Museums at Night 2013 has begun!

After long anticipation Museums at Night has finally arrived! We are very excited to see some amazing pictures coming through on Twitter from people getting involved in events, exhibitions and performances across the UK.

Fantastic Owls at last nights Museums at Night event #MatN2013 Thank you to all who braved the weather! (c) Oxford Museum

Our own reporters have been racing across the country. Rosie Clarke spent last night in Lancashire, singing along with Susan Forsyth’s  Zusammen Choir while Amy Strike spent her Thursday night detecting bats at Hatchlands Park. Ben Miller, Nick Stockman and Sejul Malde visited the Horniman Museum to see rAndom International’s installation, and Ruth Hazard enjoyed an exclusive night behind the scenes at the Faber and Faber Archives.

The Horniman Museum

Tonight the Culture24 interns, along with Jack Shoulder will be dashing around the Grant Museum of Zoology for the UCL Treasure Hunt, while Richard Moss will be in the Brighton Toy and Model Museum examining trains.

Nick Stockman will be on the way up to Newcastle tomorrow to take part in Julia Vogl’s giant art installation, while Jane Finnis will be joining the Chapman Brothers at the Jerwood Gallery. Meanwhile, Anra Kennedy will be making a Great Escape to Brighton Museum, and Amy will be curled up in Brunel House’s Midnight Apothecary, recovering with a cocktail.

Creative mask making and papercraft at Tullie House last night at #MatN2013 @thecommonpeople

If you are looking for a Museums at Night event to go to there is still time!

You can find out more about the hundreds of events happening over the next two days here.

We look forward to hearing about your Museums at Night adventures!

Guest post: Sarah Power brings steampunk to Norwich’s Dragon Hall

On the eve of Museums at Night 2013, Sarah Power describes the inspiration behind her plans for the steampunk event at Norwich’s Dragon Hall.

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Dragon Hall is a unique Grade 1 listed medieval trading hall dating from around 1430, renowned for its spectacular timber crown-post roof and intricately carved and painted dragon.  It’s located on Norwich’s historic King Street which has seen, and still sees, most of life.

Looking up at the beams in the Great Hall (c) Dragon Hall

So close to Connect10…

Our Museums at Night event In the Company of the Curious: Steampunk at Dragon Hall takes place tomorrow night – Thursday 16 May. It will see the culmination of a whirlwind few months for our museum. After the shock of losing by 5 votes in the Connect10 competition to the wonderful Manchester Museums, I have been working hard to develop an utterly unusual alternative evening for our visitors.

Anachronistic inspiration

We are lucky to have a tireless team of volunteer researchers who are slowly discovering and revealing more details about the history of the Dragon Hall site. One of their recent research projects has been an investigation into the census from 1841 to 1911 to find out more about the people that lived on this site during that period.

As Norwich’s population grew, so did the need for low-cost housing. This was solved by dividing the once-grand houses into tenements and filling the yards at the rear with poor quality housing. Dragon Hall was one such building, and the group’s research revealed fascinating insights into the people who lived and worked in the squalid environment of King Street.

But what if…?

Museums at Night is a wonderful opportunity to create an evening of interesting and alternative events which it would be difficult to present during the day-to-day opening of our museums. This is where ‘Victorian Steampunk’ popped to my mind!

An example of steampunk style

This fascinating all-inclusive subculture has taken the UK by storm in the past few years. It’s broadly inspired by the industrialised Western civilization of the 19th century, but set in a post-apocalyptic future during which steam power has regained mainstream use.

See a darker side to Dragon Hall for Museums at Night

Visually fascinating, morally delightful and philosophically optimistic, Steampunk has it all and with the freedom to explore the era in a creative way, I couldn’t resist putting on a Steampunk evening here at Dragon Hall.

Army of Mice will be performing live at the steampunk night

The evening is packed full of Steampunk delights including a Victorian peepshow, live bands, a fireplace feature film, parlour games, live poetry and interactive performances, tea duelling and much much more!

