6. A Year in the Life of Elizabeth Gaskell’s House

Posted
15th November 2024
in 10 year Anniversary, blog, blogsNnews

Week 6. 10 -15 November 2024

Sunday was our regular second-hand book sale so it was lovely and busy, both with visitors and volunteers. There was also A LOT of new stock to sort through and price (thank you Mike and Liz). We also welcomed Shalini and Matt to see the book they had sponsored to get repaired this year as part of our annual book sponsorship scheme. Shalini and Matt had got married at the House so it was particularly lovely to see them again and to thank them for their continued support. There’s also a new blog due imminently from Diana about the book repairs so do look out for that.

On Monday and Tuesday morning this week we had two visits from Coop Academy Medlock, a local primary school, who brought two Year 1 classes to the House. Two volunteers lead on the sessions and in two hours they give the children a tour of the House, got them handling various Victorian household objects and finished by making a thaumatrope, a Victorian toy for them to take away. They shared a social media post showing it all in action!

On Monday afternoon I joined fellow museum professionals online for AIM’s* Spark Leadership Programme I’m currently doing. Leading and managing a small museum/organisation can be incredibly isolating and it is so reassuring and helpful to be able to talk to, share thoughts and discuss things with others in similar situations via this programme.

There was a noticeable drop in visitor numbers this week, but the volunteers remained in good spirits and we got them helping with cutting out craft materials for next week’s school visit. We are lucky that despite being a 200 year old building our heating system is fairly new and efficient. The Tea Room certainly gets very cosy in the winter and you do notice that visitors like to linger longer over their cups of tea and crumpets.

On Wednesday and Thursday, myself and the Chair, Alex, continued interviewing for the Young Trustee roles. Then on Friday morning we had a timely catch-up with Kids in Museums and other museums taking part in similar initiatives via Zoom to discuss the process so far and how things were going. I look forward to sharing news very soon on this. On Thursday afternoon I also met with three of our Trustees via Zoom for our Fundraising Working Group meeting to discuss how the 10-year fundraising campaign is going (its had a good start!) and what we need to do next, including looking at a potential event next year for donors and Friends.

Throughout the week I’ve also been working on a new project we are due to announce next week – which included meeting with our PR company, Fido PR and confirming various bits of paperwork and plans. Apologies for being vague on this, but we will do the big reveal next week.

I finished the week sending off another article/blog about the 10-year anniversary to Manchester Histories, writing a Board report for the trading company meeting next week, and working with our Treasurer on the new budget (our financial year runs Nov-Oct) and ironing out a few end of year queries.

Also worth noting that we did get slightly excited on Thursday to see a Threads social media post from Richard Armitage about the 20th anniversary of North and South. (Thanks Diana for spotting this and if you are on Threads do follow-us!)

And speaking of social media – Lucy and Ellie have been working on some really lovely social media posts sharing photos from the weddings we’ve hosted this year – including our 100th wedding which we held in June and the one below. As I write this they are both setting up the House for our penultimate wedding of 2024.