Night-Time Adventures in our Museums!

Posted on April 24, 2013 by Sarah Cowie

This year, the 16th-18th May is Museums at Night Weekend, and museums across East Lothian are holding events for adults and families.

Check out below what you could get up to, or download the poster or flier

Night-Time Adventures Poster

Night-Time Adventures Flier

Thursday 16th May – Events Designed for Adults

Walk around Historic Dunbar

Meet at Dunbar Town House

7pm–8.30pm

£2 per adult, suggested donation

See a different side to Dunbar on a guided tour by Dunbar and District History Society for adults. This tour will reveal the history beneath your feet, and in the landscape around you. Please bring a torch with you! The walk will end in Dunbar Town House for visitors wishing to find out more about the town and this important building.

Booking beforehand is essential. Book at the museum or by phoning 01368 866030.

 

Discover Treasures by Twilight

John Gray Centre

7pm–9pm

£2 per adult, suggested donation

A fantastic behind-the-scenes experience as we open the Centre for unique evening, just for adults. The evening will feature live music, refreshments, a chance to get creative in the Star Room, object handling sessions and the chance to see some treasured objects from the museum and archive stores.

 

Friday 17th May – Evening for Families

Go on a Bat Walk

Prestongrange Museum

8pm–9.30pm

£3.50 per person (discounted rate when booking more than 2 people)

Join a Countryside Ranger to find the creatures that come out at night! Includes a walk around Prestongrange in the dark, so remember to bring your torch. Booking beforehand is essential as this event will be a sell out! Book on prestongrange@btconnect.com or 0131 653 2904.

 

Saturday 18th May – Evening for Families

Take Part in an Adventure Story

John Gray Centre and John Muir’s Birthplace

7pm–9pm

£2 per family, suggested donation.

Come along to our museums at night to discover the hidden stories and adventures that lurk behind the displays. At the John Gray Centre, families will go on a story quest with characters coming to life, clues to find, and riddles to solve. In John Muir’s Birthplace, families will discover some of Muir’s favourite stories and be challenged to solve a Muir mystery!  

 

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Not long until we have our very own night at the museum!!

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Sarah Cowie

This Easter holidays, we have something really exciting coming to Dunbar Town House.

Rusty and Gil the museum security guards, copyright Douglas Robertson

Ankur Productions, a theatre company, will be transforming the building into the 12th century for an amazing show which takes the audience back in time. I don’t want to give too much away, but it start with 2 museum security guards, bored one night, who all of a sudden awake a historic object! It takes them back in time to help a Scottish soldier, a Muslim Inventor, and Richard the Lionheart! I’ve seen a sneak preview and you won’t believe how you’re so easily transported from a museum, to a prison cell, to an Arabic market, to a King’s palace, and back again. All in an hour! Don’t miss it!

Details below…

The Knight and the Crescent Hare Theatre Show

Dunbar Town House

 Thursday 28th March, 7pm

Friday 29th March, 2pm & 7pm

Saturday 30th March, 2pm & 7pm

 Come on a journey with 2 museum security guards as they awaken a mysterious object which transports them back to the 12th century. The guard find themselves having to help a Scottish soldier on a quest, with a local Arabic inventor, to deliver a letter to Richard the Lionheart! Suitable for children aged 7 and over, young adults, families and adults. Includes sword fights, explosions, jokes, and even a song about inventions! An experience not to be missed. Only 15 tickets per performance as the audience join the show on their adventure around the building. £3 per ticket, from John Muir’s Birthplace (01368 865 899) or the Brunton Theatre (0131 665 2240)

 The Knight and the Crescent Hare Workshops

Dunbar Primary School (John Muir Campus)

 Tuesday 26th March, 10am-4pm

Wednesday 27th March, 10am-4pm

Thursday 28th March, 10am-4pm

 Join a writer, photographer and digital artist to create your own digital stories, inspired by museum objects! FREE workshop, suitable for families, adults or groups. 10 spaces per day. Spaces must be booked beforehand by contacting John Muir’s Birthplace on 01368 865899. To see what you could create, check out https://vimeo.com/ankurarts/albums

 

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Name our Miner!

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Sarah Cowie
Can you help us name our new miner mascot for Prestongrange Museum? Preston the Mole has been with us a for a few years now at Prestongrange, but we need a name for his friend the miner.

