Well as ever it’s been a busy couple of weeks. I met with the interactive designers, Fuzzy Duck, to discuss the creation of a new touchscreen interactive on the museum landing based on Bessie Downes’ beautiful watercolours of the local flora and fauna. We discussed some really good ideas so it’s going to be really exciting seeing it all come together and I think it will add a really interesting element to the museum floor and hopefully encourage people to go out and look at what nature is all around them.

Sticking with the natural history theme, I spent a really enjoyable two days in Manchester at the World Symposium on Climate Change Communication conference organised by Henry McGhie from Manchester Museum and Professor Walter Leal, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (Germany) and Manchester Metropolitan University. I must admit some of the lectures went a little over my head as they were a bit too technical for me and were aimed at scientists but the sessions focusing on museums and practical case studies were fascinating and gave me lots of ideas for things we could do when we redevelop our museum landing. The key message that kept coming out was that it’s important to empower people to make changes rather than show them all the doom and gloom as this doesn’t encourage action. It was a really fascinating and thought provoking two days and I must say a big thank you to Henry McGhie for arranging for me to attend the conference.

This week I worked with our fantastic volunteers to clean the sculptures on the museum landing and we packed away the beautiful ceramics that were in one of the alcoves ready for the space to be painted as part of the redevelopment project. We also cleaned the naturalist study in the museum galleries and went over all the frames to make sure they were dust free. I really enjoy working with our volunteers and I love the enthusiasm they have for just getting stuck in and doing a good job that I wouldn’t have time to do on my own.

I’m going to finish with one of Bessie’s beautiful watercolours, which I have used in a blog post before but as they’re so good I’m going to share another one so enjoy!

Nicola Euston, Museum Manager

Posted on 3 March 2017 under Exhibitions, Museum