38. A Year in the Life of Elizabeth Gaskell’s House
Posted
18th July 2025
in 10 year Anniversary, blog, Blogs & News, Gaskell House Blogs
14 -18 July 2025
As the weeks continue to tumble into July all focus is on the impending summer holidays and our family workshops during August.
The 2500 leaflets came back from the printers and we sent out 500 to each of our local schools (Co-op Academy Medlock, St Chrysostom’s and St John’s) to give out to pupils before the end of term. Thank you to Yasmin for taking me to Medlock and to Simon for taking them to the other schools. (it’s very handy having a cleaner who also works at the local schools!). Staff and volunteers also took leaflets to their local libraries and we sent out a press release to regional news platforms. Gaby will be doing some local leaflet drops next week!
Worth noting that despite this all sounding very lovely and straightforward, there have been a few issues to deal with this week – so it hasn’t all run smoothly, including the fact that some of the leaflets had been damaged in transit and couldn’t be used (not the fault of the printers I might add) so we had to raise it, organise a credit note etc. etc.. There’s also been a few other things to sort with the workshops which has taken up more time that we expected, but hopefully we are nearly there.
On Monday, Lynda, our Events Manager, and I met up for a much needed catch-up and coffee (outside the office) to plan for next year and to discuss all sorts of upcoming things. It was really useful and I came away excited about the ‘what’s next’.
On Tuesday we hosted a small private tour for 16 people – thanks Katy and the volunteers – whilst I trudged through admin and chased up maintenance suppliers – AGAIN! Finally had some luck on Wednesday and managed to get one of our now defunct analogue critical care phone lines disconnected by BT, it’s only taken 2 weeks to speak to someone! There’s still guttering to book in and the lifts to sort, but at least that’s one thing off the list. (I appreciate this is incredibly boring and mundane, but this is what directors/managers of small museums have to do all the time.)
Our final social media post from freelancer Libby Williamson went out on Wednesday as part of the writers residency project, which made me smile big time. I continue to get massive amount of joy from this project and these incredible writers.
Wednesday and Thursday were average in terms of visitors, steady all day. We were a little short of volunteers on Wednesday so I did a brief stint in the Tea Room – making tea and crumpets. I wasn’t much help to the team practically on Thursday as I had meetings for most of the day, first over at Victoria Baths, having a catch-up with my counterparts Anthony from Victoria Baths and Gail from the Pankhurst Centre; and then at the RNCM for the Oxford Corridor Culture on the Corridor meeting at the end of the day.
Coincidentally I also spotted that one of Princess’s poems has been published on the inside cover of the summer edition of the Oxford Road Zine.
Gaby and I finished Thursday at the launch of the ‘Cat that slept for 1000 years’ at Manchester Museum (photo below). It was really good to catch-up with lots of different people, enjoy the wine and canapes, and to witness the giant inflatable cat. (The cat related merch in the gift shop was impressive) I do need to go back and take my own children over the summer.
We’ve a wedding on Saturday so Friday was set-up for Gaby and Ellie, whilst I worked from home scoping some more grant opportunities, caught up with various people about the writers residency next steps, and tried to sort a few other things for summer.
Sally Jastrzebski-Lloyd
