Student Spotlight #4: Joseph Arch hand casts
Maria Rabbani is a 2nd year Archaeology student at the University of Reading. The objects which I have chosen are the white plaster casts of Joseph Arch’s right and left hand. The length of the casts is 18cm and their breadth (across the knuckles) is 12cm. His hands look small and delicate, which may be […]
MERL Village Fete: MERL Toddlers take the biscuit!
This is the first of a series of posts from the Village Fete team on the run-up to this year’s event, by Alison Hilton, MERL Marketing Officer. Preparations for the 2014 MERL Village Fete are well underway and it’s exciting to be able to start sharing some of the new features of the event, which […]
Rural Reads review #5: The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier
Written by Adam Koszary, Project Officer. We had to take February off for Rural Reads this year, which allowed us plenty of time to stew on our latest book: The Last Runaway. Its author, Tracy Chevalier, is probably better known for her other historical novel Girl with a Pearl Earring, since adapted into a movie. Set in the […]
Guest post: Our Country Lives project goes global with a ‘Stitch in Time’
MERL Fellow, Dr Jane McCutchan has written a guest post about her project with ‘Permeate’ trainee, Genell Watson, to encourage more visitors to MERL by local people with a BAME background Local community and wider audiences are at the heart of our re-display and there are many chances to influence how we explore English rural […]
MERL on Twitter: from dabbling to #MuseumWeek
Alison Hilton, MERL Marketing Officer, looks back at 5 years of MERL on Twitter and forward to an exciting @TwitterUK campaign I have been tweeting for MERL since 2009. I signed up following a training course in which I was introduced to the wonders of social media (Back in the day before I was even […]
Volunteers' Voice #10: Performing Protest: Riots against technological change in the 19th Century
written by Rob Davies, Volunteer Co-ordinator On Saturday 22nd of this month a team of my volunteers are delivering Performing Protest: riots against technological change in the 19th Century. It is a performance-based event about the Swing Riots in Berkshire, which occurred in 1830-31. The event is part of Reading Science Week, in turn part […]
Keep up! Stakeholder consultation on MERL's Our Country Lives project
MERL Curator of Collections and Engagement, Isabel Hughes, brings us up to date with progress on the Our Country Lives project Our project plans are developing quite quickly now and one of the challenges is to keep all our various stakeholders informed including our volunteers, neighbours and other interested parties in the University. Last week […]
Volunteers' Voice #9 – Planning ahead
Volunteer Coordinator, Rob Davies, shares some tips for planning a volunteer programme… At the beginning of each year I sit down and think about what the New Year will hold for the volunteer programme and the volunteers. I make three lists: Beyond my wildest dreams Let’s be realistic here What can the volunteer programme do […]
Rural Reads Review #4 – Lorna Doone by R.D.Blackmore
Written by Rob Davies, Volunteer Co-Ordinator For the dark winter months of December and January the MERL Book Group ‘Rural Reads’ read Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor by R.D. Blackmore. Lorna Doone is the perfect ‘rural read’, as living and working in the countryside is intrinsic to the story and is integral to the […]
Volunteers Voice #8: Plot plans for 2014
Our two gardening volunteers, Tony and Roger, spent the last year transforming our plots into bee friendly areas, designed to encourage bees into our garden and to show visitors how easy it is to support them. Tony and Roger have kindly written a post for us about what they have in store for 2014… Following […]