The Familiars: just part of Dragon Hall’s exciting lineup

We look forward to welcoming a colourful crowd for our Museums at Night steampunk evening: find out more and book tickets here.

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 Sarah Power has worked in the heritage industry since graduating from the School of History at UEA in 2007. She was thrilled to become the Heritage Engagement Manager at Dragon Hall in 2010 tasked with taking the existing learning and volunteer programme forward. With a passion for learning for all, Sarah has developed an exciting education programme to promote innovative learning experiences and fuel the curiosity of all Dragon Hall’s visitors.

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Thanks, Sarah!

If you’re reading this and you have an interesting story to tell or case study to share about planning or marketing after-hours events at your arts or heritage venue, I’d love to publish your guest posts as well. Please email rosie@culture24.org.uk.

Guest post: Nerys Williams on staging live music at Gladstone Pottery Museum

Just a few days to go till Museums at Night 2013 kicks off on Thursday 16 May! Our latest Museums at Night guest post is by Nerys Williams, who discusses Gladstone Pottery Museum’s first ever Museums at Night event. 

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The sun sets behind the bottle oven at Gladstone Pottery Museum.

We haven’t taken part in Museums At Night before and I’m busy planning our first ever foray into this new and exciting territory. This is thanks to a bursary from Culture24 for being runner up in the Connect10 competition, another first for me which had surprisingly wonderful results.

For some time I’ve been working with local artists who will be putting on a multimedia extravaganza at our site this September. They seemed the ideal people to help with an after hours event and are a fab bunch of creative, positive types who immediately set about planning something very special.

My humble (and fairly simple to carry out, but bang went that idea….) plans for an evening opening went out the window within about 30 seconds of our first meeting. ‘A Night At The Kiln’ quickly took shape and will be an evening of music, poetry, art and film on Thursday 16 May. Scores have been composed, the line-up grew and grew and it promises to be a really good ‘do’.

The iconic bottle oven at Gladstone Pottery Museum.

A trombonist will be playing in one of our bottle ovens. Iconic is a word so overused you can almost hear it creaking from the weight of hyperbole loaded upon it – but bottle ovens really do deserve this accolade. They’re huge, imposing brick structures once used to fire pottery. To have musicians playing a piece inspired by the pottery industry inside one is an exciting prospect. Coincidentally they also have ace acoustics.

Internationally renowned soprano Denise Leigh has kindly agreed to sing at the event – I’m still a little stunned by this! Putting an opera star under the stars at our site for Museums at Night was beyond my imagination (or contact list).

Along with piano, clarinet, harmonica, singing children and poetry there’s a lot of material in the programme written about our local heritage. We even have a ‘spit’ poet. Not being as ‘down with the kids’ as I thought I was, this had to be explained to me – for any others who are looking blank it’s a bit like rap. Local artist Rob Pointon will be painting it all as it happens.

It’s good for me to work with artists who put creative impact first and practical concerns further down the list. I do occasionally have to urge to stand on a table and demand lists and risk assessments in a matronly voice but our Museums at Night event is making me realise what can be achieved with willing partners.

I have vetoed the Chinese lanterns though. My worry that they’d land on something/someone causing a flaming fireball and blackening the museum’s name with metaphorical soot forever, was too much for me to bear. Even with my newfound fondness for the lovable but as-difficult-to-herd-as-cats art world, I have to draw the line somewhere!

An example of the pottery painting at Gladstone Pottery Museum.

 It’s back to the practicalities for me now, with press releases to write, posters to produce and a full on assault on social media to complete.

Come and join us! Tickets are £5 which includes a glass of wine or fruit juice, and can bought in person from Gladstone Pottery Museum or by calling 01782 237777. Doors open at 7.15pm.

For more information on Gladstone see www.stokemuseums.org.uk or our Gladstone Pottery Museum Facebook page.

