Meet the Museum, Tuesday 19 February 2013

Today the Youth Advisors had the opportunity to come and meet National Maritime Museum staff and find out more about what they do, how they got their roles here and what their experience and education was before. Youth Advisor Piarve tells us more...

MEET THE MUSEUM 2013 

The future is unexpected and you just never know where life will take you. One thing which has been constantly stressful to hear is 'think about your career' and 'what do you want to be', and as a young person the answer can sometimes be 'I don't know' or I am very interested in so and so but I don't think there are any jobs in it.

Today I met a wide range of people and careers which I did not imagine existed. I met a graphics designer who did graphic design from university level, graphic design as a first job and is now the graphics designer at the national maritime, but also met a lady, who did an African and Asia literature degree, started her career in media and did some journalism, yet has ended up working as a learning officer at the national maritime (what a mix of skills!). I also met a photographer who despite not attending uni, built a strong portfolio of work, did some freelancing and is now a full time photographer at the museum.

 

Louise Simkiss, Adult Learning Manager

I was amazed at how many jobs were available, from events management, to filming director to organic conservator and each individual showed true passion in their jobs.

The highlight of the day was being able to actually see 'behind the scenes' of a museum, which was nothing as I expected and I learnt that many personalities and talents are needed to form a museum. I also loved the drive, passion and ambition carried by the director as he took time from he's what seemed chaotic schedule to spend some time giving us an insight of he's role but also he's appreciation for the YAG.

I enjoyed the paper conservation part, I found it interesting how we can connect so many old pieces of history together in order to form a story. It also reminded me of the hard work and dedication it takes to unravel history. Elizabeth the paper conservative found the mixture of art and science in one job amazing.

Overall it was a good day and gave me some confidence about the future. I took away that: Whatever I do, I will still find a job which makes the best of me.

 

And Youth Advisors Terri and Tianna tell us their experience...

Today was very interesting and help us youth advisors develop our knowledge on what Jobs were actually like in the museum and it also helped us to think about whether in the future we may want to pursue a career in a museum department. Today was overall very and we hope to continue with days like this in the future round about every other month. Here's what we got up to....

First we were introduced to museum and learnt about its new Greenwich museums status which secludes of a number of local heritage sites as part of 1 company instead of having individuals names as the National Maritime Museum previously did.

Secondly we met the events team in the museum(Jill, Sonia and Dave)and discovered more about what they do during a typical day and how and what we may want to pursue to get to their position.We also learnt about events they put on and how this benefits the museum economically.

 

Jill, Sonia and David from the Events Team

Next we met James from the curating department and learnt more about the up and coming Horatio Nelson exhibition and the problems that he faced whilst producing the exhibit.This was very Interesting!!

 

James Davey, curator of Naval History

Then we had some Dominos which gave us time to reflect on the talks we'd had so far and of course have a bite ready for next department we were going to meet which we were especially excited about because it was Shauna's department!!

Shauna's Department (learning department)was really exciting we met a range of people from different jobs. Sara being the majority favourite told us a bit about an upcoming film festival she's holding which will happening tomorrow.She talk to us about the struggles of getting the event to be the best it could be and her career path which led her to her present museum Job in the learning department.

 

Meeting Joanna Salter, Digital Learning Officer

Meeting Anna Salaman, Head of Formal Learning

Meeting Kit Wimalasekera, Family Learning Officer

With Tracey Weller, Archive Learning Officer

Hearing from Sara Wajid, Public Programmes Manager

 

The next department was design.They were inspiring as the majority of the group didn't know design teams existed within museums.

Meeting the Design team, including Sean

The next visit was of course the highlight as we met the man who directs the museum and makes youth advisory group possible Kevin Fewster. We shared tea and biscuits in a board room which really excited us youth advisors.This was our favourite visit as it gave us the opportunity's to ask questions about his ideas on youth and the museum.His feedback was very pleasing for us as he commended us as youth advisors and said how great he thought the work we have done so far was.

 

With Director, Kevin Fewster

 

After this we met the photography department which was in a separate building.We got the opportunity to view photography equipment and see the amount effort and thought that goes into 1 photo.We also learnt about key traits we might need to have to be photographers the main 1 was problem solving.

 

With photographer David Westwood in the Photography Studio

The last department was conservation.We met paper and wood conservation and gained more knowledge on what this Job actually involved and what its objectives where.

 

Meeting the Paper Conservation team in their studio

Finally all the youth advisors fed back on their day and what their highlights were.We all concluded that days like this were useful and fun and set an aim to try and do days like this regularly in the future and meet even more departments :)

Thank you to all departments that allowed us to visit them or came to visit us and a special thanks to Shauna for organising this as we understand it was hard work.

Tianna and Terri