National Museum Wales Volunteer Newsletter
takepart Spring 2019
On the cover GRAFT Volunteers – page 4
Behind the Scenes Building a Bronze Age Barrow – page 6
Introduction Croeso! Welcome! We would like to kick off 2019 with a big thank you to all our volunteers for all your hard work over the last year. This edition of our Take Part newsletter reflects on some of the great volunteering that has been taking place across Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales in the last year. Our Feature story is about GRAFT, and the Volunteers who’ve been busy transforming green space at the National Waterfront Museum. GRAFT is a socially engaged art project that is designed to be an edible and educational resource for the Museum and a permanent piece of green infrastructure in Swansea City Centre. The garden is well worth the visit if you should find yourself at the National Waterfront Museum! There will also be some highlights from St Fagans National Museum of History, National Museum Cardiff, National Wool Museum, National Roman Legion Museum and the National Slate Museum.
Ann Saer In August it was with great sadness that we heard of the passing away of one of our longest serving volunteers, Ann Saer. Ann made a huge contribution to the Museum in many ways including her work as a member of the Friends of National Museum Wales Committee and as a volunteer. As a dedicated tour guide, Ann always delighted visitors and staff with her vast knowledge, enthusiasm and undeniable love for the Museum and its collections. Ann was modest and always had time for others, approached everything with positivity and was a constant support to staff, volunteers and friends alike. Ann is very much missed.
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Contents Feature story 4
GRAFT: A soil based syllabus
Collections feature 6
Building a Bronze Age Barrow
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St Fagans Book Project Underway!
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Meet the Staff – Kate Evans
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Meet the Volunteer – Sophie Leader
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10 Yeas of Taking Part
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Volunteers in Action
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News and Updates
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Contributions by: Anca Polgar, GRAFT Volunteer Hywel Couch, Senior Learning, Participation & Interpretation Officer Ruth Tooker, Book Project Volunteer Sophie Leader, Historic Photographs Volunteer Kate Evans, Administrative Officer and Learning Support Officer
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Edited by Haf Neale, Volunteer Coordinator If you have any queries please contact the Volunteering Department on volunteering@musuemwales.ac.uk
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Feature Story
GRAFT: A soil based syllabus By Anca Polgar, Volunteer, National Waterfront Museum GRAFT itself, is a story, about beauty, about enhancing the charm of Swansea, about connections through team work and friendship, about giving with a happy heart, not for a moment or a season, but creating a legacy for the community. The idea of GRAFT has caught my interest from our first meeting, when it was presented to us. As a biologist and passionate gardening lover, I found the image of a community garden, created in an artistic way and linked to the celebration of the WWI centenary, very appealing. The project developed beautifully, beginning in winter, when we turned our pretty orange shipping container into our cosy gathering place, kitchen and shed. I was very happy to learn some new skills while preparing and building the beds for the garden. It was also the time when we got to know each other as a team.
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Moving on into the spring, as we started to sow and plant in the beds, with smiling faces and eyes sparkling with the excitement of what was ahead of us, we were planting the seeds of friendship and team spirit. It was such a joy to see the beauty of what our garden became in summer, lovely shaped, blooming in so many colours, wrapping us in enchanting scents, but also feeding people in need and giving anyone who wanted to join or just visit, a relaxing place to spend their time in.
The autumn brought the happiness of the harvest, pride for what we've accomplished and of course, the wonderful show by Now The Hero, which was such a pleasure to attend. I have enjoyed every bit of this project, our great team, working and having lunch together and cooking our big pumpkin soup for the people attending the show. We had amazing leaders, who worked with us, took care of us, taught us so many things
and made sure we had a good time. It was great to work with Cae Tân, learn from them and visit their site in Gower. I feel honoured to have met everyone, this team made GRAFT such a source of positive energy! The story of GRAFT is trimmed with pieces of our hearts and decorated with smiles and laughter.
