National Museums Liverpool Blog - youth volunteering

Amidst this past weekend’s Pirate festivities down at the Albert Dock, the volunteers team were also celebrating with a group of their young volunteers.

Having passed their Bronze Arts Award back in May, the group mustered together for the presentation of their certificates.

Congratulations and well done to our 12 Arts Award volunteers.

If you are interested in finding out more about youth volunteering at National Museums Liverpool please contact the volunteers team.

You can also find out more about the Arts Award, which aspires to support any young person to enjoy the arts and develop creative leadership skills and is run by Arts Council England and Trinity Guildhall.

Last month, Mersey v’s (our Young Volunteers Steering Group) visited Manchester Museum to meet with their Youth Board. Caroline, one of our Mersey v’s has kindly shared her thoughts about the day …

‘After their visit to World Museum last year with the Mersey v’s, the Manchester Museum Youth Board wanted to repay our invitation to visit with one of their own. On the 8th May, the Mersey v team ventured into the wide world to visit one of our neighbouring youth museum volunteer teams in Manchester. After a claustrophobic train journey (both Tranmere Rovers and Wigan Warriors were playing beyond Manchester), we arrived at Manchester Oxford Road ready to go to The Manchester Museum.

On arrival we were greeted by the Manchester Museum Youth Board. Once reacquainted, we had a presentation about what the Youth Board is doing in their museum. Their enthusiasm and confidence during the presentation was amazing and we were all impressed by the members of the advisory board about changes to the Egypt and classical collections and the group project to create the Manchester trail. The Manchester trail is a highlights tour of what the Youth Board believe are a mixture of Manchester greatest sites and has been so popular that it has become one of the many leaflets to accompany visits around the museum.

After a booming buffet, the Youth Board gave the Mersey v’s a tour of the Museum.  Highlights included the community gallery, showing the work they had done to help create the Manchester trail, from photos to personal stories of objects relating to Manchester including an elephant skeleton which when alive had walked to Manchester from Edinburgh. Other highlights included the Egyptian mummies, the Tomato Frog in the live reptile section and the scary encounter with Stan, the Tyrannosaurus Rex. At the end we had a chance to look at the Darwin exhibit.

Overall, it was a fantastic day not only to see another museum, but to see how a youth group like our own makes a difference in the museum. Thank you to the Manchester Youth Board for showing us around and the Volunteer team for sorting everything out for such a great day.’

Mersey v’s help the Volunteer Team to develop and deliver ideas and volunteering projects at our museums. If you are interested in volunteering and becoming part of the steering group please contact the Volunteers Team to find out more.

You can also find out more about Youth volunteering from v, the national young volunteers’ service.

The Volunteers Team would like to send out congratulations to several of our youth volunteers who each passed their Bronze Arts Award last week.

The group of 12 young people (aged 16-25) have all volunteered as part of our Discovery Volunteers project based at World Museum. During this time they met with visitors on gallery and chatted about handling objects, having received lots of prior training from curatorial and education staff.

Our volunteers also attended several Arts Award sessions run by the Volunteers team, including a visit to Plantastic and writing up a project about their Arts Hero or Heroine.

Arts Award aspires to support any young person to enjoy the arts and develop creative leadership skills and is run by Arts Council England and Trinity Guildhall.

We would like to say a big well done to them all!

You can find out more about youth volunteering from v, the national young volunteers’ service.

As it is National Volunteers Week all this week (1st – 7th June 2010) we thought it would be a great opportunity to pass the blog over to one of our youth volunteers. So, here’s Emma, to tell us a bit more about Mersey v’s: Our dedicated Youth Volunteers Steering Group…

'Mersey v’s is made up of a group of volunteers aged 16-25 at National Museums Liverpool. We meet once a month, usually on a Thursday evening or during a Sunday daytime, in different venues to discuss anything and everything to do with volunteering, giving us the opportunity to pass on our thoughts and ideas to the Volunteer department.

A typical meeting will start with an update from Claire, the Youth Volunteer Officer, with any relevant news since the last meeting. Then we usually move on to look at specific topics or tasks related to volunteering, such as designing logos for volunteer projects, discussing ideas for future projects, and suggesting how the museum should recognise volunteer achievements. In order to fuel the discussions at meetings, we are usually provided with a selection of cakes or pizzas, which are always popular with the group!

Mersey v’s is a great way to have a real impact upon volunteering within National Museums Liverpool, giving young volunteers the opportunity to have their say on a whole range of issues. Mersey v’s also allows members to learn more about the organisation by visiting different venues and talking to members of staff, while also developing our own skills by doing new things, such as writing this blog!'

If you are aged 16-25 and would like to get involved or find out more, please contact the Volunteers team.

You can also find out more about youth volunteering from v, the national young volunteers’ service.

Mersey v’s Aims
• To encourage youth volunteering
• To make volunteering relevant, new and exciting
• To engage young people in museums and their work
• To develop opportunities that link to the lives of young people today
• To learn about what National Museums Liverpool does
• To achieve new skills in a social environment
• To involve people from all sections of society

Jennifer is a volunteer working on the new Museum of Liverpool project and has recently achieved her v50 Award for completing more than 50 hours volunteer work.

Over to Jennifer, as she kindly tells us about her volunteer role….

“For the past year I have been volunteering on various projects for the new Museum of Liverpool. I am lucky enough to have been able to watch the museum progress from its initial building stages to the complete structure it is today. The projects I have worked on vary from helping to provide research and ideas for the City and Mersey Views galleries, collating data to inform and support a court reconstruction, and currently I am developing a power-point presentation about the Wirral to provide information for a multimedia station in Creative City. Doing this research has been very interesting, enabling me to learn things I hadn’t expected about Liverpool and its past, as well as to help contribute to things for its future. I think volunteering is an invaluable experience to be part of and encourage everyone to get involved with their local museum as there really is something for everyone!”