Miner and Preston the Mole

You can email your suggestions to scowie@eastlothian.gov.uk, tweet @ELMuseumService, or leave a comment below.

The person suggesting the winning name will receive a Prestongrange goodie bag! Closing date is Sunday 7th April 2013

 
 
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Arabic Connections Project

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Sarah Cowie

We’ve got an exciting project starting in a few weeks that I thought deserved it’s own blog post to fully explain all the different sections!

Ankur Productions got in touch with us last year to see if we fancied hosting a show all about a Scottish Crusader travelling to the Arab world and being rescued by an inventor. The show was designed to show the ancient Muslim inventions that still influence our culture today. If you’ve seen the amazing exhibition, or book, of 1001 Muslim Inventions, you’ll have seen that a whole range of things originate from Muslim Civilization including Astronomy, maps, paper, geometry and loads more!

We said yes, please, and so we’re going to be one of 4 museums across Scotland hosting the show ‘The Knight and the Crescent Hare’ (#KATCH if you’re a tweeter) in March at Dunbar Town House. Very exciting! Tickets are available from the Brunton.

But that’s not all! We’d also like to take the opportunity to explore the objects we have in our museum collections that relate to Muslim culture and history. And we’d like to get local people involved in researching these items, or finding their own connections with local history and the Arabic world. So we’re hosting 2 workshops in Haddington on 20th February and 6th March. More details on poster: Arabic Poster_Feb13

And that’s not all! During the week of the play, there will also be ‘Masterclasses’ with digital artists, writers and photographers where visitors will be able to create stories around the objects. Phew! How exciting. Bookings for these classes aren’t open yet, but I’ll post further details on here once they do. Thank you very much of course to the Heritage Lottery Fund and Creative Scotland for their support with the project, enables us to do so much more that what we could have achieved otherwise.

In the meantime, here’s one of our objects with an Arabic connection. Any thoughts on what it might be? I’ll reveal more in a future blog…

Object from ELC Museums Collection

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Oh, the places we will go…

Posted on January 7, 2013 by Sarah Cowie

Happy new year to all our lovely readers! So, this morning, to ease everyone back into work, I asked people in the Museums Office: Which was your favourite museum you visited in 2012, and where would you love to visit in 2013?

Their answers will hopefully give you some inspiration of where to visit this year!

Helen, Digital Resources Officer: 

I was lucky enough to visit the V&A Museum last year, and was able to see their ‘Hollywood Costumes’ exhibition – brilliant and inspiring! The exhibition was a great combination of costumes, interviews (with videos and holograms) and scene-setting. What amazed me was how small the costumes were, makes you realise how much ‘larger than life’ the big screen really is. I’d like to see the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich – I haven’t been since it was redone, and it sounds as though it’s a lot of fun, with lots of imaginative use of technology to make it a really interactive museum. Sounds like a great place to go with the family.

Kate, Principal Museums Officer:

I really liked the Scottish National Portrait Gallery - a great building and some fantastic paintings. I was surprised to see landscapes there, but liked the concept of a portrait of a landscape and the contrast was good. I came away wanting to visit again and to bring the children. In 2013 I want to take the family to the Natural History Museum as they will love it there and a trip to London would be exciting!

Tracy, Visitor Services Officer:

I went to Blists Hill Victorian Village at Ironbridge last year which was fantastic.  It was like stepping back in time.  You could get money changed into ‘old money’ at the Victorian bank and spend it in the shops.  The Victorian school lesson was really good, and stopped the kids complaining about what they have to do at school.  The Village was featured on the Christmas episode of Downton Abbey this year where they showed some of the characters attending a fair.  Not sure about plans for this year yet, but looking forward to the Viking Exhibition at National Museum of Scotland.

Me, Museums Education Officer:

I absolutely loved the BALTIC in Newcastle when I visited it in September. It’s such an

View from the Baltic

amazing building, and I really loved the exhibition by Mark Wallinger. There was also a wedding on the day we were there which gave added viewing excitement! I (rather ashamedly) have never visited the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, so I plan to do that this year, hopefully in the next month!

So there you go, a variety of different cultural/heritage places we’ve been, liked and recommended! Do tell us your favourites and tips for 2013!