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Behind the Scenes
Building a Bronze Age Barrow By Hywel Couch, Senior Learning, Participation & Interpretation Officer, St Fagans National Museum of History If you take a walk to Cilewent Farmhouse at St Fagans National History Museum you may notice a new structure in the garden. As part of the Making History Project we have built a recreation of a Bronze Age Barrow.
cremation. Our barrow also covers cremated remains – a pig – and also a host of grave goods including bronze daggers, pottery, arrowhead, and beads. We plan to leave the barrow in situ for a few years before excavating to find out what has happened to the grave goods.
Barrows are a type of burial monument built all over Britain around 4,000 years ago. Like many of the originals, our barrow has been built using turf and is circular in shape. Although some barrows were over 20m in diameter, ours is a more modest 1.5m in diameter. Barrows were built to house the remains of the dead – often after a
Pupils working towards their Duke of Edinburgh Award from Ysgol Plasmawr helped shape the plans for the day of the build and thanks to their help – as well as help from Amgueddfa Cymru National Museum Wales staff and volunteers - we were able to complete the whole build in a day. A huge thank you to everyone for all their help!
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Behind the Scenes St. Fagans’ Book Project is Underway! By Ruth Tooker, Book Project Volunteer, St Fagans National Museum of History Have you ever purchased a new book simply because the book jacket was so enticing, but have yet to read said book? Guilty! Is there a stack of beautiful books on your nightstand collecting dust? Guilty! Is it simply time to de-clutter and start the Spring cleaning? Indeed! Or, are you a bibliophile and love a good deal? You’re in luck. The Book Project at St Fagans is underway and ready to take those treasured books off your hand, or sell you a gently used tome from our new shelves located in the St Fagans Café. The newly formed Book Project is raising funds that will contribute to Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales and its work, to ensure that the quality of Wales’s national collections is maintained and treasured for future generations to enjoy.
at the St Fagans Museum. Equally, if you’d love to contribute to the campaign, please enjoy the wonderful selection we have received so far including classics, best-sellers, autobiographies, books on cookery, hobbies, travel, and more. The book project is donation based with a collection box next to the shelves. Our newly formed volunteer team is small and meets every few weeks to sort and restock, so if the shelves look a little sparse on your visit, check back as we are constantly receiving and restocking. If you have experience in this sort of committee we welcome your suggestions, please reach out to volunteering@museumwales.ac.uk, and someone will put you in touch with the book project volunteer team. Diolch and Happy Reading!
This is where you come in… if you’d like to donate gently used books, simply drop them off at the reception
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Evans l Museum aff: Kate Meet the erSt and Learning Support Officer, National Woo Administrative Offic
Can you tell me a bit about your work with volunteers at the National Wool Museum? We have been celebrating Visit Wales’ Year of the Sea with volunteers capturing the spirit of the sea in the form of a magnificent knitted sea grotto. Volunteers have been busy knitting, crocheting and spinning wonderful sea creations. They have also contributed to knitted Curtain of Poppies which is part of the Wonderwool Wales Centenary Textiles Project to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War. This year the Museum also hosted its first Community Get Together in partnership with Volunteering Matters Cymru and Carmarthenshire Association of Voluntary Services. Most recently we worked in partnership with the volunteers to hold a Speed Crafting event in which volunteers offered 3 different taster craft workshops for participants throughout the day. These ranged from spinning and plying; hooking fleece, eco printing, knitting to wet felting. Visitors also had the chance to learn all about the natural dye garden.
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Can you tell me a bit about the impact that volunteers have on the Museum/visitors? The volunteers meet regularly at the Museum so it is an excellent opportunity to introduce visitors to new crafts and to chat to them, whether that be through meeting the gardeners tending to the natural dye garden or the knitters, spinners and rag ruggers busy crafting. The groups offer opportunities for local people to get involved and they contribute to a wide variety of events and workshops with visitors, schools and community groups. What do you get out of working with volunteers and what does volunteering mean to you? It is a privilege to work with inspirational volunteers and their enthusiasm and passion for their crafts and the Museum is fantastic! It is great to learn from them and the Museum is a much richer place due to their dedication and commitment.
