BAFM INTERNATIONAL NEWS - 2
AMERICAN STUDENTS UNCOVER THE PAST
AT THE MUSEUM OF WITCHCRAFT
Nine students from The College of New Jersey, USA (TCNJ), volunteered their time to the museum by cataloguing over a thousand documents in its growing online database. This effort was part of a class called ‘The Magic of Archival Research’, which uses studies on witchcraft to teach the archiving process. The students worked closely with Graham King, who answered their numerous questions, on subject from deciphering difficult handwriting, learning writer’s pen names in the Pagan and Wiccan movements, and identifying photographs.
The students learned that, no matter how many times one goes through the Museum of Witchcraft, there are always new things to discover. Jessica Mena, one of the TCNJ students said, “The Museum of Witchcraft is just brimming with information.” The museum itself offers a plethora of information on witchcraft, healing, and Paganism, displaying authentic objects and charms. The library upstairs, is lined with thousands of books about myriad topics including astrology, Wicca, folklore, the occult, and witchcraft through the ages. Student Ashley Scotto admitted, “It was hard to keep from getting lost in all of the books that were right at our fingertips. Anytime I took a break from work, all I wanted to do was read.”
The work primarily involved carefully digitising and cataloguing boxes of files. They worked six hours a day over a two-week period, carefully reading each document for keywords, people and places mentioned, and main points, then inputting all of the data into the museum’s online database. This experience was more than simple reading and analyzing; it was an opportunity to learn about the Pagan and Wiccan movements - their history, the people, the current gossip, and their struggle to overcome the misleading stereotypes placed on these groups.
In addition to working in the archives, a small team also conducted graduate research on fertility folklore, utilising the museum’s resources, to collect fertility spells and recipes. As evidence of this resplendent collection, they gathered their work into a book for publication. This book will showcase how extensive the museum’s collection of history and folklore has become, while it’s illustrations, mostly from the Richel Collection, will highlight the richness of the visual display.
The students had an incredible time, also spending time with Curators Graham and Kerriann outside of work. They particularly enjoyed hiking the cliff walk from Boscastle to Tintagel and experiencing local colour at ‘The Nap’ with the ‘Boscastle Buoys.’
[Spring 2012]
VOLUNTEERS HELP CONSERVE
THE DEVELOPING WORLD’S HERITAGE
University College London (UCL) is the home of a newly conceived project, Heritage Without Borders (HWB) which won a Social Enterprise Award in May. HWB aims to recruit professionals and newly qualified graduates in the heritage sector to give these volunteers additional professional and life skills whilst helping the people in the most deprived and war-torn areas of the world to conserve their heritage. Sally MacDonald, the Director of the Museums and Collections at UCL and co-director of HWB, said that “We are looking at the types of projects that simply wouldn’t be able to access skills otherwise.” Projects at the UNESCO heritage site at Merv, Turkmenistan, and a training programme at the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo are currently underway.
[Autumn 2011]
European Union ‘Year of the Volunteer’
French Federation of Museums General Assembly
- Aix-en-Provence
The President of FFSAM, Jean-Michel Raingeard, invited me to attend their General Assembly in Aix-en-Provence in April, as a representative of BAFM. I took part in the workshop on volunteering. There is a difference in what is meant by ‘volunteer’ in France and what is meant in other countries. ‘Bénévoles’ are not paid, have no legal contract and no fixed hours, whereas ‘volontaires’ receive payment.
I explained that volunteering is one of the basic expressions of civic participation and democracy. It represents the strength of European values, such as solidarity and non-discrimination, and contributes to the harmonious development of our societies. In difficult economic times, it is even more important that people recognise the value of volunteers. We need to develop corporate support for volunteers, find new ways to engage the young and learn how to value the potential represented by the elderly.
In England volunteers were, from the very beginning, at the heart of the movement to create museums and protect our heritage. Many museums started spontaneously in the form of private collections, presented by individuals or companies and the vast majority still rely on volunteer contributions in the way of visitor services (conferences, research, restoration of documents, etc.).
Museums have been transformed in recent years. Visitors enjoy the wide variety of new services and the much better quality of facilities and presentations, whether real or virtual. Our Handbook for Heritage Volunteers, Managers and Administrators explains very clearly how much we rely on our volunteers. Without the time and effort which they give freely, we could not function as effectively. We consider our volunteers as an essential, but distinctive, part of our make up. We have a policy of equal opportunity and equal access, which applies both to staff and visitors. We train our volunteers, so that they can work competently in secure surroundings. We provide insurance which covers each volunteer from accidents or complaints from members of the public. We reimburse expenses and keep our volunteers informed about our policies, projects and programmes and invite them to contribute to decision making through normal management channels.
People were thus given an approximate idea of how we function in Great Britain. Mention was made of David Cameron’s Big Society, in that it was hoped that there would be a change in the manner in which the country was run, by giving the community and groups of volunteers the chance to play a more important role. It was hoped that volunteers would be used in all economic sectors.
The French discussed the profile of their bénévoles in their various associations; how did the Friends actually operate in the life of their museums and how to increase their presence there. The results of a questionnaire showed that there were 10-15 bénévoles in each association, most of whom were retired people over 60 years old, mostly women, and that there were not enough young people. On average the bénévoles gave 200 hours per year to their museums. The museum associations have great difficulty in recruiting and replacing their bénévoles.
The relationship between the Friends and the Curators of the museums was seen to be critical and examples were given of several very positive results.
The passion for their culture, their museums and their Friends, which both countries share, set the scene for many lively discussions.
NEMO
The Network of European Museum Organisations
Advocacy, Information, Promotion and Networking
NEMO, the Network of European Museum Organisations, is an independent network of museum associations and similar bodies representing the museum community of Europe.
NEMO connects European museums and their organisations, helping to ensure their place in the cultural development of Europe. It speaks on behalf of museums, emphasising their interests and their influence on European cultural policy and initiatives, while promoting their importance to European policy makers. It stresses the role museums play in economic growth, in bringing communities together and in encouraging a diverse cultural heritage. It also supports the exchange of intelligence and information about all aspects of museums, raising matters of interest and endeavouring to find a common voice for cultural concerns in Europe.
NEMO works for over 30,000 museums in Europe and EU associate countries. It comprises the independent museum bodies of each country, campaigning for European policies that help museums to fulfil their role as cultural agencies, places of learning and keepers of heritage.
Through publications, meetings and its website NEMO is able to exchange information between museums, institutions and those concerned with policy-making.
The interim Chairwoman of NEMO, writing in the NEMO Newsletter says: “One of its (NEMO’s) major projects was its involvement in formulating a policy paper in co-operation with other civil society representatives of the European culture field, to be discussed at the Cultural Forum in September. This paper by the Civil Society Platform, ‘Access to Culture’, refers to various dimensions of the term and brings up several problems and questions that have to be solved in the different fields of work. By addressing these issues, the paper intends to contribute to the future culture policy of the European Commission.”
The NEMO Annual Meeting 2009 will be held at Linz, in Austria, from 27th to 29th November. Details may be found on the website.
‘Access to Culture’ is now available on-line, as is the NEMO Newsletter and the new ‘Partner Search’ for EU programmes and projects.
Please visit the NEMO website. |