Ouch!
Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/omcoc/7002403560/ 

#MuseumWeek continues and today is about #MuseumMemories. 

My earliest memories of a museum would be Stockport's Vernon Park Museum, a frequent place for day trips with my gran. I would sort of hide behind her from the cave of neolithic men. Manikins, ugh. I loved that place, as it was a very odd collection of stuff and things, with a great little video about the history of Stockport. It probably started my fascination with how old things can help us see the world a bit differently. 

It's a few years since I've been back, and it seems as though the best of the displays were cherry picked out when creating a more centrally placed museum (Stockport Story at Staircase House) and people are now generally disappointed with what's been left and the care it receives. 

Still a great set of gardens and park though, and worth a visit just to drop your jaw at the Blue John window - yup looks like stained glass but is really made from stone!

From March 24-30 2014, hundreds of museums and galleries from across the UK and Europe will come together on Twitter for the first ever #MuseumWeek. You can see who is officially taking part here, and you can also join in!
The # thing also works across instagram and Facebook, and you can browse sites without having an account for them (great for you social media phobes)

Visit Europe's museums and tweet pictures with the ‪#‎MuseumWeek‬ hashtag. 

This week's themes are:

Monday: ‪#‎DayInTheLife‬ 
Tuesday: ‪#‎MuseumMastermind‬ 
Wednesday: ‪#‎MuseumMemories‬ 
Thursday: ‪#‎BehindTheArt‬ 
Friday: ‪#‎AskTheCurator‬ 
Saturday: ‪#‎MuseumSelfies‬ 
Sunday: ‪#‎GetCreative‬

The first of a few cartoons relating to the same art exhibition - where beautiful yet delicate pieces of vellum were displayed in the open on plinths, secured by pins. 

The artist insisted that the pieces not be boxed up or roped off, which may have worked well in a dedicated arts venue, but in a mixed heritage site/local museum/visitor attraction it just attracted the wrong kind of attention. One of the best way to educate people about other kinds of contemporary art is to introduce it into areas they are already comfortable with, but then the kind of art and manner of display needs to be taken into account, while people adjust to the new concepts. Otherwise, accidents happen...

Just heard that  24th March to Sunday 30th March is #MuseumWeek on Twitter (source is here)

I use twitter for my other little sideline (jewellery business) but will look forward to seeing what museo based things pop up on there. Don't forget that hashtags now also work on Facebook (and of course on instagram) so for those canny enough, this could be a cross social media opportunity to show off/poke around in musuems.

Working at home in order to build our venue a new website... Not a skill I've trained for barring a few hours on Dreamweaver as part of my degree (public access to heritage? very forward looking there at Bangor Uni ten years ago), but one of those odd "picked it up along the way out of necessity" abilities. (god bless google and youtube videos...) 

I recently realised just how diverse my skillset has become over the years, working in venues without dedicated staff for certain roles, or with difficult access to those skills as the staff are in such demand.

Pop Quiz: Anyone else have a "never thought I'd need to do this, but I've nailed it!" skill you're proud of?