Week Five

Last week was our last week with the ISO teams. We spent Monday and Tuesday at the Pavilion and Museum, patrolling and in the control room, as well as going on a staircase hunt with Nick and Graham (we found it in the end, but it wasn’t as exciting as we’d all hoped).

On Wednesday we spent the day at Hove museum. When we arrived we were given glass cleaner and cloths and instructed to clean the cabinets! The ISO’s who work at Hove Museum, Preston Manor and the Booth Museum have a much more active job which involves looking after the building a lot more than the ISO’s at the Pavilion and Brighton Museum. After the cleaning, we got a chance to have a proper look around the museum displays before having a tour of the storage spaces and roof.
After having a very good jacket potato from the Tearoom for lunch, we spent the afternoon on the front desk, helping out with visitor queries and selling products in the shop.

Thursday was spent at Preston Manor, where we were greeted with the task of vacuuming the big centre staircase! At 10 o’clock, John arrived with Marcus and Jean from City College. We went through a LOT of paperwork and questions (we get NUS cards! Hurrah!), before we arranged to have our first proper meeting with Marcus, who will be our assessor for the duration of our apprenticeship, on Friday afternoon. It sounds like a very fun and interesting course!
During the afternoon, we were allowed to observe the school Role-Play activities. We followed the actors Greg and Pam (playing James the footman and Mrs Story the head housekeeper) around the building with the children who were visiting to learn about Victorian life and were pretending to be interviewed for servant positions. Greg was being very silly which, for me, meant I was forced to become a mute (which one of the boys from the school thought meant “short”. I wasn’t very pleased!) and Zak became Tomkins, which the children thought was a funny name!
We spent the rest of the afternoon tidying and locking up the building which involved going into the cellars which was interesting, but a bit too damp and spider-y for me to really enjoy!

We were at the Booth Museum on Friday. When we arrived, the ISO’s on duty made us very welcome and showed us how the shop worked. After this, we helped set up some tables and materials for a children’s art workshop that was happening in the morning. I thought that it was a really nice idea as the workshop was held in the insect part of the museum and many of the children left with models of spiders with glittery bodies and pipe cleaner legs, which showed that they were absorbing and being influenced by their surroundings, even if they were sparkled up a bit!! The afternoon was rather quiet so we spent quite a while helping Gerald move cases (which I didn’t look inside) upstairs to the storage area whilst asking him questions about everything we could think of and generally learning more about the museum and it’s contents.

I have really enjoyed being an ISO, but I am looking forward to doing something with a more active role. I am very pleased with the amount I’ve learnt in a month and how much of it I am able to remember!

Cassie

Weeks Three and Four

This past fortnight we’ve been out on our own! Patrolling individually or together, we are quickly learning how to be an ISO. We’ve spent an even time between the Pavilion and the Museum, finding out the most common questions from the public and quirky facts about the buildings and their history from the ISO’s who have worked here for a few years.

The main aim of being an Information and Security Officer is to give the customers a pleasant and safe experience of the venue they are visiting. This is mainly achieved by greeting the customers and providing information when asked, but often staff will go out of their way to answer questions – one ISO was so keen to find out what Dropsy was for a visitor, she found a member of staff who could Google it (it’s called Oedema now, an accumulation of fluid under the skin. It was one of George IV’s numerous impairments)!

Many of the ISO’s have worked here for several years and are currently gaining qualifications, in areas such as Customer Service and Sign Language, to enhance the customer’s experience.

I have spent a number of hours over the past two weeks in the Control Room which I’ve found really interesting as I’ve learnt a lot about Health and Safety and data protection amongst other very important things. We spent a couple of hours learning how the ISO roster is made, which is more complicated than you’d think!
One of our afternoons was spent running around the outside of the Pavilion with Graham which, even though it was cold and muddy, provided us with a really good overview of how the building is secured from the outside.

This week, we spent Tuesday evening on a lock up of the Pavilion with Terry. We now know the building inside out! It’s a very different place in the dark; everything seems bigger and a lot noisier! As well as taking us to all the underground storage areas, tunnels and having an opportunity to lie on the carpet of the Music Room and see the ceiling properly, we were taken up on the roof of the Pavilion which was amazing. You could see everything and all the tourists taking photos and people waiting at the bus stop could see you!

(Photo from www.royalpavilion.org.uk/palace/the_palace.asp)

Sadly another ISO on the late shift decided it would be a good idea to rattle doors and hide behind curtains. Although this is funny now, at the time it was horrible! I wasn’t the only one scared by it though…

This week is our last week of ISO-ing. We’ll spend Monday and Tuesday in the Pavilion and Brighton Museum before spending Wednesday at Hove Museum, Thursday at Preston Manor (where we’ll also meet our Apprenticeship Assessor and City College Skills Advisor for the first time) and Friday at the Booth Museum. It’s going to be really good to spend some time in the different locations and hopefully learn some more facts!