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Nerys Williams

Nerys Williams is the Audience Development Officer for Gladstone, is passionate about the site and fond of industrial heritage and cake. She plans and publicises events of all types, from the International Marquetry Exhibition to making Pigoons (balloon pigs) during half term. Nerys loves the variety of her job – she can be organising a book signing by a local author one day and discussing turning circles and timetables for a classic bus rally the next. Museum life is never boring.

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Thanks, Nerys!

If you’re reading this and you have an interesting story to tell or case study to share about planning or marketing after-hours events at your arts or heritage venue, I’d love to publish your guest posts as well. Please email rosie@culture24.org.uk.

Museums at Night 2013 visitor surveys: free to use!

Museums at Night is now only a handful of days away, and we have a suggestion for all participating venues.

If you’re planning to survey the visitors who come along to your event, please consider either downloading and using our official visitor survey, or copying our questions to use in your survey.

These survey questions were designed by our independent evaluator, and if you do use them, we’d love to include your results in our official evaluation of the festival.

Download the official Museums at Night visitor survey here.

Once the surveys are filled in, if you’re able to, please type the responses into a spreadsheet and email it to us by Friday 24th May. If you don’t have the capacity to do this data entry, you can post your visitor survey forms to Culture24 office and we’ll process them for you.

Help us – and yourselves!

Whether or not you decide to survey your visitors, on the night of your event, there are two things your team can do that would be really helpful:

1) Count the number of visitors who come to your event

We’ll be asking every venue to send us their visitor numbers afterwards. Last year, over 120,000 visitors came along to Museums at Night events, including more than 45,000 people who were new to the venue they visited and over 5000 people who had never been to any arts or heritage venue before. It’s great to have these numbers, and we are hoping that even more people will attend Museums at Night this year.

2) Take high-resolution photos you’ll be able to use for marketing in the future

Every year we ask participating venues for images to illustrate the idea of Museums at Night, and it’s always a challenge. Pictures showing people having a good time while exploring your building and interacting with your collections are really useful. If you’re taking photos of children, be sure to ask permission from their parents or guardians. You can find guidance on photos and publicity here.

Evening concert in Grimsby Minster, one of several Grimsby venues taking part in Museums at Night 2013

Eight days to go … we hope you are as excited as we are!

Guest Post: Rona MacAulay and Mark Gibbs on Tullie House’s Art Gallery takeover

Our latest Museums at Night guest post is by Mark Gibbs and Rona MacAulay from Tullie House, introducing two very exciting Museums at Night events intended for two different types of audience.

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Tullie House, shared under a Creative Commons licence by Flickr user dvdbramhall

In 2012 Tullie House ran a family-oriented Museums at Night event based on our ‘Secret Egypt’ exhibition. Later in 2012 Tullie House was fortunate to receive Arts Council Funding as a consortium of museums with The Wordsworth Trust and the Lakeland Arts Trust. With the recruitment of new staff, we were able to widen our audience focus and so have decided to run two separate events this year.

On Thursday 16 May 2013, we’re proud to present The Art Gallery Takeover – A Magical Landscape!

For one night only, we hope to open a portal to an amazing parallel universe, a place where our 16 + visitors can chill out to ambient music, have a drink and be drawn in to creating an alternative Cumbria filled with fantastical buildings and strange landscapes.

Cumbria isn’t short on amazing landscapes and historic structures what with fells and Hadrian’s Wall, but we hope to create a new virtual world using the wonders of the computer game Minecraft.  Now for all I know you’re an experienced Minecraft architect and think nothing of building a 3D Taj Mahal, complete with solar powered jacuzzis in those pools out the front, but for the rest of us… it’s digital Lego, with bells on.

So we will have volunteers from the gaming community helping visitors build their own virtual buildings and landforms, placed on a virtual Cumbria and projected huge to form a light sculpture. Our Archaeology Curator will be supervising the recreation of Carlisle’s Roman fort… which is neat, because it would have stood right where the gallery is now.