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Our 2012 – A review…

Posted on December 19, 2012 by Sarah Cowie

It’s been quite a year in museums, opening 2 new museums, and running our other 3 alongside them for the first time. We’ve also undergone a service review, seen jobs change and new staff come on board. So all in all, lots of changes, and lots more visitors!

The year has had many highlights for me, including posing as a Suffragette for Festival of Museums, organising a 60s fashion show at Prestongrange, showing classes round Dunbar Town House for the first time since refurbishment and the amazing Dunbar Town House dolls house made by local volunteers. Multi-Cultural Day, in particular, made

Drummers opening up Multi-Cultural Day

my year as it attracted an amazing number of visitors this year (1200), and was the first time we ran a park and ride service. It was also a great example of team working, as people from all different departments across the Council came together to help us deliver the day, including roads, transportation, arts, community learning, health and safety, policy team, libraries, and many many more. On a personal note, I also got to taste an amazing Well Hung and Tender burger. Yum!

Detective Bear, helping children to become Toy Detectives!

Another highlight for me, was the Toy Stories exhibition at the John Gray Centre. We had record numbers of school visits to the exhibition for our Toy Detectives workshop and it was great fun working with lots of nursery children. They always came to the museum with such enthusiasm, including one boy who when waiting in line before we set off upstairs started shaking and said ‘I’m just SO excited to go to the museum!’. Brilliant. Toy Stories

 also brought in lots of teenagers for table football tournaments during their lunch break and after school.

Our year was also marked by the sad and sudden loss of our colleague Susan Panton, who’d been involved with John Muir’s Birthplace since it first opened. The condolence book set up in the Birthplace captured the memories of staff, visitors and local people of the lovely Susan.

We’ve also had new posts created in the Museum Service, with Debbie, Tracy and Quonya joining us as Visitor Services Officers. They’ve brought lots of energy, enthusiasm and new ideas. And if you’ve visited any of our museum shops recently you’ll notice an immediate difference they’ve made with all the new lovely stock we have (last minute Christmas presents anyone?!).

Next year, I’m looking forward to taking part in Museums at Night weekend (16-18th May) when we’ll be opening our museums later than usual and putting on some fun activities! I’m also really looking forward to offering more for under 5s and their families. Watch this space…

Oh, and here’s our Jan-Feb events leaflet to get you started! Jan-Feb 13 Upcoming events in Museums

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An Elf Learns from Spiderman about responsibility…

Posted on November 28, 2012 by Sarah Cowie

Can you believe it’s December this weekend? I most definitely can’t!

Although saying that, I did spend last Sunday dressed as an Elf for our Victorian Christmas event in Dunbar. We were making willow Christmas trees with artist Tanwen, which were amazing! Visitors could also make snowflakes, or pantomime puppets over at John Muir’s Birthplace.

Being dressed as an elf definitely gives you a new perspective on things. Quite a few children asked ‘Are you a real elf?’, or ‘Are you busy making presents?’ or ‘Have you seen santa today?’ or ‘Have you seen my Christmas list yet?’

An elf and santa pose for Christmas!

An elf and santa pose for Christmas!

One little boy chatted away to me for a while, as we looked through a book, whilst his older sister and parents made a willow tree. His mum came over and said ‘Well, he never talks to people. You must be the real thing!’.  Children also seemed pretty happy to follow the advice of the elf -I got a group of teenagers to help me tidy up a children’s craft table, families would come into the museum if I stopped them on the street and asked, and I managed to get right into all the stalls without queuing in the market outside! What’s that saying? With great power comes great responsibility…Thanks Spiderman.

 However, my favourite part of the day, was after we’d seen Santa arriving to switch on the Christmas lights (which didn’t go on immediately, sending a group of men in fluorescent jackets scurrying to a passageway next to the museum). I went to collect my car, to load up all our lovely Christmas things from the day to bring back to the office, drove it up the very steep Silver Street in Dunbar and as I got to the top there was a big traffic jam so I rolled down my window to shout to Tanwen that I’d go around the street again. At which point, I heard the shout ’Look, it’s the elf we met earlier!’. Everyone waiting to cross the street then looked at me, stranded in the sea of people in my car, still dressed in my elf suit, and started waving and shouting. ‘What you making me for Christmas?’ Hi, remember me elf?!’ I eventually managed to drive off, with one mum’s shout reaching me just as I turned into the High Street ‘Don’t drive elf for leather now!’.