A big thank you to Jennifer for all her hard work!

If you would like to find out more about youth volunteering and achieving a v50 Award please contact the Volunteers team.

You can also find out more about youth volunteering from ‘v, the national young volunteers’ service.

 

A few weeks back, during the Easter holidays, our wonderful team of Discovery Volunteers were on hand in the World Cultures Gallery at World Museum.

Each of the 24 youth volunteers underwent thorough training with curatorial and education teams and then put their knowledge to good use on gallery with interesting and engaging handling objects.

Our Discovery Volunteers had a brilliant time meeting with thousands of visitors and chatting to them about unusual objects, including Japanese netsuke and Arctic snow goggles. Volunteers provided information on what the object was used for and also the natural material it had been made from. This interest in natural resources is a key feature to reflect the Wild Wild World programme of events at World Museum to support the International Year of Biodiversity.

As Richard, one of the volunteers explains:

‘The Go Wild! project has made visitors aware of the diversity within human cultures across the globe…raising topical issues that are relevant in today’s present’

Each of the volunteers gave over 50 hours volunteer work on this project and as a result achieved their v50 Award Certificate, a nationally recognised certificate supported by v, the national young volunteers’ service.

If you are aged 16-25 and interested in becoming a future Discovery Volunteer please contact the Volunteer team.

Finola Kelly, creative apprentice for National Museums Liverpool writes:

Over the past 8 weeks I have been involved in a project producing a piece of visual art to go on display in the Museum of Liverpool’s Creative City gallery, and it's finally finished, wow! A group of young adults have taken part in creative sessions every Thursday to throw together designs and ideas and produce a graffiti masterpiece with help from freelance graffiti artist Andy Prior (Zap Graffiti) and assisted by members of our communities team.

The piece of graffiti art shows the memorable events, places, pride and ripples of creativity that roll out of our city such as the theatres, the Liver Building, Mersey Tunnels and of course the Superlambanana. As the project started and ideas were scribbled down on paper, the design slowly came together from a piece of paper onto a huge panel board.

The aim of this project was for a creative group to take part, work together and create a visual art piece for the museum. The group really enjoyed coming together every week and joining in. Everyone had a chance to paint, create their own parts and have fun! 

 Great feedback was given and the group enjoyed being able to take part with the graffiti and learn from an artist in a friendly atmosphere that was created throughout the weeks, and new friendships were made. It was an eventful eight weeks and we were all sad that it had come to an end.

Some feedback from the participants: “It would be great to have another project like this again and we would definitely take part”, “The end result was different from what we thought…It was better!”

Truly an amazing project to be involved in and we all look forward for the opening of Museum of Liverpool.

Hello, it's Claire Olson from the Volunteers team. This is the first official blog post from the Volunteers team, we will be keeping you updated on all the different volunteer activities happening from now on.

We are already well in to the second of three weeks of our Discovery Volunteers Go WILD! project, which links in to our Wild Wild World series of events to celebrate the International Year of Biodiversity.

Our friendly team of 24 volunteers have been eagerly sharing their knowledge with visitors and helping them handle museum objects. In fact, last week alone our volunteers spoke with a staggering 1756 visitors on gallery, and this week looks set to be even busier!

You can find our Discovery Volunteers on the World Cultures Gallery from 11am – 4pm, each day until Sunday 18th April. If you haven’t already popped by the museum this Easter then why not drop in, speak to our amazing volunteers and put their learning to the test!

Discovery Volunteers Go WILD! is supported by v, the national young volunteers service.

For the past month a group of 24 volunteers aged 16-25 have been receiving in-depth training, prior to being let loose on gallery with specially chosen handling objects.
 
The group have worked with curators and education staff to learn about objects from our World Cultures gallery at World Museum; looking at how they were made and what they were used for. Linking in to our Wild Wild World series of events to celebrate the International Year of Biodiversity, our volunteers also found out about the natural materials each object was made from. The natural resources used are themselves very interesting and include snow goggles made from caribou antler and Japanese netsuke made from vegetable ivory.
 
Our friendly team of Discovery Volunteers will be in the World Cultures gallery passing on what they have learnt to  visitors from 11am - 4pm each day during the Easter holidays - Monday 29 March to Sunday 18 April.
 
Why not visit them and find out more. You will have the chance to quiz our volunteers, handle museum objects and even try some of them on!
 
Discovery Volunteers go wild! is supported by v, the national young volunteers service. You can find out more on the v website and the youth volunteering page of the National Museums Liverpool website.

Yasmin, one of our youth v volunteers has the honour of being the first volunteer to receive her v50 Award certificate in 2010. The certificate recognises the completion of 50 hours of volunteer work as part of the vinvolved project for people aged 16-25.
 
The staff in National Museums Liverpool's volunteers team and Education and Communities team have said a big well done and thank you to Yasmin for her time and commitment. Yasmin herself said of her time here:

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"Volunteering at the National Conservation Centre has given me the opportunity to develop a number of skills. I performed a variety of tasks from helping to deliver visitor workshops and walks for health, to being involved with the Stephen Shakeshaft exhibition.

The workshops were particularly useful as they involved working with a wide range of skills and visitor ages. My favourite workshop has to be Felt Making, because I enjoyed helping the visitors design and make their final pieces.

My time at the National Conservation Centre wouldn't have been as enjoyable without the encouragement and support of the Education and Communities team. As well as developing skills such as confidence, IT and customer service, I have also learned that nothing is impossible and that I can achieve many things."