Gamers from around the world are invited to get building, real estate prices are rising fast! Watch this space for how to join in.

There will also be real Lego, paper crafts and ‘fancy dress figure drawing’ too, essential components of any alternative party I’m sure you’ll agree!

Secondly, on Friday 17 May 2013 we’ve planned a family-friendly Roman night - Legends and Luguvalium: Explore Roman Carlisle!

As May is Local History Month, we will be celebrating all things Roman. Staff and visitors will be encouraged to dress up and get into the spirit of things. There will be a photographer on the night who will print out photographs of families in Roman costume which they can take home with them as a souvenir.

The evening will include storytelling sessions with Roman soldier Ajax who will tell visitors about his life and duties. Despite gambling being illegal in Rome, there appears to have been a particular fondness for games of chance at the time.

Tullie Mouse will be part of the family trail through the gallery

Visitors will be invited to create Roman coins out of clay and gold paint before playing our human ‘fruit machine’ to win prizes in our craft activity. Tullie House’s curator of archaeology will be leading object handling sessions with visitors throughout the night where they will be able to handle and learn about real Roman artefacts. I hope that the evening will showcase Tullie House as an informative, entertaining and welcoming environment for all ages and stages.

Marketing

To publicise our Museums at Night events, Tullie House has a strong relationship with our local radio station BBC Radio Cumbria and they are brilliant at interviewing members of staff in the run up to special events.

The evening has been promoted to our current audience in our recent Easter holiday family friendly sessions, when we invited visitors to come back again with their families. We’ll also be using our Facebook and Twitter accounts to create excitement and keep our online followers informed.

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Rona MacAulay is the Family Learning Officer at Tullie House. This is the first event that she and Mark have run at Tullie House, and they are looking forward to sharing their tips and inspiring stories from this year’s event next year! Rona.macaulay@tulliehouse.org

Mark Gibbs is the Secondary and Post 16 Formal Learning Officer at Tullie House mark.gibbs@tulliehouse.org

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Thanks, Rona and Mark!

If you’re reading this and you have an interesting story to tell or case study to share about planning or marketing after-hours events at your arts or heritage venue, I’d love to publish your guest posts as well. Please email rosie@culture24.org.uk.

Guest post: Antonia Grant describes Handel House Museum’s first Museums at Night event

Here at C24 Towers we’re delighted with this year’s BBC History Magazine Guide to Museums at Night: copies of the brochure should now have arrived at all participating venues. We’re dressing up smartly to head off to the Museums at Night launch at the Cutty Sark this evening, and will report back tomorrow!

Our latest guest post is by Antonia Grant from London’s Handel House Museum, who introduces their first ever Museums at Night event.

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Handel House Museum is located just a stone’s throw from Bond Street, tucked away on Brook Street. It offers the more intrepid tourist a historic haven to relax and have an intimate glimpse into the life and home of one of the world’s greatest composers, George Frideric Handel.

The museum, part of London Small Historic Houses, is built over two floors reflecting both the private and public persona of Handel, while intriguingly, over 300 years later another iconic composer and musician moved in next door, the legendary Jimi Hendrix. You couldn’t get a more musically fantastic cocktail!

A harpsichord on display at Handel House Museum (c) Matthew Hollow

Overcoming challenges – Hallelujah!

I was very excited at the prospect of Handel House taking part in this year’s Museums at Night for the first time. I’d run a similar event last year at Edinburgh University’s Collection of Historic Musical Instruments, which proved extremely popular, attracting a diverse audience. At Handel House, again, one of the main challenges was the space and accessibility.

Our idea is to have a series of activities taking place throughout the evening, centered on this year’s theme ‘Handel by Candle!’ We’ll be running candlelit tours and harpsichord recitals for small, intimate groups as well as offering free admission for visitors from 6:30 – 10pm.

