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
Tuesday 30 March 2010
Friday 5 March 2010
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
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
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
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