Exhibitions

Ok, I would say I’m quite reliant on deciding if my time with a department is going to be good or not, by the first impression I get by meeting the team.
So I can’t tell you what a delight it was meeting the exhibitions team over in the Brighton Museum. I was greeted with lots of lovely cakes and biscuits and was promised more to come, oh yeah and the work plan set for me was pretty good too.
Firstly I got to help bring down the exhibition over in Hove called Touching Art, Touching You, Which is the last tour exhibiting in Hove Museum I believe.
That was good fun. Later I help pack up the From Sickert to Gertler: Modern British Art from Boxted House exhibition which was interesting because it was so different to the one I did in Hove.
An example of this is the no touching rule. The art work in Sickert to Gertler gallery in Brighton you had to use gloves for whenever you would move a piece of art or had to give it a condition check. But in hove because Touching Art, Touching You exhibition was all about touching and feeling the art, there were no need for gloves.
Now this is when things started to get interesting. I’ve seen how bring down an exhibition, now I would get to see one put up.

Once all three of the temporary galleries over in Brighton Museum were emptied of Sickert to Gertler , along came the new exhibition Strange and Familia part of the bpb (Brighton Photo Biennial).

Basically this exhibition is about how 3 photographers (one who is from the USA and another from Japan) see Brighton. The American photographer collaborated with his 8 year old daughter that gives yet another interesting twist and angle. HP lent a special printer to print out all the photographs and in what is apparently a world’s first there are no frames on any of the pictures in the exhibition. We used magnets to hold up the pictures.

Here’s a link if you would like to know more about the exhibition http://www.brighton-hove-rpml.org.uk/WhatsOn/Pages/BMAGphotobiennial2octto14nov10.aspx.

Zak

I worked with the Fundraising team for three months over the summer. For most of that time we were working together on producing and delivering a door drop for the Royal Pavilion and Museums Foundation. This was done to raise awareness of the charity to residents of Brighton and Hove and has proved to have been a very successful way of increasing interest.
Other jobs that I worked on include developing the social networking sites that I mentioned before, which are both growing steadily, helping Li-an with processing new members applications and sending out their membership packs. For the most recent mail out to the members of the Foundation, I compiled a competition crossword for the newsletter!

I have been working with the Learning team for a month now and I’m very busy. I’ve been working closely with the organisers of the Christmas events and am taking on part of the organisation for the project, as well as looking into developing the African Masks school session, helping at early years sessions, preparing for Diwali and White Night events and generally integrating myself into the department.

Zak and I have been working on the technical certificate part of our apprenticeship coursework. This is a really interesting piece of work and a chance for us to do a bit more research into the sector that we work in. We have to write a couple of presentations to show our knowledge of the creative and cultural sector and how creative ideas are developed and put into place. I’ve been doing research into museums of natural history around the country and how they tailor themselves to appeal to children. I’m comparing what I find to what the Booth Museum offers. It’s very interesting to see what services other museums offer as a whole and to what extent they provide to younger audiences.

Cassie

Hi all!

As some of you may or may not know, I’ve been working in Faculties with Robin and Louise over the past few months.

Sadly my time with the Faculties team has come to a end, but when one door closes another door opens. On that note I’m very happy to announce that I’m now working with the exhibitions team and very much look forward to telling you how I get on.

Now, at the request of a college I’m going to talk a bit about how a leak next to

Firstly, the leak had started in the early hours in the morning and was due to rain. By the time I arrived staff were already dealing with it.

On this day the museum was closed but if it hadn’t have been we would have roped off the area surrounding the leak so members of the public were not put at risk.

We immediately started mopping up the excess water on the floor and walls, and a bucket was put under the leak. The next issue was to find the source of the problem and fix it.

We discovered the problem was one of the tiles on the roof had broken letting the water in, which then would seep through a void, which then came through the ceiling.

But you can’t access the roof when it’s raining out side, because it is too dangerous, so there was no way to stop the leak in the short term.

The next step was get in contact with the curator in charge of the paintings next to the leak, so they could make the decision if the painting should be taken down or not.

Thankfully there was no damage done to the paintings and it had stopped raining so there was no need to take it down, but if there had been, a small lifting contraption would have been used to help lift the painting down safely.