Visitors viewing the bedroom at Handel House (c) Niusia Winczewski

A unique selling point

As part of the museum’s public events programme, a Baroque music concert takes place in the historic Rehearsal and Performance room. This is the very room Handel would have used to rehearse his next operas or oratorios to an invited audience and we keep this tradition alive every week.

By offering a concert during Museums at Night we hope to share this special space with a new audience. There will be an opportunity for our younger visitors to interact with the House on the evening too, with fun family trails and activity sheets and Georgian costumes to dress up in.

Publicity tips – from Baroque to Rock star!

As the evening will be open to families and adults, we’ll use a number of ways to reach out to both these groups. We will issue a press release to local and targeted newspapers and magazines, as well as adding the event on various family-friendly and event listings sites. Not forgetting social media: Facebook and Twitter are great ways to reach our audience and link with similar organisations and people.

We’ll build interest by revealing different elements of the evening – but not too much to spoil the surprise! And so as not to forget our already loyal audience, we will let them know about the event by including it in our season brochure and monthly e-newsletter.

Young visitors dressing up at Handel House Museum (c) Niusia Winczewski

As it will be the first time we’ve participated in the Museums at Night festival, we can’t wait to find out how it goes!

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Antonia Grant has worked at Handel House Museum for over a year as the Learning and Events Officer. She obtained a BA Degree in History and Classical Civilisation from University College Dublin followed by a MSc in History, Theory and Display from Edinburgh University.

Antonia is interested in making the arts as accessible as possible to a wide audience, and creating innovative and exciting learning programmes and events.

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Thanks, Antonia!

If you’re reading this and you have an interesting story to tell or case study to share about planning or marketing after-hours events at your arts or heritage venue, I’d love to publish your guest posts as well. Please email rosie@culture24.org.uk.

Guest post: Marketing case study from Rebecca Clay at the Museum of Army Flying

Our latest guest post is by Rebecca Clay from the Museum of Army Flying! Rebecca tells us a bit more about the museum’s plans for a late night behind-the-scenes tour of this very special venue…

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The Museum of Army Flying is a medium sized military museum between Andover and Salisbury. It houses a range of Army aircraft, and is a charitable trust that employs a close knit team of professionals to conserve and communicate its incredible collection.

Programming for specific audiences

This time last year, after being in post for about a month, it became obvious to me that two target audiences would benefit most from an events programme at the Museum of Army Flying: Family and Community and Traditional Culture Vultures.

I had experience of running evening and afternoon events in previous employment positions, and knew that if marketed correctly they could be incredibly successful and rewarding. With this in mind I planned a two year programme of events to tie in with anniversaries and seasonal occasions.

One of the events I really wanted to run was a Culture24 Museums at Night event, specifically a behind-the-scenes tour that would give the ‘die hard’ fans of the museum everything they could dream of.

Entitled ‘The Curator’s Cupboard’, I wanted this event to open up some of the unseen treasures of our collections, including items from World War One flying aces, a sure fire hit with our enthusiast audience.

Poster promoting the Curator’s Cupboard Museums at Night event

Overcoming challenges and adding value

One challenge that we’ll face by running a behind-the-scenes, out-of-hours event is the restrictions that have to be placed on numbers. This, coupled with the costs of keeping the museum open after hours, means that we have to charge more than we have for our previous events.

However, this limitation actually had a positive effect for our team, as we plotted together how to make it bigger and better, heaping added value and once-in-a-lifetime experiences into the event to ensure that people weren’t frightened off by the price tag.

This included planning a series of mini-talks around the museum by veteran pilots and experts about the different aircraft we have on display. One of these will be about our experimental aircraft, which are super quirky and a definite crowd pleaser.

A unique selling point – “I’ve flown that one!”

A remarkable bit of good fortune struck when one of our volunteers mentioned he thought he had flown two of the aircraft on display in the museum. I stress that he had not only flown the aircraft type but the actual aircraft on display (he checked the tail numbers against his log book) so he can give visitors first hand knowledge about our aircraft during their working life.

