5. A Year in the Life of Elizabeth Gaskell’s House
Posted
8th November 2024
in 10 year Anniversary, blog, blogsNnews, Gaskell House Blogs
Week 5. 28 October – 10 November 2024
I was on leave last week so this week’s blog is a mash-up of two weeks worth of activity but this week has been particularly busy. The team were kept busy with the second week of half-term activities, and by Sunday we also had the news that we had maintained our Gold standard in the Britain in Bloom awards. Two of our garden volunteers – Jackie and Victoria – attended the event, and one of my first jobs when I was back from leave was writing a news story for the website and congratulating the team. Big thanks to all the volunteer gardeners and to Katy for putting together the portfolio. And special seasonal thanks to all the gardeners for the endless sweeping of leaves at this time of year – a repetitive task that doesn’t get much acknowledgement from visitors (or provide attractive photos for social media), but for which I am incredibly grateful.
Included in the 100+ emails in my post-leave inbox was an email about a bequest we have been left by a Friend and volunteer, who had died in April. We are incredibly grateful and I followed up with thanks and updated some of our Trustees. This also reminded me to check the donations as part of our £10 to celebrate 10-years campaign and it was gratifying to see it off to a positive start both with this bequest and other donations – big and small. I can’t thank all our donors enough.
On Monday 4 November we hosted the HiDDEN Network meeting in the Tea Room at the House and I caught up on the news from other similar venues and museums in the Network. The group are currently looking to appoint a Chair and a plan was discussed for further recruitment. It was also a nice opportunity to update the group on our 10-year anniversary projects and to meet a few new faces. Victoria Baths are part of the HiDDEN Network and later in the week, their new CEO, Anthony, came back to the House for a quick tour and we were able to sit down and talk about the various ways we can support each other going forward.
On Tuesday Katy and I ‘escaped’ to Starbucks for a coffee for a 121 which was a good opportunity to reflect on all the successes of the past year, including our museum accreditation and discuss some of the more recent challenges. Back in the office thoughts turned to Christmas. This included making a plan for getting the Christmas tree and decorations up with some of our volunteers (working around a wedding), Katy taking photos of Christmas stock for social media and the all important what are we going to do for the staff Christmas do?
On Wednesday we started our refresher training on fire procedures and agreements with the volunteer team during the morning briefing. Katy had updated the procedures document and we needed to read through it all and get the volunteers to resign the paperwork. This is something we will be doing with volunteers throughout the month on each of our open days and will be combining it with a few fire drills to make sure everyone is ‘refreshed’ on what to do.
In the afternoon of the 6th we hosted a small 90th birthday tea party for Janet Allan, President of the Trust and also the woman who led the campaign to save the House. Lesley (one of our Trustees) had organised a lovely cake (made by an ex-volunteer) whilst Lucy and I set the table and laid out the food. It was a lovely afternoon and everyone seemed to have a good time including the birthday girl. I managed to join them towards the end for a few sandwiches and a cup of tea! (photos below). And then, (as if to prove we never have a normal day) one of our visitors nearly collapsed and we had to call an ambulance and keep him comfortable until paramedics could come. By the time he left us, an hour or so later, he did seem a lot better and he called us the day after to let us know he was ok. I must admit we were all more than ready to leave the House at the end of the day!
Thursday was a lot quieter visitor-wise, but staff were kept very busy behind the scene on till/retail updates, annual reports on our wedding successes, proofing the Friends newsletter, and trying to get volunteers recruited to help with upcoming school visits.
Jane (one of the volunteers) chatted to the team about the books that have been repaired and to show them where they were located. The week I was away Jane and Diana had given a Zoom talk to their fellow volunteers about all the books that we had repaired as part of our 2024 book sponsorship programme. I haven’t had a chance to watch the recording yet (its on the list) but I’ve heard very good things about it! Jane and Diana also wrote a blog about the repairs which I put live on Thursday. I’m already looking forward to seeing what could go on the repair list for next year.
I finally had the chance to pick up the latest Gaskell Society Journal that had been sat on my desk since Monday and was pleased to see an article I had written back in the summer about the 10-year anniversary. Alex (our Chair) and I also interviewed our first candidate for the Young Trustee roles on Thursday and the rest will be interviewed next week. Thursday finished late for me as we have just signed up to join the Bloomberg Connects app (hopefully to launch spring 2025) and the only meeting I could fit in was one at 7pm. It was great to meet some of the museums also looking to join the app and to hear about the process.
On Friday I met on Zoom with our Chair and Treasurer to discuss the new budget for the year and wrote another article about the 10-year anniversary I had promised to a publication. I also posted some updates on LinkedIn to thank our Trustees (past and present) as part of #TrusteeWeek and listened back to this week’s amazing online talk Happy Birthday North and South with Sandy Welch. Lots of our volunteers (and the social media comments) had told me how good it was and I wasn’t disappointed. Full praise to Lynda for her programming and to all our speakers – we had sold 186 tickets which was incredible!
