The self-isolating, social distancing, working at home Tuesday diary entry - live from the video room
Posts
Social Media - the Home of the Hashtag After checking all is well with the team this morning, our video conferencing call turned to the subject of social media, planning content for the next few weeks. The creative bunch came up with a variety of great ideas but, inevitably, the dreaded 'hashtag' reared its head. Yes, a tweet is not a tweet without a hashtag or two, three, four. Making sure everyone in the universe knows what we are doing and making it relevant. The dilemma is what is relevant. Today is #MysteryMonday, a 'g uess the object' post by one team member with the answer unveiled in the evening (today it's a PIAT - hope I haven't spoilt the fun!). This will be followed by #WorkshopWednesday and #PhotoFriday. Oooo, we do all like a bit of alliteration. So I am blogging this evening to co-incide with another hashtag activity - #MuseumHour -when us heritage types, with no life, congregate on our laptops posting messages and support for the cult...
Working with Veterans Today was to be the first meeting of the Carlisle's Veterans Hub hosted by the Museum but due to the current situation this had to be postponed. Inspired by the success of the Workington Veterans Hub, discussions with local veterans to establish something similar in Carlisle had led to plans to have an initial meeting in the Museum. The Museum has a strong connection with the veterans' community. We have hosted their events and talks, lunches and even opened our doors at the annual May Regimental weekend. As a military Museum, it is important for us to engage with those that have served with the Regiment whose collections we house. It is their stories that bring the Museum to life, their objects that we look after and their history that the Museum tells. The Museum is about people...and the veterans and the serving soldiers are those people. Over the past few years we have expanded our connection with local veterans from outside the Reg...
The Lock Down Diary I have made it to the weekend. Well, at least I think it is the weekend. Working from home and not venturing past my garden gate makes each day feel very much like the last and I seem to be losing track of time. Which is not going to be helped much this evening when the clocks go forward. Despite the loss of an hour's sleep, the lure of lighter nights and the onset of spring/summer always makes up for it. However, it all feels very different this year with everyone confined to their own homes. The days seem to lack the work routine even though I am attempting to keep to some sort of system so that I know what is happening. I vowed not to wear pyjamas for video conferencing calls, to limit the amount of coffees I make (and not crack open the emergency biscuits), to not get enticed into hoovering. I have always been fascinated by clocks and there are many around my house from my Grandmother's grand-daughter clock to a slate clock bought in a Stam...
Who would have guessed it? Another day in the big girl household and the two female occupants are still talking - result. However, there is seemingly competition for the WiFi and who will have the most virtual chats in one day. School lessons or meetings? Let's hope the WiFi can cope with this excessive usage. My daily usage at the Museum would be emails, a touch of social media and looking for stuff on the interweb. Add to that occasional facebook usage in the evening with a periodic skype and that is practically my limit. So the last ten days have been a major learning curve for me as I chat to people across the County and the Region. Yes, I have entered the virtual world. My first dilemma occurred with the initial invite to a 'zoom' meeting. Luckily, the word LINK stood out and I managed to join 17 others for a countywide creative arts discussion. What I hadn't appreciated was the etiquette. Apparently, my frantic hand waving is not the way to ge...
A Chance to do Research? I might use this enforced time at home to do some of those jobs that I have always wanted to do but never seem to get round to it. You know, tidy the kitchen drawer, tackle the garden, sort out the spare bedroom or even research my family tree. You might wonder why I haven't researched my family tree when I work in a Museum. I've always been impressed by how many people undertake research inspired by their family stories, letters, photos. We often get enquiries at the Museum and the staff team are really good at helping and assisting with information. But I never quite seem to find time to research my family tree. Although keen to help the eager researcher my family history is consigned to a shelf in my house. Yet like many I have fragmented bits of information taken from family members. Add to this photos, some letters, a few objects and an interest in history...you would think that I would be up there proving that ...
The Show must go on It is pay day today and although the Museum is shut, we are doing our best to look after the wonderful staff team that work there. Obviously, like many other Museums and Galleries, money is tight. So I gave them a chance to be paid in another valuable commodity - yes, toilet rolls. Needs must, and the fact that we still have a good quantity of the soft stuff and the Museum is currently shut so no need for loo rolls, seemed to provide a solution to the monthly paypacket. Despite the doors of Alma being closed, work behind the scenes continues. There may be no actual visitors to meet and greet but we are launching into a virtual world where we continue our conversations on-line. There might not be any exhibitions to instal but there are future exhibitions to plan and develop. They may be no families on a day out over Easter but we are frantically converting ideas and plans so they can be accessed by folk who are stuck at home....
Schools Out... Day two since the schools were closed (excluding the weekend for those that are already challenging this statement!). How is it all going, I hear you ask...So I am sharing the house with an eighteen year old who has been busy with several virtual lessons, some video chats with her mates, eating sweets, making a short video based on Gavin and Stacey, tidying her sock drawer and adding to the washing-up pile by the sink. It's going fine. She has taken over the dining room and adopted Alexa as her new music friend. I have been banished to the sitting room with a cat that snores and the EU ironing mountain that shouts out 'iron me, iron me' whilst I am trying to update risk assessments and plan holiday workshops. I am not sure how this will continue to work out in the long term. I am currently working from several purple lever arch files and some blue cardboard folders, large brown sheets of paper with plans on and my treasured A4 diary (t...
