3. A Year in the Life of Elizabeth Gaskell’s House
Posted
21st October 2024
in 10 year Anniversary, blog, Blogs & News, Gaskell House Blogs
Week 3. 14 – 20 October 2024
The week started on Monday with a group who were treated to a private tour by Jennifer, one of our volunteers, followed by tea and cake, served by Ellie and me in one of the many hats we wear. Once the dishwasher was on, I got my head down to work on formatting the bookplates (written by volunteer Jane M) and the report for our 2024 book sponsors. Our 2024 book repair and sponsorship programme includes 12 books and it is good fun pulling together before and after photos, and being reminded about why these books are in our collection. It is surprising, considering we work in a literary House, how little time staff get actually to work with our book collection, so this is a treat. I also sent out invites to all the sponsors inviting them to come in and see their sponsored (and now repaired) books.
An Unusual Visitor
On Tuesday Katy discovered a hedgehog that had fallen through the bars into the recess in front of the basement windows. Lizzie managed to rescue him/her and it was taken by Withington Hedgehog Care Trust, but not before some great photos were shared on social media by Katy. After this (not unwelcome) distraction, Katy led a volunteer working group who are labelling the furniture and ornaments in our collection.
Volunteering and Open Days
After a few challenging weeks we seemed to be back nearly to a full volunteer quota on open days, which was a massive relief for me because I had to bow out due to illness and work at home. Another positive was that we had 10 new enquiries from potential new volunteers waiting in the Inbox over the weekend, so Katy scheduled in several induction sessions so we can get them started as soon as possible.
Wednesdays is also our online events night. This week we had a talk from Charlotte Furness about Unmarried Women – in the context of female writers and their characters. We sold over 150 tickets which was amazing. Full credit to Lynda, our Events Manager, and thanks to our external speaker, plus all the lovely people who join us from across the world and who have helped us to create such an inspirational online community.
It was The Oxford Road Cultural Welcome Week as well this week and we were offering free entry to Manchester students, and a free poetry workshop led by Jo Flynn. We had an decent uptake from students taking advantage of the free entry and feedback was very positive.
Back to the To-Do List
Stuck at home with the lurgy, I spent most of Thursday reading applications for the Young Trustee positions. Along with three of our Trustees we will be short-listing next week. The quality of the applications was very impressive, this is going to be a tough job.
Friday ended up as an admin and planning day for me (Ellie and Lucy were setting up for a wedding), which involved writing the copy for our visitor and volunteers newsletters and for a potential article in a museum publication. I reviewed the contract for our Lone Worker SOS devices (not terribly exciting), updated our activity plan for the 10-year anniversary with a very exciting new project (more news on that in a later blog), joined a very quick Teams meeting about the City Council’s plans for International Women’s Day 2025 and finally signed the forms for the House to join the Bloomberg Connect app in 2025. Lots of very mundane but important things ticked off the list.
House of Love
Once again we had a fully booked weekend with a wedding on Saturday, which had a gorgeous autumnal colour scheme, making the House feel even more lovely and cosy than usual. The sun was shining so the wedding party could enjoy the autumnal colours in the garden as well. The bride and groom were book and history lovers (so we were a perfect choice!) and there is a lovely photo on Instagram of them.
Sunday was very busy with lots of students making the most of the free entry as part of the Cultural Welcome Week, which our volunteers loved. Big thanks to volunteers Lizzie and Beth for staying later that usual, many visitors stayed right till closing as they were enjoying themselves so much.
Sally Jastrzebski-Lloyd
Director
