Throughout the course of this blog, I've mentioned the Skills for the Future programme on numerous occasions. It seems only right therefore to give a bit of explanation as to what exactly Skills for the Future is, and how you could get involved in the programme.
Skills for the Future is a heritage lottery project that is funding numerous programmes within the sector, with the aim of preserving heritage skills by offering work-based training in a wide range of skills. These include looking after buildings, landscapes, habitats, species, and museum and archive collections. These skills will give all the participants a real chance at pursuing a career in heritage.
The Museum of East Anglian Life is working in partnership with Gressinghall Farm and Workhouse to provide a series of programmes over three years. I've included all the details of these programmes at the end of this post, including the latest advert for a Farrier post at Gressinghall.
If you've been reading this blog regularly, you'll know that we've been running a three month heritage skills taster programme. The six lucky participants learnt blacksmithing, traditional printing, bodging, hurdle making, working with heavy horses, basket weaving and even business advice. In just three months they managed to cover the basics of these many different skills. It's such a unique experience to be able to try so many different traditional heritage skills, to discover what you enjoy and what you don't, and to be encouraged to turn those experiences into a career.
As well as the three month taster course, we are also running three, one year long courses. These commenced in April of this year and consist of two Estate Internships, one in Estate Management and the other in Estate Conservation, and one post for a Visitor Services Internship, the latter post belonging to yours truly!
Visitor Services in Rural Museums (quite the mouthful, I know), has been an incredibly varied experience, which sees me working as a Museum Assistant, in the office and even spending one day a week in the Tourist Information Center which takes care of the Museum's front of house. About eight months into the programme, I can talk about how fantastically rewarding its been, and how easy it is to recommend Skills for the Future and the various posts that are on offer at a number of Museums.
So how did I find myself here? I can honestly say that through school I didn't know what career I would end up pursuing. I had no great calling, and simply chose to do subjects I enjoyed. This thinking continued through to when I made my university choice, where I chose a degree in History at the University of East Anglia. Doing something I had such a strong interest in made those three years so interesting and actually great fun, but of course I wanted something at the end of it to come out into. Museums and heritage had formed a really strong part of my childhood, and my parents were always keen for us to investigate places wherever we went that brought history alive and made learning fun. With this in mind, I made the decision that Museums were an area I wanted to look into. I spoke to my tutor, who got me in touch with someone who worked within heritage to speak to. I also did a lot of reading into places and jobs which can be a hugely intimidating and complex investigation.
Here is why I believe that the Skills for the Future programmes work so well. It's a set period of time, whether it be three months, six months or a year, it's not a lifetime commitment. I also think that if you have no idea what it is you want to do in a Museum (you may not even be aware of what you can do), then it's a chance to try something and see how it suits you. It's a training programme, so you're learning as you work, and you have all the support that you need from people who already know the job. Skills for the Future doesn't discriminate on age, or experience, and though I have a degree it's not what got me my training post, you can be young and making your first steps towards a career, or older and looking for a career change.
So on a day to day basis what is it I do here at MEAL? Social media is evidently a large part of what I do, and I set up MEAL Blog to give a general day to day account of what goes on here at the Museum, its done in such a way that when I come to the end of my internship, someone else would be able to take over and continue writing this. In addition to this I use the existing twitter and facebook accounts to put out general information and to interact with the public, both of which are becoming increasingly useful within the Museum world. In the open season I worked up to four days a week as a Museum assistant, looking after the site and the buildings that form our Museum, as well as interacting with the public and assisting them in accessing the site and giving them information on the buildings and items of collection that we have. I've shadowed the running of events, before starting to plan my own, and have generally tried to involve myself in any opportunities that have been made available to me.
By the end of this year i'll have so many experiences that I can take with me into furthering my career in heritage. As well as lots to add to my C.V, including training courses i've been on. I feel as if i'm beginning to understand how Museums and heritage work, and that its an area I would very happily pursue a career in.
For more information, the Museum's Skills For the Future page can be found here http://eastanglianlife.org.uk/learning-2/skills-for-the-future/ and information on all the upcoming posts are available here http://eastanglianlife.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/2011-8-30-posts-summary-for-public.pdf and the upcoming post at Gressinghall has an advert here http://eastanglianlife.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Farrier-advert2.pdf
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