Matthew Platt
Guest blog post by Catherine Maddex and Maya Coetzee of Monk’s Walk School
We came to North Herts Museum for our Year 12 work experience, and as history students we found it so interesting! The team gave us a wide range of tasks to do, such as arranging a display cabinet and shadowing the front of house staff, which helped us to improve our people skills. During our time here we also got the opportunity to attend meetings, which gave us an insight into the inner workings of museums.
Our favourite part of our work experience was looking at the digitised accession records on eHive (the museum’s object database) and being tasked with researching for the object of the week post for an upcoming social media post. It was fascinating to learn about and have access to such historical objects, as well as documenting more recent local history, such as the archival material collected in reaction to the Queen’s death.
Overall, the lovely staff and welcoming atmosphere made it a valuable and memorable experience. We are so grateful to the museum for allowing us this opportunity!
Maya and Catherine with the display they worked on
Guest post by Niamh Parker of Samuel Whitbread Academy
During my week spent in the North Herts Museum, I ended up finding myself in a wide variety of all the different roles that keep the museum running. Roles in a museum can range from things you would usually expect such as archiving objects or setting up displays, or lesser-known jobs such as accessioning (making something an official museum object), something I didn’t even know existed until I had a go at it! In my time here I helped set up a display, learnt how ehive (the museum’s object database) works, archived some objects, helped with accessioning, created a social media post, learnt about what goes on at the front desk and created a quiz about the museum for a group of scouts.
My favourite aspect of working at the museum has been the overwhelming sense of community I’ve felt being here. A memory I will always treasure is getting to show a display I helped set up about the life of a lady named Pauline, who was a WRVS worker, to her son. Seeing how much our display meant to him and hearing him say how proud his mum would be of it meant so much to me. I’ve also loved hearing about the lives and journeys of all the staff here at the museum; it has given me a real glimpse at the sort of places I want my life to take me.
To any students even remotely interested in history, whether you take it as a subject or just enjoy it as a hobby, I cannot recommend this experience enough. I’ve loved every part of it, and really wish I could stay here for 10 more weeks and beyond. Every single role has been fascinating to learn about, even more so to take part in. There is so much more to this museum than you’d ever think beyond just the exhibits.
Niamh and her display
Guest post by Alice Rogers and Himani Sidhu work experience students from Knights Templar School, Baldock
We came here for work experience, and we had a great time! We have been given valuable life lessons by the beyond friendly workers at the museum. We have learnt lots about the area we have grown up in that we didn’t know prior to our visit. As part of our experience, we have been able to help with a new display, create top trumps cards, learnt how to catalogue items, went around town to promote a new exhibit and many other things.
We were asked by the museum staff to select our favourite display; we chose the suffragettes. This display includes letters to suffragettes, notably one from Christabel Pankhurst, outfits they once wore, badges and much more. It is fascinating to know that there were some of these noble people in this area.
Viewing these exhibits made us realize that there is a lot more significant history in North Herts than we were aware of. We have had an interesting and memorable time working here, an experience we will never forget.
Alice and Himani with their favourite display