Cutty Sark Theatre

I finally got to do some proper visitor facing work over the last few weeks helping out at the Theatre on Cutty Sark. A broad range of acts has performed over the last few weeks including Robin Knox Johnson (I held his coat), Folk musicians, Richard Herring, Alan Davies and Ross Noble. I have worked on two of the nights and even got promoted to having a radio with an earpiece and having to learn the emergency evacuation procedure! Joking aside it was really great to work with the public again, I have missed it having spent much of my time in offices around the site.
I also got chance to talk to the VE team at Cutty Sark about my job and how things work at the Needles, which they found interesting. They were mortified at only getting 30 minutes for lunch and not having a mess room - they don't know they're born!

Binnacles as far as the eye can see!

I spent last week with estates and got to see some brilliant things, drains, gutters, a lawn that might have had Henry VIII's boatyard on it! I also got to see a couple of the other outstations and meet some of the very talented curatorial staff.
One of the storage rooms is packed to the ceiling with binnacles, and most of the compasses still point north - the man in the stores seemed surprised! There were also a number of Nelson's swords and the table of Longitude!
Obviously I can't tell you where it is and exactly what it contains but I did manage to get a sneaky picture. Warning - this maybe the most boring picture you ever see, I was under pressure!

But I promise it was way more exciting in real life!
I also met a man who can identify ships purely from their silhouette which is pretty impressive and useful as his job is identifying and cataloguing slides of ships!

Up on the roof!

Over the last 6 weeks I have been involved in a project looking at new exhibitions at the Royal Observatory which has been a very interesting experience. I get to play the first time tourist and slag off their current exhibitions! It's like my kind of heaven! However, last week it stepped up a gear as we were looking at change to the visitor route which somehow ended up with the team on the roof of the Royal Observatory!

It's a shame the weather wasn't better but the view was still pretty impressive!

#Museumselfie

So combining my love of social media and museums museum selfie day was right up my street and the fact that the Astronomers at the ROG were all on board too made it lots of fun!
You basically took a selfie in a museum and tweeted about it with the hashtag and people from all over the world got involved.

Here are the highlights from my #musuemselfie day http://storify.com/custard1980/museumselfie

I'm sure it won't mean much to many of you but seeing thousands of people across the globe taking pictures of themselves in museums was thrilling. With over 20,000 #musuemselfie tweets over the day is just brilliant.

Jupiter and it's moons!

I am working at the Royal Observatory Greenwich (ROG) this week with the astronomers. I'm not going to lie, I was a bit daunted as most people there have at least a doctorate, and I was asked how my physics was. To which I replied about C Grade in 1996! However, I have been welcomed warmly, I have seen some of the schools sessions learning about day and night and stars with year 1, about the earth the sun and the moon with year 4 and been on a space safari with a teddy bear called Ted!
I saw a planetarium show lead by one of the astronomers this afternoon, where I learned loads about the night sky and I was lucky enough to follow it up with a visit to the ROG's 28" telescope in the beautiful dome.
I was able to sneak in while the astronomers set up for an astrophotography evening, I got the chance to see Jupiter and some of it's moons and Capella bright in the night sky through the huge telescope, and later through a smaller one. It was an amazing if not rather chilly experience that I was very lucky to have a chance to do. And I got chance to do it before it clouded over!

Bit of Culture!

I thought I'd better make the most of being in London town and spend sometime doing Cultural stuff and getting new ideas and things, after all there is only a few weeks left until I have to plan these things around ferries and trains and getting hotels and things. Using my time wisely!
My staff pass get me into exhibitions at National Museums for free so I have been to see all the current exhibits at the V & A (one of my favourite museums). They have such excellent exhibit there and the building is amazing. The Club to Catwalk exhibit was brilliant, seeing some iconic 1980's fashion was brilliant, the Pearls exhibit was beautiful and the Chinese Art was not really to my taste but it was good to see! I even found time to sample the tearoom - these are most important parts of any museum!
I also took a trip to the theatre to see Jeeves and Wooster - I managed to get a very good value ticket (I'm on a budget you know!) and although the seat was rather uncomfortable, the view was good and the show was excellent!