Cassie

Weeks One and Two

I must start off with saying that I have had a fantastic first week, I’ve been spending my days visiting the various venues and museums scatted around Brighton and Hove, also meeting the staff within them.

The places I have visited this week, Blatchington Mill, Brighton Pavilion, Brighton Museum, Foredown Tower, Preston Manor, and last but not least The Booth Museum.

I didn’t realise that there were so many different parts to Brighton and Hove’s Museums. So for the first week Cassie and I were shown many of the historic buildings that they look after.

Blatchington Mill is an old flour windmill that is no longer working but still has most of the original parts. I had no idea that it was open to public but is a really interesting place to visit in the summer.

Foredown Tower is somewhere that I actually hadn’t heard of before. It is a converted water tank that houses the largest camera obscura in South East England. I found the experience truly amazing and would recommend it to anyone looking for something a bit different. It literally gives you a new perspective on the world.

Preston Manor is a manor house decorated in the Edwardian style. As soon as you walk through the door you are transported into another age. Preston Manor is used by many schools as a way of experiencing life as it used to be. One child visitor apparently didn’t believe that they did not have electricity in the old days.

The Booth Museum is slightly out of town but is well worth a visit if you are interested in animals and don’t mind them being stuffed! I met the team behind the scenes who told us all about the processes involved and the care and attention that all the exhibits need.

Hove Museum has a fun Toy section that is interactive that all the young children seem to really enjoy. There is also an exhibit about film, filmmaking and local pioneers of the art form. This is one of my personal favourites and the Tea Room is very popular too.

Brighton Museum is housed in the old stables of the Pavilion. It is full of interesting objects from Egyptian Mummies to fashion, local history and art and furniture. They have an exhibition at the moment about the Land Girls who worked the land during the Second World War and paid an invaluable part in the war effort.

Last but not least in my view is the jewel in the crown The Royal Pavilion. Every time I go there I learn something new and as a cultural apprentice get to see parts that the public don’t see. The servant’s quarters are virtually as they were and there is original wallpaper and gives you a small flavour of life above the Pavilion. Underneath the Pavilion there is a big basement where I was shown the original furnace that used to heat the floor of the Pavilion a very early form of under floor heating.

All in all I have seen some amazing things that have given me a new perspective on the buildings and history of Brighton. Above all I have met some incredibly knowledgeable and dedicated people that look after the whole lot and preserve it for future generations.

Roll on next week!

Zac

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We spent out first week looking around all of the council’s main venues – the Royal Pavilion, Brighton Museum, Hove Museum, The Booth Museum, Preston Manor, West Blatchington Windmill and Foredown Tower and meeting all the staff we could find. After being issued with our keys, door passes, ID and name badge, we were ready to be handed over to the ISO (Information and Security Officers) team where we are to spend the first month of our apprenticeship.

We were shown the fire procedures for the Royal Pavilion and Brighton Museum, all the different patrols and how to get from one end of the Pavilion to the other by Mark, one of the three duty managers. We were then handed over to Vanda and Terry to learn about being an ISO and about the history of the building. We’ve spent much of the second week shadowing various members of the ISO team, learning a lot about the two venues and trying to find the duck in the Music Room of the Pavilion! We’re on our own from next week!

We’ll be spending the next two weeks in the Pavilion and Brighton Museum, before moving between Hove Museum, the Booth Museum and Preston Manor in our forth week.

Cassie

Introductions!

Hi, my name’s Zak Pichon-Flannery, I’m 18 years old and I’ve lived in Brighton for 10 years and love it!

After finishing school at Northease Manor School near Rodmell Village, I have spent the last two years in BIMM (The Brighton Institute of Modern Music) studying level 2 guitar and diploma vocals, with most of my spare time spent being a runner for the studio SMHTP.com.

I love music, especially the melodic side of song writing, and was looking for full time work and found out about the opportunity to be an apprentice for Brighton & Hove Museums for a year though the Connexions service.

What I want to get out of this is to be able to apply the managing, plus all the other valuable skills lent in the museum to any work in the future.

After the apprenticeship I’d like to run my own business, being a entrepreneur, in what? I’m sorting out now.

Really excited about me being here, Cassie and I will be keeping you up to date on our adventures in the world of Brighton & Hove Museums, meeting people and documenting our visits weekly.

Zak

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My name is Cassie Harrison, I’m 19 and accepted this placement after having a year out after completing my A-Levels at Varndean College.
During my time at school, college and throughout my gap-year I have become actively interested in Theatre and have gained practical experience in Stage Management, Production and Technical Theatre amongst other areas.
I hope that completing this apprenticeship will help me extend my knowledge of how cultural venues operate and will provide me with skills to help me further my career into Venue Management.

Zak and I will be working with the Royal Pavilion and Museums for a year. During this time we will gain experience in providing Information and Security, Retail and Catering, Marketing, Facilities Management, Events and Functions as well as other departments.

Cassie