Meet the Volunteers: Sophie Leader Historic Photographs Volunteer, National Museum Cardiff Hi, I'm Sophie and I work at the National Museum Cardiff. Back in May there was a historic photographs project in the National Museum Cardiff library. I volunteered creating a small exhibition about the project to coincide with Volunteers’ Week. For the exhibition I created a timeline of the main events during the construction of the building which was very interesting. I also recreated some of the historic photographs of the galleries in order to show them side by side. In order to highlight the work of the volunteers on the
project, I made sure to include some of the favourite photographs that they had recorded. This exhibition was put on display in the Clore Discovery Centre. I also created a historic photographs trail that members of the public could pick up from the Clore Discovery Centre during Volunteers’ Week. The trail included historic photographs of areas in the building and the participant had to identify where the photograph was taken. It also included a few fun facts about the building. This project was a really lovely way for me to learn about the history of the building that I work in and an amazing thing that I can say that I have done.
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10 Years of Taking Part This year marks 10 years of the Volunteering Programme! From Volunteers Week onward we hope to showcase the amazing contribution of volunteers to Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales. We hope to do this through a physical and digital pop-up exhibition, a series of blogs and host some events and activities for volunteers. Throughout
this year we’d like to encourage volunteers to share their volunteering stories, which we welcome in all mediums, whether it’s photographs, in writing, in person or over the phone. We’d also like to welcome volunteers to write articles about projects and activities they are take part in. If you’d like to contribute please get in touch with a member of the Volunteering Team by calling 029 2057 3002 or e-mailing volunteering@museumwales.ac.uk.
Thank you for 2018! In 2018 1,042 Volunteers generously contributed 27,240 hours at all Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales museums in a diverse range of ways and here are just a few highlights from 2018: • Explore volunteers at National Museum Cardiff spent 1,190 hours helping our visitors interact with the Science and Art collection. • Volunteers at the National Slate Museum have spent 900 hours making tapestries for Llys Llywellyn in St Fagans.
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• Craft volunteers at The National Wool Museum have spent 5,052 hours demonstrating traditional skills and craft for visitors. • Volunteers at Big Pit spent 81 hours supporting the Intergenerational Forum. • Historic Interiors volunteers at St Fagans National Museum of History spent 285 hours helping to conserve objects in our historic buildings. • Gardening volunteers at the National Roman Legion Museum have spent 51 hours maintaining the Roman Garden whilst the Museum is closed for major roof renovation.
By Haf Neale, Volunteer Coordinator, National Museum Wales
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Volunteers in Action
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1. Zoology volunteers 2. Craft Club making bunting 3. Roman Gardening at the National Roman Legion Museum 4. Volunteers at the Winter Party 5. Historic Interiors volunteer conservation cleaning
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News and updates • Dippy, the Natural History Museum's iconic Diplodocus cast, is going on a natural history adventure across the UK, and in October Dippy will arrive at National Museum Cardiff! We’ll need volunteers to help so keep your eyes peeled for up and coming opportunities to take part! • 1st to the 7th of June is Volunteers Week. Volunteers’ Week is a UK wide time to say thank you for the fantastic contribution volunteers make. We’ll be arranging various different activities to take part across Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales. • Don’t forget if you are 14-25 years old and want to have more of a say and be involved in projects across the museum you can join a youth forum today! Email youth.forum@museumwales.ac.uk for more information.
If you have an interest in volunteering with Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales have a look on our website or contact our Volunteering Team to find out about availability and new opportunities. We openly advertise all our volunteer roles to make it as fair as possible. If you have any questions about anything featured in this newsletter please contact the volunteering team on volunteering@museumwales.ac.uk or 029 2057 3002 Follow us on
b @amgueddfavols
W www.facebook.com/amgueddfavols for all the latest news, updates and opportunities.
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