Want volunteers for your Museums at Night events around Manchester?

If you’re based in or around Manchester, and are thinking of putting on events for Museums at Night, would you like a team of student volunteers to help you out?

Hannah Christie works for the University of Manchester’s Volunteering Team, and has offered:

We can advertise events, advertise volunteering placements, or set up specific volunteering ‘Challenges’ with our students. In the latter’s case, we will recruit a group of students and bring them along to events, organising all the recruitment ourselves.

If you’d like to contact Hannah to discuss this offer, her email address is hannah.christie@manchester.ac.uk and her phone number is 0161 275 2828.

European programme deadline is Friday 12 February!

Front cover of the 2009 Nuits des Musees programme

We’re delighted that so many museums and galleries have already listed their Museums at Night events in the database. We’ve already had a lot of media interest, with magazines keen to write about events taking place in their area.

Another exciting publicity opportunity has come up: to have your Museums at Night events featured in the printed programme of events across Europe, produced by our continental counterparts at Nuit des Musées. You can download last year’s programme here – it’s definitely worth putting your event details forward. This will happen automatically when you enter your Museum at Night event details into the Culture24 DDE database.

To be featured in the 2010 publication, the deadline to enter your events into the DDE database is Friday 12 February.

If you’re not sure how to do list your events, there are step-by-step instructions here. If you have any questions, please contact Rosie on 01273 623336 or email rosie@culture24.org.uk.

Using Photography as Part of Museums at Night: Potential Collaboration

We have been contacted by Peter Kyte, GEM Member and freelance urban photographer, who is keen to develop some photography events with Museums, perhaps as part of Museums at Night.

Peter says: “Using your museum building as a resource can provide some interesting visitor outputs. You might have an in-Museum photo-walk, with users taking cues from close up photographs, or for those with outside spaces, there might be a ‘photography at night’ event. Some high quality low level light images of your Museum might also lead to promotional material and products in your shop. I think best of all is that this type of photography can be integrated into ‘learning through photography’ events, which might be especially relevant if your collection has archival images that might be used with contemporary work”.

If you want any more info please contact Peter direct – at info@fotog.info or visit http://www.fotog.info.

Guest post: Claire Ross discusses Geevor Tin Mine’s 2009 Museums at Night event

This is the first in a series of guest posts on the Museums at Night blog.

Geevor tin Mine Museum at Night (c) Bernie Pettersen

Night at the Museum: where everything comes to life! T-rex skeletons wandering down the corridor, battles within display cabinets, and an Easter Island Head demanding chewing gum… brilliant! It’s one of my favourite films, and it’s what I imagine happens in every museum once the visitors leave, the doors are locked and the lights are turned off. But I never thought I’d be able to experience a museum at night…until last year. 

In May 2009 I was involved in a Museums at Night event at Geevor Tin Mine Museum (www.geevor.com); a community-run heritage site near Penzance in Cornwall. Geevor is located on the historic site of the one of the largest preserved mine sites in the country, housed in 2 acres of listed buildings. Its outstanding collections tell the story of Cornwall’s industrial mining past.

The standout highlight of the month of May was our Museums at Night event. Lots of people turned up raring to go with flashlights and head torches, and off we went! We toured several of the buildings that would have had a night shift when the mine was running. Although we couldn’t completely recreate the sights, sounds, smells and activity of a working mine, we were able to offer the opportunity to visit the mine in the darkness and soak up the ambience.

It was a brilliant evening, so atmospheric, and it gave the visitors a real chance to experience what it would have been like working at the mine during the night shift. It’s amazing what a different experience visiting venues at night can offer – it heightens the senses and makes all the nooks and crannies that you don’t notice during the day come alive.

We made the front page of the local newspaper, and even had a slot on Radio 4!  It was such a popular event that Geevor are going to run it again this year too.

For anyone thinking of participating in the 2010 Museums at Night campaign, it’s definitely worth it! It offers such an unusual experience for visitors and staff alike, opening up a new dimension to your museum and getting new visitors interested who perhaps wouldn’t have come during the day.

I really enjoyed the Geevor Night shift, and I’m hoping to attend more Museums at Night events this coming May – in fact I can’t wait! The countdown has already begun… 

You can see an animoto movie of photos from Geevor’s event here.

Claire Ross

 

Claire Ross is a researcher in the Department of Information Studies at UCL. Her background is in archaeology, museum interpretation and e-learning, and she blogs about museums, learning, and social media at http://claireyross.wordpress.com. You can connect with her at www.twitter.com/clairey_ross or http://uk.linkedin.com/in/claireyross.

And if you’re inspired to write a guest post for us, please contact Rosie on rosie@culture24.org.uk!