Army Helicopter

Publicity tips

To publicise the event I have gone all out – well, as all out as you can go without a budget! The press release has gone out and has already been featured in some of our local newspapers. I will also issue a photocall invitation to local press photographers, so the publicity will hopefully have a life even after the event takes place.

I also issue posters and leaflets for every event and send them to local libraries, museums and Tourist Information Centres. My top tip for getting radio coverage is to upload all your events onto the radio station’s calendar on their website; they’ll often mention them if they get a chance.

To say we are really looking forward to the event is an understatement – I often get more excited by our objects than the public!

Here’s to Museums at Night!

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Rebecca Clay has worked at the Museum of Army Flying as Marketing and Audience Development for nearly a year. Previously she worked in Marketing and Project Officer roles for Creswell Crags in North Nottinghamshire (currently shortlisted for World Heritage Status).

Rebecca was awarded her CIM Professional Diploma in Marketing in 2010, and also has an Honours degree in Cultural Heritage from the University of Manchester. She is a self-professed geek interested in all things web, particularly WordPress websites and social media.

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Thanks, Rebecca! If you’re reading this and you have an interesting story to tell or case study to share about planning or marketing after-hours events at your arts or heritage venue, I’d love to publish your guest posts as well. Please get in touch at rosie@culture24.org.uk.

Host an author for Museums at Night 2013

Craig Taylor reading from his book at the London Transport Museum in 2012

Hosting an author as part of your Museums at Night event can be a rewarding experience and may help your venue to reach a new audience.  Culture24 and the Reading Agency have put together a great list of authors available for events during Museums at Night 2013.

Last year several authors participated in events all over the country including Craig Taylor appeared at the London Transport Museum, Sandy Gall at Surgeon’s Hall, Edinburgh and the feedback from the events was very positive.

If you are interested in hosting an author as part of your Museums at Night event, take a look at the list of 2013 Museums at Night Authors and decide if any of them have a connection to your venue.

Update 18/02/2013: We now have several children’s authors added to the list!

Once you’ve chosen an author take a look at the guidance notes below, get back to me or Nick with all the relevant information and we will inform the author’s publisher. We’ll get back to you as soon as we can to let you know if the author is available for your event. After that you will have direct contact with the author or their publisher to make arrangements for your event.

Do be aware that although all these authors are offering their services for free (as they are plugging new books) their publishers will expect the venue to pay for travel and accommodation costs if necessary.

Before the publisher can choose a venue for their author to appear at they need to be reassured about a number of things.

Please have a look at the following questions and respond in no more than two pages of A4, saving your document with the name of the author you are pitching for and your venue’s name, e.g. Joe Bloggs Museum of Stars.

•    Do you have a budget to pay for the author’s travel and if necessary accommodation?

•    Can you show you have a good track record of events (not necessarily with large audiences)? You just need to be able to demonstrate your expertise in running a regular events programme, with or without authors.

•    Where and when will the event be held?

•    Who is your target audience? How many people are you expecting to attend?

•    Will there be other speakers? And, if so, who?

•    Will the event be chaired? Who by?

•    Who is selling the books?

•    Is the event ticketed?

•    How will you promote the event?

•    What format will the event take: panel, debate, workshop, reading?

•    Who is the main venue contact for the author?

•    Travel: how will the author get to the museum and who will meet and greet them?

If you’d like to print these questions out to discuss with your team, you can download these questions as a PDF here.

We hope there is somebody on the list that you want to work with. Please get in touch if you have any questions: talk to Nick on 01273 623279 or nick@culture24.org.uk, or Rosie on 01273 623336 or rosie@culture24.org.uk.

Good luck!