I have a plans to get out and about a bit more over my last few weeks, so I'll keep you posted ;-)

Play Tuesdays, Pirate school, the Drunken sailor and Sir Francis Drake

I spent the week with the learning team, much bigger than I expected and it covers a wide range of sessions from school visits and family learning to Play Tuesdays - weekly sessions for the under fives learning through play with themes around the National Maritime Museum.
I was invited to join the Play Tuesday's Art session, a 50 minutes session that is repeated 4 times over the day. It is attended by a wide range of people from Nannies with their charges, Mum's, Aunties and Grannies, all willing to get stuck in.
The sessions are designed so that a wide age range can join in but it is essential that you get a bit messy and there were more than a few painty hands and pen covered faces by the end.
We drew creatures from under the sea, painted sea monsters with loads of scary eyes and views from a porthole. We also looked at what sinks and what floats and read stories about fish with beautiful scales!

As you know I am never one to shy away from an art project so here is my view from a porthole!

I also joined Pirate School with a Year 2 class, a female pirate no less told us all about becoming a Pirate. This included having a pirate name (mine was Sleepy Joe), repeating the pirate promise which mainly consisted of stealing treasure and not washing! We learned about pirates weapons, pirate ships, pirate flags and sharing treasure fairly. We learned that the food was rubbish, there was a big chance you would get caught and life was hard as a pirate!

I also joined one of the costumed interpreters from the Queen's House who played the part of a Tudor seafarer, who talked the children through a voyage on the Golden Hind to collect treasures for the queen and a more traditional schools session on the Cutty Sark where we pretended to be a cabin boy on board on a voyage to Australia to buy wool.

It is such a broad choice of sessions covering large topics and it's only the start the Royal Observatory covers a whole other part of the curriculum and the sessions are fun and very engaging, Many of the local London schools visit, although getting 28 7 year olds on the Tube is not for the faint hearted!

Six (or less) degrees of seperation

Back on placement today after a couple of weeks holiday. I have been placed in design this week who are the team who are responsible for the design of the exhibitions in the museum. They have a slightly bigger budget than us, but seeing how they approach the subject has been really interesting. Very similar in many ways but on a much larger scale. They have also been showing me the tendering program for building the new exhibits, which has been fascinating.
However, that is not what I am writing about. The next exhibit they are currently researching content for is about the 500th anniversary of Trinity House, they have asked me to put some interesting stories together about the Needles Lighthouse, which may form part of the exhibition. They were very chuffed to have an expert on hand and without paying the consultants fees! This however means I have had to trawl through my brain for information I had filed under 'Not currently required'.

The turning of the year

I hope you have all had a happy and peaceful Christmas. Thanks for all the Christmas cards, so nice to think that many of you are thinking of me. 

We had a busy Christmas back with family and friends in Bolton. I managed to get a horrendous cold which struck as soon as I sat on the train from Waterloo back to the Island for my Christmas break. However, I managed to enjoy myself and was well looked after by my mum!

We have done nothing but party and catch up for the week or so and have decided to have a quiet New Year at home in front of the TV with a glass of cider.

New Year tends to lead to reflection and 2013 has been an interesting year which has culminated with me taking this sabbatical which has opened my eyes to so many opportunities and ideas for 2014, which I look forward to experiencing. Thanks to you all for supporting me through the tough times this year and believing in me when I didn't believe in myself.

To you all a Healthy and Happy New Year - all the best. And I'll see you all soon.

Oh and for anyone wondering - I did finish the top 100 books in mid December a few weeks earlier than my goal so you can give me your best recommendations for books to read now!

Also please feel free to comment on this blog or drop me an email - it would be lovely to hear from you

Elf and safety

Well who would have thought that spending the day in Health and Safety would have opened so many doors!
Today I have met everyone from the Porter-messengers, the chaps who keep the place running, they do everything from delivering the post to making sure we have enough loo roll! Right through to the Deputy Director of the Museum and the Directors PA and pretty much everyone in between. I got to chat to some very knowledgeable volunteers about the history of the site and some of the contractors carrying out five year checks on the wiring.
The lady who I have been shadowing today has known the name of everyone we have chatted with today, which is no mean feat and I have shaken a lot of hands. Overall it has been positive and people have been very enthusiastic about my sabbatical, many wanted to know more, so I have told my story a few times today. They think it's good for the museum as well as being a great opportunity for me and want to know if there will be any more after me. I have also had a few requests for a sabbatical on the Isle of Wight in return. The head of Security is particularly keen on doing Davey's job at the harbour for a little while - preferably when the sun shines!
I have been through many a locked door, seen a tunnel to rival ours and the inside of a lot of plant rooms, this is the wonder of Health and Safety it gets everywhere and affects everyone!
So perhaps Health and Safety is not so bad after all...

