29. A Year in the Life of Elizabeth Gaskell’s House
Posted
9th May 2025
in 10 year Anniversary, blog, Blogs & News, Gaskell House Blogs
5 – 9 May 2025
A shorter week with the bank holiday but not short on activity and news.
The week started very well with a large private tour for an arts society group from mid-Wales which went down a treat with volunteers and visitors. We had a slight emergency finding a keyholder to lock-up but all was resolved. Being a hyper-small staff team means that when one of us has an emergency (or is ill) we often have to ask volunteers to step in at last minute. Thank you Lesley for doing so, and thank goodness for Whats App groups!
I started the week with the very welcome news about a successful funding application to deliver workshops for families over the summer holidays. (Hurrah) I also received the first drafts of the idea for the writers in residence exhibition and shared with the project steering group. Everyone likes the idea and it’s given us a clear steer on the style for the rest.
On Wednesday we welcomed Gaby, our new Hires and Events Manager, to the team and started the sometimes onerous process of induction, going through all our many processes and training. Going through the different keys is always a interesting one for new starters. One of our keys looks like a castle turret to me and I remember an ex-member of staff calling it the ‘Harry Potter’ key as a way to remember what it opens. Its funny how quickly you know exactly which key is for what and I hope Gaby finds that too and comes up with her own way of remembering.
Our open days mid week were once again very low on actual visitors, although we were awash with volunteers – which is one of those ironies of working in a small museum. On a positive this gave time to catalogue books (we had a another two boxes of very interesting books for our collection from one of our big supporters in the USA) and Gaby had chance to chat to and meet the volunteers.
On Thursday evening we held a lovely event at the House to say thank you to some of our donors who have supported us over the years. We started the evening with performances from young musicians from Olympias Music Foundation, then had readings from Sarah Elizabeth’s great, great, great granddaughter and Eleanor, her great, great, great, great granddaughter (which was truly magical) and a fascinating talk from the journalist, writer and committed northerner, Brian Groom. Alex, our chair, also spoke and I gave a very quick welcome and showed a video message from Dame Judi Dench (our patron) to congratulate us on our 10 year anniversary.
I thoroughly enjoyed the evening – highlights included seeing the actual cameo brooch that Elizabeth warns Marianne not to lose in a letter from April 1851 and chatting to the parents of the young musicians. Big thanks to all our team of staff and volunteers who helped and the trustee’s who attended and helped out welcoming visitors, clearing glasses and general set-up. It was a big team effort of which we should all be very proud.
In other news this week, I met with a digital tech champion from Arts Council to discuss the merits and spoils of the ever evolving social media landscape to try and work out which channels we can feasible make work better and which we need to leave on ice. We don’t have anyone specific person doing our social media and its getting harder to keep up with the changing trends and demands. The online session was very practical and I took away lots of ideas to share with the team – including getting a new strategy and plan down on paper once and for all!
So today (Friday) as the sun shines outside I’m catching up on the many emails in my inbox (and send out thank you to everyone for the event) ; finishing and sending reports for next week’s board meeting; setting up (& cancelling) meetings; redrafting copy for the new exhibition (two weeks till deadline!!) and trying not to get distracted by the work of our writers in residence as I chose which pieces to put where in the exhibition.
Sally Jastrzebski-Lloyd
Thanks also to Sarah for topping up the volunteer biscuit supplies!