Now that it was safe, Robin and I headed up to the roof to see what could be done to fix the tile. Unfortunately the tile was out of our reach and was also in a disgusting area where some pigeons lived. They had made quite a mess!

A cleaner had to be called in before attempting to fix the tile, due to the diseases you can pick from bird excrement, but after all that the area was cleaned and the tile repaired, and now I can safely say that’s one less tile worry about on Brighton museums roof!

Thanks for reading.
Zak

Having said that I would be writing lots more about my Functions work once I started working in the department, I didn’t appreciate quite how busy I would actually be!

Before the festival started, I spent a week with Sarah and Trish preparing for the three weeks of Fringe events in The Old Courtroom. This included imputing all the event and staff information into the booking system and creating fact sheets for the staff as well as cleaning and arranging the venue. The Old Courtroom is a lovely space, however because it is used so rarely we had to spend a lot of time anticipating the needs of the venue and the problems our customers may have. It is also the first time the venue had been used as a theatre, which created a lot of problems in itself! Tony, the venue manager who hired the venue from the Functions team, brought in stage lighting and a set of flats which completely transformed the venue from a lecture theatre into a fully formed performance space.

Throughout the festival, I took the role of house manager. I spent every day at the Courtroom, either opening up in the morning and spending the day there, or taking over in the afternoon, spending the evening there and locking up at the end of the performances. During my shifts, I was responsible for making the venue presentable before we opened to the public and at the end of the day, which involved cleaning the public spaces, setting up the equipment for the caterer, organising the signage and generally arranging the space. Once there were visitors in the building, I helped sell tickets and refreshments, organised queues and ushered the audience into the auditorium. I also had to help solve problems between customers and between the performers, which was interesting at times!

Overall, the month flew by! I could never have imagined how tiring it could be, but between working at the Courtroom and on a Fringe show at another venue, I didn’t have a moment to myself the whole month! I really enjoyed it all though and met some great people and been given some amazing opportunities.

I am now working in the Fundraising department which is hectic but really interesting. I have spent a lot of time filling envelopes in the past three weeks, but its all part of it! At the moment, I’m researching the different areas of Brighton and Hove and deciding which parts would be best to target with leaflets and promotion to gain more members for the Royal Pavilion and Museums Foundation charity. I have also set up Facebook and Twitter accounts for the RP&M Foundation and been present at meetings with companies outside of the council which I’ve never experienced before.
After I get back from Glastonbury (one of the aforementioned opportunities which Sarah and I could not turn down!), I’ll continue working with the Fundraising team until the middle of July. I will also be helping at the charity’s AGM at the end of the month which will be interesting.

I am sure I’ll be able to fill you in with more detail when I return from my holiday time and can get stuck into the projects properly.

Cassie

May is a very busy time of year in Brighton. It’s as if the city suddenly springs to life. I believe it is to do with a number of things not least of which is the change in the weather. No even though there are 2 bank holidays the main reason Brighton is buzzing in May is because the city holds one of the best festivals anywhere in the country (or anywhere but I am biased).

The festival makes use of the buildings and theatres around the city and many of Brighton’s finest artists open their houses to exhibit their work to the general public every weekend.

So invariably May was going to be a busy Month (in fact it still is as I write this). Having had a week at functions earlier this year I volunteered myself to help out on the Fringe. I got sent to help out a production at The Old Courthouse (opposite the Pavilion) and got thrown in at the deep end to help with the sound and lights. This involved cueing up music, running a power point and changing the lights to the cues on time. I found this task very stressful at first but soon (after a few mistakes) managed to get my head around it. The play was a series of monologues about characters from Brighton’s past. Bearing in mind my apprenticeship I found this fascinating as it really brought to life some of the characters that helped make Brighton what it is today.

I have also been helping contractors up in the voids behind the ceiling domes in the Pavilion. I love it up there it really gives you a different perspective on the Pavilion and how it is constructed. Just as I think I have seen everything there is to see here someone shows me something I have never seen before. For instance when I was showing a water testing company around they showed me a whole new room I didn’t know existed! It turned out to be an old blue bathroom that was put in for the Queens visit to the Pavilion (or that’s what I heard anyway).