No escape!

As David will agree, one of our least favourite tasks is interviewing. I hoped I had escaped this chore for a year as I am away when most of the interviews will be taking place, alas not! I am working in HR this week and my first task on Monday morning was to sit in on interviews! However, it turns out they are a lot less stressful when the decision isn't down to you! It was a good chance to see how other people approach the task and how we actually all think very similarly when faced with an interview situation!

Another of our least enjoyed tasks are workplace inspections which I am carrying out today. This is basically a review of health and safety in the workplace. It seems that when it is not your workplace then the task is a lot more fun especially when it entails going into the basement of dark and dusty places and getting to audit the conservators offices. There is a lot of very cool stuff going on there from paper conservation, pictures being cleaned, metalwork being repaired and textiles being darned, there is also a good amount of health and safety risks to be monitored as you can imagine! I am hoping to go back to conservation for a bit longer at some point during my sabbatical so I can tell you more then I hope.

The sad thing is - no photos allowed!

Meet ups and Tweet ups

I am feeling guilty, I promised myself I would be regularly updating this blog and it would be all full of pictures and adventures but it turns out that when you are busy having adventures there isn't as much time as you would expect for updating blogs and such like!

The last couple of weeks have been busy, late nights at work, meeting old friends and new. Last night I went to the #drinkingaboutmuseums tweet up in Covent Garden, run by the same lady who did Museomix. It was a chance to meet up with some other people in the Museums, publishing and animation business. Lots of really interesting people including staff from the Science Museum, HLF and the man behind the popular CBeebies show Sarah and Duck ( I know a new on on me too!)

However, this is my favourite new festive friend - he has different head gear everyday but here he is in his finest Santa hat!

I will try and catch up with my back log of posts over the next week or so while I am at home for Christmas so they might not be in chronological order but you will get the stories!

Cutty Sark transformed

I was lucky enough to be asked to shadow a top corporate event at Cutty Sark last night, for a large oil company who were using the dry berth for a Christmas drink reception.
The Cutty Sark bookings are taken by the Events team who I am working with at the moment, the venue is hired from the museum and then they have to bring in caterers, floral displays, lighting, sound and the whole shabang! The museum works with accredited suppliers for all these areas to satisfy the conservators and the insurers. This kind of thing as I am sure you can imagine does not come cheap! Many of the clients are from big city firms, an event in such a lovely setting is a big sell for them.
There are all kinds of rules and regulations for the events including that you can't serve staining foods like beetroot or red wine which may damage the ship. This area of the administration was very interesting and the fact that the top catering firms get round these regulations for the client by making things like beetroot jelly, which is permitted is very interesting too. I guess that's what you pay for.
I also had a chance to chat to the 'Event Hosts' members of staff who just man the events for the museums, many of whom use this part time work to get some extra cash or use it as a leg up into the events and museums industries.

This takes me back...

I spent a couple of summer holidays working at the family printing business - a printers. I was put in the binding room where all the print for books, binding and folding was converted from printed sheets to the finished product. I was very happy walking around a table collating sheets of tickets or making folded sheets into books. My job on Monday was stuffing 400 envelopes with tickets for the Turner and the Sea exhibit for the Goodie Bags for the awards Ceremony on Wednesday night. It was lovely to switch my brain off for a while and stuff the envelopes!

A peep behind the scenes

On Tuesday I was invited to join the December induction for new members of staff on an outreach visit. The museum has a number of offsite storage areas for the pieces that aren't required for display, require conservation, are too delicate to be displayed, or are part of the archive.
I visited a huge store full of pictures the RMG has the second largest collection of portraits after the National Portrait Gallery, many of them are of random admirals and seafarers admittedly but it is an impressive collections. There are over 4000 pictures in the collection, some are on display at the museum, others are on loan at institutions across the world and the rest are hung on huge sliding doors in racks over 2 floors.
The site also houses much of the museums textiles collection which includes table cloths from cruise ships to shoes worn by a survivor of the Titanic disaster. We were also shown 3 of Nelson's jackets that they have stored in the racks. All textiles are frozen (to kill any insect life) catalogued, photographed and the carefully packed away.
Finally we were taken upstairs to see the globe collection which is the largest in the world from tiny ones to huge ones, all hidden in the dark to protect their delicate designs. Upstairs also houses the flag collection, many neatly rolled on racks, and their collection of pottery and glassware much of which has a link the Nelson.

