As a final
part of our year long HLF Skills for the Future Traineeship we have each had to
devise and run an independent project of our choosing.
The project I chose to run was a series of 4 two-hour
craft sessions for adults on Sundays at the Pitt Rivers Museum called Craft
Café. The idea for this developed when I noticed a lack of informal arts and
craft sessions aimed at adults in Oxford. There are plenty of classes which
teach a specific skill, for example painting, often as part of a course people
have to sign up for. However I wanted to provide a more casual experience, a
chance for visitors to relax and meet new people, and a place people could
experiment and explore without the pressure of feeling like they have to be
particularly skilled or experienced at art.
As this was my independent project I was responsible
for all aspects of the project and so my initial stages of planning were making
lists and timelines of these aspects and how they fitted in with each other. Here
I have broken down the various stages of the planning process in the order they
were carried out to give an idea of how the project progressed.
- Initial Ideas:
Who it would be for, when it would run and if people would have to pay to
attend. One of the main aims for the project was for it to be accessible to
anyone and so I didn’t want to charge too much, however I wanted to test if the
project could cover its costs if it were to run again in the future, so I
decided on a fee of £3. This stage also involved thinking of a name which would
represent what I wanted the project to achieve, and forming some initial ideas
for craft activities to run.
- Meeting with
the team: Craft Café ran as part of a larger Pitt Rivers Project called the
Verve project. At this stage I had a meeting with the team to check they were
happy with the direction the project was moving in and confirm some of my
initial ideas were practical. Certain ideas did need to be adapted such as the
sessions running on Sunday daytime instead of a weekday evening as I had
originally planned which was for staffing reasons.
- Choosing the
crafts: Next I started to really focus in on what crafts I was going to
lead. The difficulty was thinking of crafts which were cheap to make, simple to
complete, but also created a high enough quality piece that adults could be
proud of making, keep and use in the future. The crafts I decided to do were
hand-printing cards and posters, customising canvas bags, painting Easter eggs
and recycling paper to make jewellery and drinks coasters.
- Ticket sales:
I needed to give people time to see and book onto the event so getting the
online booking up and working was the next priority, this involved liaising
with the Oxford University online store staff.
- Marketing:
I then concentrated on marketing. I produced a poster for the project and set
up a Facebook event, Twitter account and blog to follow its progress. I also
liaised with the Pitt Rivers Marketing Officer who listed the sessions on
online events websites.
- Sourcing and
ordering materials: Ordering materials was another planning aspect, which
needed to be done as soon as possible.
- Creating resources:
I designed an evaluation form and some pages of inspiration and ideas for
the sessions.
- Project
administration: I sent out emails with further information to people who
booked onto the sessions and responded to any queries.
- Managing
staff: Each session started with a tour of relevant objects in the museum.
I led two of these and I asked Pitt Rivers staff to lead two of these, to give
some variety for repeat visitors, but also to make use of the extensive and
fascinating knowledge of staff.
- Facilitating
the session on the day: I chose crafts that didn’t need too much in depth
instruction so my job on the day was to lead the tour, explain what to do
initially and provide help for anyone who needed it, along with serving hot
drinks and sorting out the technical side such as music and a PowerPoint
showing relevant objects from the collection.
And of course I couldn’t resist getting involved in
the crafts myself!
- Updating
marketing: It was important to keep social media up to date as the project
progressed so I posted Tweets and wrote a blog article after each session. I
also encouraged participants to tweet what they had made as one visitor Tugba
did with the picture below.
- Post-project
admin: When the project had finished I transferred the evaluation data from
forms onto a spreadsheet. In addition to evaluation forms I had also used fun
‘feedback bunting’ allowing visitors to decorate one side and leave a comment
on the other. Finally I wrote a project report including what was successful
about it and what could be improved if it were to be repeated.
I was really proud of what I achieved in the project. I
loved running it and having that sense of responsibility and ownership over a
project which was completely my own. The sessions all went well and people who
visited really enjoyed it, with them rating the sessions on average 9.1 out of
10. I couldn’t have organized this
project without the skills, experience and most of all confidence the
traineeship has given me and, as I prepare to start my new job as Family
Festivals Coordinator at the Museum of London next month, I feel so grateful I
have been given the opportunity to learn and develop so much in the past year.
“Lovely
way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Thank you!”
“Loved
the session! Very relaxed and great value with all the materials included.
Really accessible. Would definitely come again. “
“Fab.
Relaxed. Enjoyable. Fun!”