15. A Year in the Life of Elizabeth Gaskell’s House
Posted
24th January 2025
in 10 year Anniversary, blog, blogsNnews, Gaskell House Blogs
20 – 24 January 2025
So called #bluemonday wasn’t so blue when I discovered that it had been a very busy Sunday visitor wise. Hurrah! a positive start to the week. Added to this some new shop merchandise we had been waiting for had finally been delivered (following a protracted and unnecessary saga with Royal Mail) and there was general enthusiasm and hope in the office that the mornings and nights are getting a tiny bit lighter every day!
I started the week catching up with marketing including newsletter content and social media. I spent some time reviewing what’s working (and what’s not) and seeing what others are doing. I also needed to make some updates to our website and partner websites that had been noted the previous week.
In the House, our conservation cleaning team of volunteers gathered for the first cleaning session of the year. The group included two students on a placement from the University of Manchester who were specifically looking at pest (bugs) and infestiation monitoring and management. Aside from cleaning we also had several chairs that needed glueing together and curtains that needed re-hanging. Thank you to all those volunteers who came in to help.
Visit Manchester shared a case study this week that highlights what we do in terms of environmental sustainability at Elizabeth Gaskell’s House which you can read here. It is nice to get recognition and it was a useful reminder to give ourselves a pat on the back once in while.
Ellie and I officially started working on adding Elizabeth Gaskell’s House to the Bloomberg Connect App on Monday, (we plan to go live with in April). We had our first meeting on Monday and CMS (content management system) training on Tuesday. On Friday we agreed a plan for the content and spent a few hours starting to get images and content uploaded. The app won’t replace our guidebook (or our amazing volunteers) – it will just provide another layer of information, audio, and visual information for different and new audiences (including in 50 different languages) and is accessible from anywhere. It will be a lot of work but it is really exciting and opens up lots of opportunities and ideas to develop our visitor offer at the House. Click here to download the app and find out more.
Wednesday and Thursday were fairly quite on the visitor front but we got on with some more training for new volunteers and Katy held an induction session on Thursday with student placement from Pinc College. I was in back-to-back meetings (again) on Wednesday starting with an online workshop for a new AIM grant, then a meeting with Fido PR about the writers residency and finishing by being interviewed by one of our volunteers, Rosie, for her dissertation. Lynda was in the office this week sorting out the craft activity for February half term and took lots of photos for social to promote our valentine themed event. Lynda and Ellie also filmed one of the volunteers talking about their favourite object for a series we are going to be rolling out on social media soon.
On Thursday, Lucy and Katy finalised details for the volunteer party which included organising lift sharing between volunteers. (It was noted just how lovely and kind our volunteers are to do this!) and it was also very nice to overhear the volunteers (new and longstanding) working together on new bookplates and ideas for future blogs and talks. Lucy and I squeezed in a meeting about the pricing and processes for hiring the various spaces at the House, together with a plan to improve the content on the website. Looking forward to seeing this rolled out over the next few months. Linked to this Katy reviewed all the pricing in the Tea Room following price increases on tea, coffee, cake and other food we sell. The result being that our Tea Room prices will be going up (slightly) from February.
Before heading in the board meeting in the evening (online) I pressed ‘send’ on a fundraising email that I’d been working on with some of our trustees. It is worth noting that Elizabeth Gaskell’s House gets no regular funding from the council or government and, like so many cultural organisations, we are feeling the pressure in terms of rising costs (something that was also discussed in great length at our board meeting ). Despite our team’s incredible efforts, keeping Elizabeth Gaskell’s House open to the public remains a real financial challenge. For example, it costs £14,000 a month to run the museum and our annual insurance cost is a whooping £12,000 a year (and likely to increase). This year we launched our ‘£10 to celebrate 10 Years’ fundraising campaign and we also have a few other initiatives and events that we will be announcing over the coming months to help us raise donations.
Friday morning brought some positive news that the fundraising email we sent out prompted lots of people to make a donation to the House and to sign up for our friends membership sign-ups (THANK YOU!).
We had hoped to be welcoming a group of staff and volunteers from the Bronte Parsonage Museum to the House on Friday afternoon for a private tour but sadly the high winds (and accompanying weather warning) has postponed their visit to a later date. Lynda and I are planning to visit to the Parsonage next Friday so fingers crossed for better weather next week.
I finished the week by reading Lucy’s latest wedding blog which is celebrates the DIY and personal touches that make each and every weddings we host unique! (The Lego one is my favourite!)
Sally Jastrzebski-Lloyd