Zak

Over the past few weeks I’ve been up to various things including
helping with contractors (showing them around and answering questions), changing filters to the roof and of course being in the Argus talking about the apprenticeship!

It was very exciting that the Argus asked for one of us to star in their apprentice of the month. I had good fun doing a phone interview and explaining to them what the apprenticeship is all about.

When the article came out, I thought it quite funny that they’d had spelt my name wrong, ha ha.

I spent much of last Wednesday morning with the contractors working on the William IV gatehouse at the north end of the Pavilion. This meant supervising them in and around the Green Centre, where the World Art curators usually work. As I spent quite a while waiting outside the Green Centre for one of the workmen to arrive, I got to properly look at the stonework of the gatehouse for the first time. A lot of it is really intricate and pretty, I had never looked up to the top properly before, even though I must have walked through it hundreds of times!

On Monday morning, Louise gathered a team to volunteers to do a Spring Clean of Preston Manor. I spent the morning carefully cleaning the old radiators and polishing the banisters of the main staircase. It was lovely seeing people from all different departments coming together to give Preston Manor some well needed TLC and being able to see the difference at the end of the morning. It was also nice talking to members of staff and volunteers that I don’t usually see.

This week is my last week in Facilities Management. I’ve really enjoyed my time here. It’s been great seeing so much of all the venues and I’ve learnt a lot.

Next week I start back with the Functions team, working on the fringe festival events taking place in The Old Courtroom. We had a meeting about it on Friday and I’m very excited about it all starting next weekend! I’ll be writing lots more about it when I start working!

Cassie

What is so interesting about this apprenticeship is the way we get put into different departments and discover the many diverse roles that make up the team in the Museum service. Recently I have been assigned to the Restoration Department which deals with anything that needs looking after maintenance or restoration wise in the different buildings.

This department always has an array of things to do every day from inspecting the voids in the Pavilion to supervising contractors cleaning the fireplaces or hot water tanks.

The voids are areas between the domes of the Pavilion and need to be inspected for wear and tear etc. I made an important archaeological discovery the other day. In one of the voids we were inspecting I found a Coca Cola can circa 1986! It was really old, even older than me. I had a look at the label which listed only 4 ingredients and I thought that Coke must have been healthier then. However it was suggested to me that labelling now had to list every ingredient. I am not sure it will make the exhibits in the Museum.

I have really enjoyed working with all the various contractors I have met during the time I have been here. They all come with new skills and generally are very entertaining, informative and friendly. Unanimously they all appreciate and respect the uniqueness of the Pavilion and remind me of what a National Treasure we look after.

I have also discovered the concept of minutes in meetings which all sounds pretty obvious when you know about the importance of them, but it just hadn’t occurred to me before. I have also been using a laser to check the heat omitting from the radiators in Museum. This involved finding all the heat sources using a plan of the ground floor and measuring each one before recording the information. I felt almost like a scientist.

I have been involved in a small way with the opening of a new exhibition about how the Pavilion was turned into a hospital for Indian Troops. I attended one of the final meetings and I found it fascinating how all the different jobs came together to create the final product.

Perhaps the finest moment in my time here came when I was given the job of toilet seat installation, something that I have never done but have heard my dad moan about. I don’t know why he was complaining because I found the whole experience extremely rewarding. I think I did a good job and if there is a need will be asked to do it again.

Anyway back to the coalface as they say!

Zak

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We have been so busy the past few weeks that it would be impossible to write about it all! We’ve done everything from being involved (from a distance) with a blocked urinal, to repairing the mosaic floor of the Museum. I’m really enjoying working in Facilities Management. It great having such varied days and not knowing what’s about to happen! Having a more hands-on role on the estate is great as we’re getting to see every inch of the buildings and being able to see physical things we’ve achieved, such as the mosaic, is very rewarding.

I have been working a lot on the sustainability project that we have been set. I spent a lot of last week with an electricity meter measuring the costs of running various appliances found around the buildings. There were some very interesting results and Zak, Louise and I are on the case to make the buildings run much more eco-efficiently. I can’t write about any of our findings at the moment, but everything will be revealed eventually!