Thank you people of Dunbar, what a fun afternoon we had, and you made this elf very happy :)

My next outing as an elf? Saturday 21st December at the John Gray Centre for our Festive Fun afternoon! Come join us!

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Work Experience by Susan

Posted on November 26, 2012 by Sarah Cowie

It was my father who insisted I try for the placement in the museum. The planning for work experience in Knox Academy is long and complicated, and I wanted to focus on more pressing matters. With Prelims looming just three days before the week began, it was my idea to just ignore it completely; the closest I could come to that was to rely upon the database for my placement. I unfortunately (or, perhaps, very fortunately) failed to please the computer system enough the first time I submitted my choices, and was left to try again for three of the remaining placements.

                Given my father’s serious nature and slightly flawed reasoning, I can only say I half expected to collapse before my time was served; adults put a great deal of stress on how difficult and unforgiving their jobs are. Creating a trail hunt through the John Grey Centre may require a bit of messing around with suitable hiding places and what difficulty level to base the clues on, but it’s certainly not unachievable. This was the first task I was given, and this was the first task I enjoyed.

                Over the week, I’ve spent two days at the John Grey Centre and three days at the Headquarters. I’ve checked that items are in their correct boxes for exhibitions, searched through old records for interesting relevant material (the archive room shelves are very impressive), made lists of objects and even wrapped boxes in Christmas paper. I’ve designed two handouts for events, tried my best to assist with a nursery visit to the museum (Trying is half the battle, right?), and I’ve trimmed and organised laminated labels. Most of it has been great fun, and I definitely haven’t been left bored at any point. My father gave me the impression that I’d be stuck doing the same thing repeatedly, whether I liked it or not, and that it was my duty to simply ensure that I pulled through. It was, in fact, my duty to make sure that I didn’t get lost – and that I only failed once or twice.

Though whatever career I succeed in following will probably be very different to this, I don’t think I need to be so frightened of what I’ll face. I hardly want to return to school at all… Still, someone needs to chase after those illusive university qualifications, for the pride of the family and everything.

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Studying the Egyptians this term….

Posted on August 22, 2012 by Sarah Cowie

A teacher recently asked me if we had any Egyptian resources. Sadly the answer is no, but I do have the following suggestions!

East Lothian Council Arts Service are offering workshops on making Canopic Jars in their schools programme. See pg 8.ELC Arts Brochure 2012-13

 National Museums Scotland (in Edinburgh) do an amazing Egyptian workshop (http://www.nms.ac.uk/pdf/Primary%20Programme%202012.pdf) see pg 5. Or if the workshops are fully booked you can borrow one of their handling boxes to use in the gallery and visit their Egyptian gallery for free! The National Museums also recently had an exhibition all about Mummies so they still have a lot of resources on their website: http://www.nms.ac.uk/our_museums/national_museum/exhibitions/fascinating_mummies.aspx

 Have you tried the Council’s Library Service already? They often have artefacts that you can borrow alongside books.  

 I offer a workshop about how to make a museum for classes, so if you wanted to make an Egyptian museum I’d be more than happy to help! Details about the workshop are online.  It’s free!

 Show Me is a great website that brings together lots of things from different museums, and it has a whole section of Egyptian stuff: http://www.show.me.uk/teachers/teachers.html  As does the British Museum: http://www.britishmuseum.org/learning/schools_and_teachers/resources.aspx

Do let me know if you come across any amazing Egyptian resources!

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Family Activity Day is nearly here!

Posted on August 9, 2012 by Sarah Cowie

Looking for a fun day for the whole family? Saturday 18th August is Family Activity Day at Prestongrange Museum between 12.30pm-3.30pm

We’ll have the following activities:

  • Kayaking
  • Orienteering (£1 per map)
  • Arts and Crafts
  • Dance
  • Archery
  • Meet the Ranger Service
  • Search for Lennox the Lion
  • Beam Engine Tours
  • 1960s exhibition
  • outdoor games
  • henna painting (from £3 upwards)

Entry is FREE and most activities are FREE! See those above with £ that have associated costs.

So bring a picnic, bring your families and see you there! Download the poster below:

Family activity poster

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