'This ration is not to be opened by order of an Officer, or in extremity.' When wandering through the galleries last week, looking for inspiration and ideas for virtual activities and social media posts, I came across these. With the current obsession over food, panic buying in the shops and restrictions when purchasing essentials foodstuffs I wondered, if in desperation, whether I would break into one of these to get me through the next few weeks. These emergency rations, sometimes known as 'iron rations', were issued during the Second Boer War between 1899 and 1902. These portable tins replaced the loose food items issued to soldiers which were often difficult to keep edible. In the 1880s, the British Army began to look for alternative options to provide a sustainable individual ration for soldiers should they become cut off from the main supply of food. The early metal tins, partitioned in the middle, were often made by Bovril and contained two dif...
Mother's Day? I am now all set up for working from home with a dining room table laden with files, a laptop and my portable hard drive. Apparently, as its Mother's Day, I can put up my feet and relax today. That my eighteen year old daughter will attend to my needs and spoil me. I think it lasted five minutes. From tomorrow we will both be working from home. As a year 13 student, she found her whole life disrupted last week with schools closing and exams cancelled. Two of us fighting for space - this could be an interesting week. Running a Museum from home is going to be a challenge. Luckily, I work with a fantastic team and we have arranged for our first virtual meeting in the morning. This is new territory for us, planning how we can keep in contact with our visitors and users despite being closed. We spent time last week going through ideas, taking photographs and planning content for our social media and website, getting ourselves o...
Chatting Behind the Lines You may wonder why I have given my blog this title. As I manage a Military Museum, I wanted to give it a title that had a connection with the collections we hold. My colleague Nick and I spent at least two minutes discussing this before making a brew and changing the subject. However, in that short timeslot we actually managed to throw around a couple of good ideas and eventually landed with this title. I didn't want this blog to feel all academic but more like I was sitting in your kitchen chatting (get it?) over a glass of wine/coffee/lemonade - sorry, but I don't drink tea. However, we knew that the coronavirus was going to change our working practises and it would feel like I was talking from within the Museum, almost behind the lines. Overlay that with the military connection. You can see where I am going here but stick with me. Behind the lines translate that to behind the front line. Chatting, of c...
This is Claude... Claude is social distancing in my office. He has no other mannequins or staff members near him. Claude is doing as he is told by Public Health England. He does not want to catch or spread the virus. Be like Claude. I had hoped to enlist him into my attempt to contact various organisations and Government agencies today. Listening to 'on hold' music repeated constantly on the phone for over an hour and still not getting a reply really made my day. I had to eat another piece of emergency cake to recover. I am still recovering but realise that I am not alone in the 'sorting out the fallout from the virus' situation. I expect many of you have been phoning, emailing and looking for support too. If so, you may have been put through the torture of music whilst you wait. So what is the worst 'on hold' music that you have been exposed too? Some philamonic orchestra playing Mozart or Beethoven? A Beatles classic? A li...
Another day at the Museum... A beautiful spring day here in Carlisle Castle. Despite closing our doors at 3pm yesterday, the whole team turned up to do some emergency planning and preparation to ensure that we can work remotely and engage our visitors over the coming weeks. It is not easy being a small independent Museum with big ideas. Limited staffing and resources mean we are restricted to what we can actually do. But the Museum team are excellent, creative and willing to give things a go. So today, we all congregated in the Ladies toilet to promote the start of our Museum from Home activities. Quirky is the order of the day. So filming the team washing their hands as per Public Health England's 20 second rule but to the Regimental march 'John Peel'. A great little promotional video but hiding the fact that we were following hand washing instructions on the wall to make sure we washed them correctly. That I kept setting off the hand drier a...
COBRA Meeting
Emergency Planning We had our own version of a Cobra meeting this morning. Inevitably the discussions at our weekly staff meeting were round #COVID-19 and we felt we needed a little light humour in these most difficult of circumstances. The decision was made to close the Museum from Thursday 19 March in-line with other local cultural organisations and with advice from Public Health England. These are uncertain times for the heritage and arts sector. We understand the pressures on all areas of society and the amazing work our NHS are currently undertaking. What we need to think of is what part can our small Museum play to help in all this? With limited resources and finances, this is the challenge the staff team faced this morning. Many of our users are veterans of varying ages. How do we reach out to them during this period? The school holidays will soon be upon us (and schools across the Country will be closed from the weekend) so how can we ...
Greetings!
Greetings! Welcome to the first entry on the blog. I'm Jules, Manager of Cumbria's Museum of Military Life and have set up this blog to engage with folk in the outside world. Yes, the outside world...something which is all upsidedown and back-to-front at the moment! So I thought that as we all have to adapt to less toilet rolls in the shops and copious amounts of daytime telly, a little light relief may make someone smile. So it's day one. Why the photo of me with several mannequins (or could they be ex-members of staff??) taken outside the Museum? Well, these old timers were taken away by our wonderful volunteer John who is going to use them for archery target practise. We did think these could help us through this on-going crisis but there comes a time when you have to say goodbye to these gorgeous dummies. That time is now. Like many Museums we have had to 'make do and mend' using and reusing items to help with displays. In 2014 w...