Sadly due to the nature of the site, I couldn't take any pictures so you'll have to use your imagination, but the uniform Nelson was wearing when he was killed on board the Victory is on show at the Maritime museum at the moment, complete with the critical bullet hole - very cool!

Squirrels, makes a change from pigeons!

I was watching over a film shoot at the Royal Observatory yesterday which was a great opportunity to see how the Royal Museums sites are used for TV shows all over the world. While I was hanging around in the cold in the early morning, I assisted a security guard in the removal of an exceedingly tame squirrel from an exhibition room! The squirrel climbed into his hands and he carried it outside! The public feed them nuts while walking through the park, apparently they regularly make their way into the exhibition rooms across the site. Makes a change from pigeons anyway, or badgers in bins!

Week One

So this week I learned some stuff, I was helpful to the people I was working with, I have written about it and I settled in ok! So I think I have fulfilled all the criteria I needed to!

Marketing was an eye opening experience for me, I have never done any structured marketing in fact I think I have only ever dipped a toe in marketings direction. The fact that so much planning and research go into marketing such a big enterprise as RMG was fascinating to me and it was something I got really interested in. It was also something that I could be helpful in albeit spending much of the week on google, recording stats and information to put into a presentation.

I was lucky to have a days holiday on Friday so I eased myself into the first week gently. I survived the commute home in the rush hour and I got a few days to catch up on sleep and catch up with friends and do some preparations for Christmas so I am now back in my digs on Sunday evening recharged and ready to face the week ahead. This week it's commerce so that is a big umbrella to be under, and some parts of it should be vaguely familiar so stay tuned for what's to come...

Desk Buddy!

I am currently holed up on someone else's desk in the marketing dept. As you know I am not one for a boring desk and although I miss my laughing nose and my jumping monkey I found this guy to keep me company!

First day is done, it's all downhill from here!

I dragged an enormous suitcase on numerous mode of public transport up to Greenwich on Sunday and found my digs first time (thanks google maps!) where I was made to feel very welcome and settled into my lovely little room with Monkey for company of course!

There began a long a fretful night of tossing and turning - why on earth was I putting myself through this? What a silly idea! Is it too late to go home and go back to work and normality? Well you'll be pleased to know I eventually got a little sleep and after a hearty breakfast I made my way to my new workplace.

After the standard paperwork completion I was introduced to my first placement in the Marketing department, which is a whole new area for me but it includes the people who do the social media for RMG so I at least knew a bit about that.

I am mainly using my research skills in the role - they are hardly going to let me loose with their marketing campaigns but that has been very interesting looking at the background that goes into producing the massive marketing that goes into RMG.

I am also enjoying the pleasure of a lunch break in a place where you can go somewhere and as the weather has been so nice I have been finding my way round my new environs. 

Yesterday I had a sneaky peak around the Cutty Sark while the rest of my team were in a big important meeting so that was pretty cool and I'm off up to the Royal Observatory shortly to do some Longitudinal research! 

Hopefully my Landlady will be able to find the password for her WiFi shortly and then I can include some pictures in my blog!

A week to go...

So here I am, 3 days left at the Old Battery to go, a pile of stuff in the spareroom ready to put in a bag. This time next week I will be a part-time resident in London and a full time volunteer at The Royal Museums Greenwich for my sabbatical.
I currently don't actually think it is real! I am sure that as soon as I do a few days work and get in the swing of things it will all be real enough! I am terrified and excited in equal measures. I am still quite unsure of exactly what I will be doing and where. I haven't had time to visit Greenwich (outside of the museums) so I don't actually know where I am living or what my surroundings will be like. I'm hoping I won't be too tired or overwhelmed with it all that I can get a chance to find my bearings in that first week.
I have had chance to chat to a few people over the last few months since the position was finalised who have lived in or near to Greenwich and they all assure me it's a lovely place with a nice community. I have found a couple of gyms close by so I can keep up my training - thanks Google. I think I have sussed out the transport links (apart from the buses) so I can at least find my way there and home again!