

 My favourite facts I learned? Badgers eat peanuts; bats have the same route they travel round so if you see one, stand in the same place it should come back again within about 5 minutes and finally; adults get just as excited as children about seeing live mice in a museum.

This post also features on the official Museums at Night Blog!

 In the words of Andrew Stone from Pineapple Dance Studios: “It takes 10 years to be an overnight success, and I’ve been at it for 15…” As the summer season kicks in at Prestongrange again and our events programme starts, my marketing skills have to be dusted down and set to work! I might add at this point that I don’t have a background in marketing so if anyone out there has suggestions or tips, please do get in touch…

As with many museums, we don’t have a huge (or even small) publicity budget so I work away at different channels trying to get the word out in different ways. For our recent part-funded Show Scotland event, the Art of Production, we had 1500 leaflets and 150 posters around the local area, we had an advert in the Evening Times and articles in both local newspapers. I also went on East Coast FM, East Lothian’s local radio station. It was good fun, but I’ll never make it as a DJ, I kept forgetting the names of the songs I’d just requested! Julie Anne at Prestongrange also slaves away in front of the computer screen putting our events on as many websites as possible, many with great names…Remote Goat, anyone? We also try to keep our own websites up to date with details of our upcoming events to try and tempt people along.

We also put up stunning handmade banners and signs on the roadside, ala this photograph. I’m also building up our email list at Prestongrange so we can email people directly to remind them about our upcoming events. It’s difficult though because people who come to our events always, always say “Oh you didn’t advertise this very well, I only found out about it through ____”. What should we do? Answers on a postcard please…

Getting in with the BBC is one way to ensure you get publicity. I was on the Fred MacAuley show on Friday talking about our Relic:Guardians of the Museum event. If you’ve got a chance to get involved with the BBC’s A History of the World and do your own Relic trail, then do so! It is basically a trail sheet, using about 5 objects around the museum, but with different challenges at each object. You upload the objects to the BBC site and hey presto, your own TV-themed family challenge.  The kids who came to our event on Friday were so excited that this had been set by Agatha, the dead tour guide they’d seen on TV- I’ve never seen scenes like it with mums falling over in a bid to finish the trail sheet first!!

One way to ensure you get famous is to volunteer yourself for TV. There was a great programme on BBC 4 last week called ‘Behind the Scenes at the Museum’ (have they looked at our blog do you think??). Everyone I’ve spoken to who saw it said they could recognise alot of themselves and their own museum in the programme. Do have a watch, even if just for banter in the cafe!

  Calling all photographers (good or otherwise), social networking followers, or anyone who has ever used Wikipedia to look up some obscure topic….That’s nearly everyone then. Well, we are very excited as Prestongrange Museum and John Muir’s Birthplace are taking part in a special Wikipedia initiative being held in February 2010.

 What’s it all about, I hear you cry! Get out of those wellies, knock the snow out of your ears and I’ll tell you more…

Wikipedia are holding a photography competition called ‘Britain Loves Wikipedia’. The focus of it is that people will be encouraged (through prizes) to take photographs of their local museums and their collections and post them onto Wikipedia, hence generating much more interest and information surrounding museums in general. So we decided to run an event to coincide with this.

It’s called ‘East Lothian Photographers LOVE Wikipedia’ and its on Sunday 14th February at Prestongrange Museum and John Muir’s Birthplace.  We’re also offering free tea/coffee/tours at both venues from 1-4pm! It sounds like it could be really successful and a good, fun event to get new people into and using our venues. I just hope we get enough people who are interested…Please do help us by passing the details onto anyone you know who might be interested. Can you beat our rather stunning photography attempts? (This was taken by the passenger, I promise)

More details on our event: www.eastlothianmuseums.org/content/pages/events-and-activ…

And on the wikipedia competition which you might be interested in anyway:
uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Initiatives/Britain_Loves_Wikipedia

 And lastly, what did I last use Wikipedia to look up? The Glasgow Police Museum which I visited over the holidays. A very friendly reception so do pop in if you’re passing.

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.

  Prestongrange Museum has become quite the fashionista hot spot over the summer. We’ve had two high profile photo shoots – one for the Museums Journal and one for C & A. Let me explain…

 Joanne Orr, CEO of Museums Galleries Scotland, contacted us to say that she was being featured in the August 2009 edition of the Museums Journal. The Journal is the ‘must-read’ for all those involved in museums in the UK. It comes out each month and contains the latest news, reviews and debates on general museum issues. I love the reviews of new museums or exhibitions - sometimes they are rather ruthless, ala Simon Cowell. Anyway, due to Joanne’s love of industrial heritage, she asked if her photoshoot could take place at Prestongrange. Of course, we said yes. And then spent the next few weeks getting the place looking all shiny (Julie Anne and Philip have to take credit here for their endless to do lists, which were all completed!). The photographs can be seen in this month’s edition of the Museums Journal. Prestongrange looks wonderful – although unfortunately it doesn’t mention anywhere in the magazine which museum it was!

The other photoshoot had quite a different focus – lots of German models and make-up artists! C & A, yes they’re still going on the continent apparently, asked to use Prestongrange as the background for their latest collection. They turned up about 6am one morning and started shooting literally thousands of photographs. It was for their new men’s collection, perhaps for Spring/Summer 2010. We’ve asked to be sent a copy of the final catalogue.

Why not come and visit picturesque Prestongrange and get your photo taken? All the cool people have done…