Guest post: Emma McKenzie on Ryedale Folk Museum’s behind the scenes tour

Our latest guest post is by Emma McKenzie from the Ryedale Folk Museum! Emma gives us an insight into the museums plans for a late night behind-the-scenes tour of this very special venue…

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The Ryedale Folk Museum is a small independent museum occupying a six acre site in the small village of Hutton-le-Hole, on the edge of the North York Moors. It was created by local people out of a passion for their heritage and we have, and always will be committed to being a part of the community we inhabit. The Museum was started in the 1930s by volunteers and was officially opened in 1964.

Rebuilding Harome Manor

As a small rural museum, one of our greatest challenges is to find ways to offer something extra special. Our regular program of events is held during the day; we rarely organise evening events during the main summer season, so opening up in May for an evening event is a new thing for the museum. We wanted to play our part in something bigger and being a part of Museums at Night is really important to us as a smaller museum.

We see Museums at Night as a great opportunity for us to fully connect with our audiences and show them the real ethos of the museum. Therefore when it came to planning our event, we decided to create a behind the scenes guided tour of the museum, revealing key areas that are not usually accessible to the public, and which give a real insight into the museums importance and unique sense of place. We are focusing on our costume & photograph collection, our new library and Archive room, and our workshops and stores.

Victorian dress from Ryedale Folk Museum collection

At the museum we believe that objects hold stories, and that those stories are what make the objects evocative, and allow people to engage with them.

One personal example comes to mind: we have a tractor within our collection, which never meant a great deal to me, until one day our Director told me a story about it. When that tractor was still in use, they used to call it a courting tractor; it was used to take dates to the village barn dances. This brought the tractor to life for me, and now every time I see it I imagine that story, and the romance and the fun times that it represents.

I want our visitors to experience that feeling of connection to the past when they visit us. Through showing them the way we began and continue to work with our volunteers, I hope the event will show them that special sense of place we believe we represent, and really connect our audience with the museum.

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Emma McKenzie has worked at Ryedale Folk Museum for just over 2 years as a Development Officer & Events Co-ordinator. She has a first class honours degree in Entertainment Design Crafts specialising in the design and construction of costumes. She began working at the museum as a volunteer, drawing the costume collection for the catalogue cards.

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Thanks, Emma!

If you’re reading this and you have an interesting story to tell or case study to share about planning or marketing after-hours events, I’d love to publish your guest posts as well. Please get in touch at rosie@culture24.org.uk.

Parliament Week – take part in the celebration of our political heritage!

If your organisation has any collection objects or stories about Parliamentarians, political protests, Reform, the Civil War, the Poor Laws, Chartists, or any kind of social or political movement for change … have you thought about taking part in Parliament Week?

Portrait of St. Thomas Becket, reassembled from fragments by Samuel Caldwell Jr in 1919. Becket Window 1 (n. VII) in the north aisle of the Trinity Chapel, Canterbury Cathedral.

Culture24′s Network Officer Ruth Harper has more information:

With a little under two months to go, now is the time to get registered for this year’s celebration, which is a growing, nation-wide event with a high profile within Westminster.

It is supported by national media coverage and co-ordinated by the House of Commons and the House of Lords – it has the simple aim of raising awareness of democracy and democratic institutions in the UK.

We’d love to hear from anyone who has interesting stories, objects or connections to political history in the UK – from copies of the Magna Carta to the Occupy movement, via the English Civil War. If you have anything in your collection about UK Parliament and Democracy now is the time to shout about it.

Getting involved can mean doing something as simple as holding a brief talk about something interesting in your collection, a short curator or volunteer-led tour or discussion or giving a children’s activity day a democratic twist!

If you’re interested and would like to talk to the friendly team at Culture24 about what might be possible, email ruth@culture24.org.uk or call 01273 623278.

To find out more, simply head to the Parliament Week website: http://www.parliamentweek.org/about/ and if you have an idea for an event you can get started by following this link to the partner registration form: https://culture24.wufoo.eu/forms/parliament-week-partner-registration/

Finally if you need any help with ideas – just give us a call. It’s easier than you think to take advantage of this growing campaign.