Cassie

Time for a catch up!

Firstly, I’d like to apologise for the lack of updates! Zak and I have been so busy over the past few months, it’s been hard finding a chance to update properly! We’re going to do our very best to restart our regular updating again. Starting from now!

On Monday 7th of December, Zak and I started working in the Retail and Catering department. We began our first morning with till training. Luckily, we’ve both worked in retail before, so got to grips with the system quite quickly. In our first week we learnt how to correctly store, price, replenish and display stock, as well as merchandising and keeping the shops clean. As part of this, we spent time at the Booth Museum, Hove Museum and the Booklovers Store in the Jubilee Library.

As I have worked in a Deli for the past two years, the majority of my time with the department was spent in the Pavilion shop, with Zak spending a lot of time in the Pavilion and Hove Museum Tearooms, as there was space for them to have only one of us at a time. It was great spending Christmas in a lovely and warm shop, selling Christmas presents to customers who had stories to tell (one lady was telling me about the 10-week Mediterranean cruise she and her husband were embarking on the next day. It made me very jealous!).

I only spent a few days in the tearoom at the Pavilion. I had a good time though. Everyone that works up there is so nice that it’s great just being around them. As I was there for such a short amount of time, I didn’t really pick up many new kitchen skills, but I spent time serving customers, making tea and coffee and washing up as well as spending a whole day doing stock-take. The way customers are treated and spoken to is very different to the way it is in the rest of the building. A great deal of care and time is spent talking to them about their visit and about their food to make sure everything’s right and that they’re having a good time.

On the morning of Monday the 18th of January, Zak and I began our Equalities Awareness training that concluded the following week. It was a very interesting course as it’s not really a subject that gets discussed very often and I learnt a lot. The course involved a lot of worksheets and handouts, which made the group think about and discuss language and actions appropriate to working for the Council as well as our own opinions, prejudices and attitudes towards minority groups.

On the afternoon of the 18th, I started working with the Functions team; Trish and Sarah. This week has been my favourite week so far as Event Management is one of my big interests. My main project for the week was coordinating a mailout to a number of businesses who had booked stalls at the Royal Pavilion Wedding Fair, which happened on the 7th of February. For this, I wrote a generic letter, then personalised it and addressed it to each of the businesses. I then made sure each business received an appropriate number of free entry vouchers, flyers and posters to help promote the event. During the week I also went on a number of site visits, in which prospective clients came to view the rooms in the Pavilion that are used for weddings/corporate events as well as attending an actual wedding on the Friday of the week! It was really strange sitting in on a stranger’s wedding, but it was lovely to see the building being used in a completely different way and it was a really nice event. I also attended a sponsorship launch in the Courtroom for a string of events happening as part of the Fringe Festival in May. The events sound really good and I hope I’m going to be able to get involved in the actual thing as everything that I saw looked amazing

After the second half of Equalities Awareness training, we began our three-week stint in the Bookings Office. Zak and I began by having a meeting with Joceline (who is acting Bookings Manager) to create a timetable for our time with her. It was great to have such a precise structure to our work and it was nice to be able to plan our time ourselves. We began the week by learning how to use the scary phones and the even scarier booking programme! Both have lots of buttons and codes and take quite a bit of getting used to. During our time in the office, we both attended Pavilion tours and Museum learning sessions to get a better idea of the events we were booking as well as doing work on the Pavilion phone system and website.

After our time in the bookings office, Zak moved onto Functions, while I went back to the shop for a week. The reason for this was to fill the gap while Zak was elsewhere, but also so that Marcus could come in and carry out the first of my observations, which are a big part of the assessment for our National Award. Unfortunately, the shop was really quiet during the time Marcus was around, which wasn’t ideal, hopefully it will be better next time!

