Chapter Six

Charlene
Charlene
Jul 27, 2017 · 7 min read

Week Twenty-Three- Moving on

I can’t believe I have officially been in Reading for six months now!

The months have truly flown by and I am enjoying my time down here.

I have really enjoyed working with the Friday Fledglings group over the last few months. I have worked with some lovely people who are so dedicated to their roles. I feel that I have strengthened my organisational skills through helping with the registration and it’s been fun meeting different families each week. So it was now time for me to move onto a different project.

In a previous blog, I mentioned how I had taken an interest in the retail side of the Museum. Therefore, my next project was to help with the new craft case in The MERL shop.

It was coming up to that time of year when the University took part in the Whiteknights Studio Trail, where artists and craftspeople open their studios to the general public around the University campus area. Anyone is welcome to visit and buy original art. With the recommendation of a couple of artists who would also be participating in this studio trail, we had selected some lovely work for the new craft case and for that week I was helping to install them in the case.

For that week Nitisha and I also gave our presentation on the Erasmus trip to our colleagues at The MERL. We were both very nervous about the presentation!

Strangely enough I find speaking in front of my colleagues scarier than presenting to a bunch of strangers! However, I knew this was all good practice for public speaking, and it was a good opportunity to share what we had learnt whilst visiting Holland and Antwerp.

Nitisha and I presenting to colleagues at The MERL

At Reading Museum I continued with cataloguing artwork for the current exhibition, Reading Abbey Quarter: Then and Now. I found that I struggled quite a bit with the cataloguing as it involved doing research on a topic which I felt I still didn’t have a good knowledge of. I was fortunate to join my colleague Stuart and a volunteer university student who was preparing a tour of the Museum for the general public.

The tour was a refresher on the background history of the abbey which helped me to form further research. In the afternoon, Stuart also gave me a detailed tour of the exhibition. He went through each painting and explained what they represented, I found this very useful as I was able to look at the artwork in a different way. I hadn’t undergone preparing such thorough research since studying for my degree, which was quite a long time ago! I realised that I would need to get back into the practice of learning how to do this again.

Week Twenty-Four- All about animals!

Over the weekend I visited a number of the open studios on The Whiteknights Studio Trail.

It was a great day and the weather was beautiful! I saw parts of Reading which I never knew existed and all on foot so I was quite proud of myself! It was great to meet the artists and see more of their work and I also met some lovely people on the route.

This week we had a kick-off meeting for an exhibition we are planning for Reading Museum. Nitisha, Adam and I are working with Elaine and one of the volunteers. The exhibition will be based on animals and it will be an amazing experience for me, having never worked on one before. I was feeling excited about the plans which we had. Our main job as part of the #digiRDG team would be to look at how we can incorporate exciting digital concepts into the exhibition and make it as interactive as possible for the public.

As part of the traineeship, I get to work with the Front of House team and learn about what takes place when visitors first enter the museum. Having worked for many years in retail, I had experience of working with the general public in a similar way and it was good for me to be more acquainted with the reception and shop area.

Last week we had our first Digital Den workshop which was all about blogging with mentor Anna Faherty, and this week we continued with parts 2 and 3. I had a very brief attempt at blogging prior to taking on this role. However, as you can see I am now writing more than ever! I had never classed myself as a writer and in a way I still wouldn’t profess myself to be a writer. However I am enjoying the experience, and I hope you enjoy reading it!

I find writing therapeutic and Anna gave us some fantastic advice and tips on how to go about blogging. I hope the advice given will be exemplified in my own blog.

Week Twenty-Five- Preparations

This week I was helping with the preparation for the East Reading Festival which was set to take place on Sunday. The MERL and Reading Museum have both participated in previous years and this year I was helping out.

I probably had the most random, yet hilarious task!

We wanted to take the VR(Virtual Reality) Headsets to the festival. We had previously taken individual 360° photos of the gallery, but this time we thought it would be nice to give visitors a walking tour of the whole museum, well at least downstairs through the ‘eyes’ of the Sensory Cow!

We placed the 360° camera on top of the cow’s head. I was dressed in a smock and a fetching straw hat and guided the cow around the galleries whilst Adam pushed from behind.

Adam and I taking the sensory cow for a tour around the Museum!

It’s great to be working for an organisation which offers you the opportunity to get involved with lots of exciting public events!

Throughout the week, I made a start on research for the Animals Exhibition. I’m not aware of what the actual title of the exhibition is going to be yet… perhaps it could just be ‘animals’? That is still to be deliberated — we are just at the beginning stages after all.

When I do find out, it will remain a secret for now anyway to avoid spoiling the surprise!

A month ago, Adam invited employees from both Reading Museum and The MERL to join Skillshare. Skillshare is a platform which enables you to take online classes in various subjects. A recommended list of classes which will help us with our project has been created and I have been setting aside one hour a week to take a class. This week I started an InDesign course, which is a program I was keen to learn to improve my graphic design skills. The videos are quite fast paced, and you do need a certain amount of time to register the information and then to actually practice. However I hope in a few weeks to have a good knowledge of the basics.

Week Twenty-Six- Festival!

On Sunday, I attended the East Reading Festival with some of my colleagues from The MERL. It was a bright yet blustery day at Palmer Park and packed with plenty of visitors.

Some of the activities on The MERL stand

I had a lot of fun helping out on the stand, and I particularly enjoyed showing visitors the VR headsets and seeing their reaction! It was a good opportunity to be representing the museum and to take me out of my comfort zone by speaking to different people and hopefully encouraging them to visit the museum.

This week I got to venture into the archives! Training was being given on the ICAM which is a large professional camera used for photographing items as small as glass negatives to large art prints. I was also given training on the digitisation of film, each session was approximately half an hour however very informative. After the training I was particularly interested in gaining some experience within the archives and learning more about the digitisation process.

Another month completed!

This month I feel that I have stepped out of my comfort zone by attempting public speaking with the Erasmus presentation which was a big challenge for me! Also communicating more with the general public, whether it be through helping the Front of House team or attending public events, means it has been quite an interactive month.

I hope to continue with the momentum to better myself. I want to improve with the research skills and have the confidence to step out and do tasks which I wouldn’t have known I could achieve without trying.

Next week I will be on annual leave visiting home for my birthday :)

I will see you in July!

#digiRDG

Blogs from the #digiRDG project team tracking our experiences changing Reading Museum and the Museum of English Rural Life.

Charlene

Written by

Charlene

#digiRDG

#digiRDG

Blogs from the #digiRDG project team tracking our experiences changing Reading Museum and the Museum of English Rural Life.

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