4 years of Rural Reads
Our July meeting marked the fourth anniversary of the Rural Reads book club. For four years we have been reading books with a rural theme or setting that have spanned countries and historic periods, covering farming practices, rural lives and countryside themes. The rural theme has not been at all restrictive and the books we have […]
Inspiring Creativity with Objects: Collections-based activities for families
During her time at MERL as Public Programmes Manager, covering maternity leave, Phillippa Heath has introduced some some great new workshops enabling families to get closer to our collections. In this post, Phillippa looks at how the positive reaction to the new sessions will influence our future planning for families… Whenever we plan a family […]
Rural Reads review #7: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Written by Rob Davies, Volunteer Coordinator. For the warm, sun-filled month of June we read Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, a quintessentially English book and author. We decided to read it because we realised that in the four years of our book group we had not read a single Jane Austen novel, so we thought […]
Our Country Lives update: Volunteering opportunities
Written by Adam Koszary, Project Officer for Our Country Lives. Since last week was National Volunteering Week, I thought it would be worth dwelling on the volunteering opportunities for this week’s update. Volunteers play a massive part in the operation of MERL, from staffing events to carrying out vital work on the conservation of objects, […]
Volunteers' Voice #13: Volunteers' Week 2014
Written by Rob Davies, Volunteer Coordinator. This week is the time of the year we stop to think about and celebrate volunteering across the country, whether you are a volunteer yourself, an organisation who works with them, or indeed is entirely run by volunteers, this is the week in which we say thank you on […]
Volunteers' Voice #12: A tale of rural protest in Berkshire
Written by Kaye Gough, Volunteer. Well, we did it! After months of discussions and script conferences; research teams trawling through local archives; rehearsals, sourcing costumes and music, the MERL Players presented two performances of our tableau Performing Protest: Riots against technological change in the 19th Century to full houses at the Museum on Saturday 22nd […]
Rural Reads review #6: Harvest by Jim Crace
by Rob Davies, Volunteer Coordinator and Rural Reads regular. In April, members of Rural Reads read Harvest by Jim Crace – you can already guess the rural connection. Harvest was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2013 and had rave reviews, the quotes on the back of the book give it high praise. “One of his […]
Please touch: Future handling collection at MERL
written by Adam Koszary, Project Officer. One of the biggest complaints levelled at museums is that visitors cannot touch anything. Objects are put tantalisingly out of reach behind thin Perspex and glass, or an arms-length behind a velvet rope. It is annoying because objects are almost always meant to be touched, and especially so in […]
Volunteers Voice #11: Reviewing your volunteer programme
Written by Rob Davies, Volunteer Co-ordinator. As in all aspects of an organisation, it is always a useful exercise to review your volunteer programme. This isn’t a review of the volunteers themselves but an overall review of the entire programme. A review enables you to take a step back from your day to day work, […]
MERL on Twitter #2: #MuseumWeek & beyond
The dust has settled and I’ve just about managed to catch up on the work that was sidelined as I spent #museumweek glued to Twitter! It seems to have been a hugely successful initiative according to @TwitterUk themselves in their summary, and I thoroughly enjoyed the chance to try out some new ideas. Coverage was […]