We are now at the end of our second week with the Facilities Management team. I’m having a great time, even though it’s knackering! Over the past fortnight, we’ve found ourselves on the roofs and in the basements of the Pavilion, Brighton Museum, The Dome and Preston Manor, learning how to move the seats in the Courtroom and starting work on a big project to do with electricity usage, cost and sustainability that Louise has set us. We’ve also been on a tour of the Materials Recovery Facility in Hollingdean, attempted to use an electronic (sadly not sonic) screwdriver, spent a couple of days at the Booth Museum (which Zak has written about) and lots and lots of other things. Part of the Facilities Management job is dealing with problems and reacting to situations, so our stint in the department doesn’t have a set plan, which makes a nice contrast to the structure of our time in the Bookings Office. We will be with Louise and Robin until mid-April, so I’m sure we’ll be writing lots more about it!

This is probably a good time to say that Zak, John and myself were featured on Meridian East news (which meant it wasn’t shown in the Brighton & Hove area) a few weeks ago to tie in with the launch of the Council’s Apprenticeship strategy. I’m still waiting on a final answer as to whether the feature can be uploaded onto the internet for us to post here, but in the meantime, if you’re desperate to see it, the three of us all have a copy on DVD which I’m sure we can lend out.

Cassie

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Hello Readers

My days at the museums are anything but normal and as usual full of variety and special experiences. I’ve spent a week in the functions office helping where I can and meeting the happy couples planning on having their marriage at the Royal Pavilion. Sometimes it’s just the soon to be in-laws visiting on behalf of the couple without them knowing.

I also started work in Facilities Management with Louise and Robin.

But I’ll talk more about Facilities another time; right now let me tell you of some weird and wonderful things that I’ve discovered up in the Booth Museum.

Myself and Cassie were asked to help the clearing of books and shelves in the Booth because of the new disabled access that’s going to be put in.

When we started to clear one shelf at a time it didn’t take long to start finding the hidden history of the Booth, we found VHS tapes of the Booth from the past and also found pictures of some of the staff in their youth at the Booth including our mentor John! (He hasn’t changed a bit!)

I later came across something hidden in the book shelf, what looked like to me a red snake skin in a long plastic bag. On further investigation I discovered that it was an original part of Mr Booth’s chair, the arm to be precise. It really came to life to me when I saw the picture that the Booth Museum has of Mr Booth himself sitting in it.

Here is a list of some of the other items found in the Booth:

Montgomery, the name given to the Rattlesnake head sealed in a plastic orb
A book titled “My thoughts on a pebble”
An endless supply of animal books dating back into the 18th Century.
DUST LIKE YOU WOULDN’T BELIEVE!
The list goes on.

It’s funny how you build a tolerance to dead animals after spending time at the Booth.

For instance when sitting down having my lunch the phone rang and was answered by one of the taxidermists, he advised the caller step by step in great detail on how best they should remove the skull and boil it in water and let it simmer for a day. He went on to explain that after this process it is much easier to remove the brain and cartilage so your left with nothing but the skull of the rabbit. (I may have got the details wrong but I did feel a bit sick!)

Needless to say if I had not already been at the Booth a few times there’s no way my meal would have been finished!


Zak

Happy New Year!
The new decade has got off to a very busy start as I have spent most of it in catering so far.
Here’s a statistic for you, apparently 97% of people that visit the Royal Pavilion Tea Room are new visitors. This is in sharp contrast to the Hove Museum Tea Room that is a regular meeting place for friends and families alike.
I have been surprised at the things that I have learned in catering. Besides the obvious hygiene best practice, basic food preparation, cleaning and serving the public, my preconceptions of the coffee/ Café culture in Brighton & Hove has been turned on its head with the realization that Tea is the most ordered beverage in both ‘Tea’ Rooms (obvious really, the clue’s in the name). English Breakfast is the most popular blend with Earl Grey well behind in second. However just as I felt I was getting a grip on tea varieties I realized that I still had a lot to learn when I was asked for Red Bush! As ever my colleagues were extremely helpful in educating me when they saw my blushes! You learn something every day.
Despite all the grim weather we’ve endured so far this year, the happiest moment was the free opening day at the Royal Pavilion. It was wonderful to see the looks on people’s faces when they saw the unique décor that has been so beautifully and sympathtically restored and maintained. It reminded me of the amazing team whose talent, experience, energy and sheer hard work ensure the survival of this unique building for generations to come.
Next it’s on to Bookings and another learning curve.

Zak