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The Croome Collection
Croome Summer School 21 July to 31 August 2007
As the Croome collection is so significant, the Record Office decided to do something new with it. Thanks to a grant from Museums, Libraries and Archives West Midlands, we ran a Summer School for young people aged 13-19 for the first time. These young people helped in the preliminary processing stages of the collection, while learning new skills and more about the field of archive work. Eight young people took part in the project, 4 girls aged 14 to 17 and 4 boys aged 14-18. The different elements of the project are highlighed below. |
| Workshop |
| Due to the extremely inclement weather on 20 July, we had to postpone the workshop day to the 26 July. It was an enjoyable day, where the young people were introduced to archives and the skills needed to catalogue a collection. They were taught how to read old handwriting, handle documents properly and about the proper storage conditions for the collection. They had a tour of the building (and lunch!) and were asked what they knew about archives and archivists. |
Workshop Day |
| Their brainstorm diagrams were very interesting. Apparently archivists are very clever but boring too! By the end of the Summer School, they knew much more. Hopefully, they still think we're clever though! |
| Talk by the experts |
On the morning of 8 August, the estate archivist, Jill Tovey and historian Dr Catherine Gordon came to give a talk on the family and the collection. It was a very informative session for both staff and young people. They illustrated their talk with readings from the archives. After the talk, they showed an episode of the BBC's Hidden Gardens which focussed on the restoration of the gardens at Croome, based on the plans in the archive. It set up the visit to Croome Park on the next week very well. |
| Trip to Croome Park |
Trip to Croome |
Unfortunately, the weather was again rather damp for this day. Nevertheless, we ploughed on and ignored it. The tour was held on 15 August at 2pm and the tour-guide was Jill Tovey, the estate archivist who had given the talk the previous week. It was very useful to have such consistency. She also, very kindly, referred to everything in the context of the collection. It really helped to bring the collection to life, to see why it all existed. |
| Volunteering element |
| The main part of the Summer School was the volunteering element. The young people came into the Record Office for one day per week to help process some of the collection. They mainly focussed on the bills. These contained everything from medicines to materials for clothing or building works. They worked really hard and accomplished much more than was expected of them. They all did about 25-30 hours work each. They all worked well together and gelled well as a team. |
Volunteering |
| Evaluation day and party! |
| To say a big thank you and to find out what the young people thought of the programme, we held an evaluation day and mini party on 31 August. They had nibbles and cake and then were asked to fill in feedback forms and brainstorm questions. They were asked again what they thought archives were and there were much fuller answers this time. It was clear that they had really enjoyed themselves over the six-week project and all of them would be happy to do it again. Although this was something new for the Record Office, it was very much a pilot and now that we know it works, we will certainly be looking at doing it again in the future. Watch this space! |
For further information about the Summer School or to register interest in volunteering for the Record Office (whatever age you are!), please contact Louisa Mann or call 01905 765926.
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Last modification: 13:25:49, 20th February, 2008 by Charlene Taylor
Review date: 20th May, 2008
