10. A Year in the Life of Elizabeth Gaskell’s House
Posted
13th December 2024
in 10 year Anniversary, blog, blogsNnews
Week 10. 9 – 13 December 2024
I started the week with a staff appraisal and catch-up over coffee. We also used the opportunity to discuss ideas for Christmas 2025 and discussed lots of the great things we’d seen at other historic houses. (copying is the greatest form of flattery I’ve been told!). It was really good to get out of the office and to take time to do some thinking.
On Tuesday I took a very deep dive into our visitor data again – this time looking at the visitor feedback surveys. The importance of this data is far reaching- it feeds into planning, identifies training needs for volunteers and staff, and most importantly can help the organisation (me) make a case to funders or our Board that we need to do ‘something’. The ‘something’ could be a new exhibition, ways to improve the visitor experience or ways we could improve the Tea Room.
Midway through the day, I took a break from spreadsheets and data to look at some photos that one of our garden volunteers, Chris, sent me. His phone had flagged up that it was 10 years ago this week that the pergola was being finished off . This was a good excuse for a social media posting – thanks Chris.
And then I got completely distracted by an email from AIM (Association of Independent Museums) with a copy of the Dec Bulletin that featured the article I’d written for them about the 10-year anniversary and the support that we have had via our AIM membership over the last 10 years. Completely unexpectedly we also got the cover story and photo so I was doubly pleased. I sent off a few emails to Trustees (and fellow museums pals) and posted on LinkedIn to share the news. Thanks Jane (one of our Trustees and super-volunteer) for being a cover star and for posing for more photos on Wednesday.
This week we said goodbye and good luck to Allen, a garden volunteer, who has been volunteering with us for the last 8 years. We wished him the very best in his new adventure in Scotland. Thank you Allen!
There’s been lots of report writing and data diving this week throughout the team. Katy made start on extrapolating the data from our annual volunteer survey and started pulling together a list of key volunteering related achievements that can be shared in the new year. Lucy has been working on a report and plan for how we can develop the room hire offer at the House in 2025, so was looking back at the feedback forms from bookings. Ellie was looking at our Friends membership numbers and renewals, and together with Jane, one of our Trustees, she set up the Friends Christmas email that will be sent out next week.
Front of house-wise Wednesdays and Thursday were both pretty dire in terms of visitor numbers, although the few visitors we did welcome through the doors still had a lovely visit and we were able to continue training some newer volunteers. Katy and I discussed the retail sales for Nov/Dec and the items that have worked and the ones that haven’t! (We need to keep a list for next year.) I agreed a ‘deep clean’ plan with our cleaner for next week and agreed on some DIY jobs that will be done by volunteers Adam and Frank over the Christmas period. (Massive thanks in advance to them all).
On Thursday morning I met with Kate, who will be doing the evaluation for our National Lottery Heritage funded Writers Residency project starting in January to outline the plan of action. Kate has carried out the evaluation for the House on two previous projects so it was great to catch-up. In the afternoon I joined my very first ‘Homes and Birthplace Museums’ meeting on Zoom. It was nice to meet new museum people from across the UK and to hear a presentation from Lizzie at Jane Austen’s House.
Thursday evening was our Volunteer Christmas party – a festive fun few hours with delicious food (Thank you Liz), drinks (Thanks Lucy and Ellie) and a pitch-perfect quiz (Thank you Katy). The winning quiz team get to hold the Charles Dickens Trophy for a photo and to bask in the glory of their quiz mastery! Thank you to all those volunteers and trustees who joined us – I hope everyone enjoyed themselves. We have just one more open day (Sunday 15th) before we close the House for Christmas.
Friday, I worked from home getting through lots of small admin jobs; continuing to work on the audience development plan (it’s big), finishing off updating our asset register, tweaking some of the questions in the 2025 visitor survey and trying to sort out why the lone-worker SOS devices aren’t working.
Sally Jastrzebski-Lloyd
