After more than four years in the brewing, I’m delighted to be able to share the final evaluation report for Everything to Everybody (E2E), an ambitious and inspiring 4-year project led jointly by the University of Birmingham and Birmingham City Council’s Library of Birmingham to restore the world’s first, oldest and largest Shakespeare collection in any public library to every city resident.
IN TOTAL, 270,500+ people participated in E2E activity across the project lifetime, of whom 11,793 had a close-up view of the First Folio.
It is estimated that visits to E2E events generated an additional economic benefit to the Birmingham economy of over £900,000 in that time.
The very best thing that the partnership achieved was also a national first: they took the City’s precious, 400-year-old First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays out of the Library to 16 community venues including libraries, shopping centres, a family centre, a church and a prison.
It was an incredible pleasure and privilege to see how much people enjoyed and valued the chance to look at the book, find out more about its history as the People’s Folio, and share their own Shakespeare stories with the academics and library staff who accompanied it.
E2E provided a valuable testbed for University of Birmingham’s new Culture Forward programme of cultural and civic partnership activity and has given staff at Library of Birmingham new impetus and valuable digital resources to celebrate the magnificent collections it holds and share them with the City.
Credit where it’s due, I led a team of associates to complete this evaluation as it was HUGE!
Jonathan Durnin of Durnin Research, who led on the economic impact assessment
James Macdonald Media Services who produced a series of 11 impact case studies which have been uploaded to the E2E Youtube channel
I’ll post again about some of the case studies we created, but for now… enjoy the report!
The whole project was supported by funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, History West Midlands, Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games and a number of private donors.
A young girl and her grandmother play ‘a game’dialect dominoes’.
It’s time to share a newly completed evaluation report!
The fascinating and complicated Dialect & Heritage project was led by Professor Fiona Douglas of the University of Leeds and delivered in partnership with the Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings, Worcestershire; the Dales Countryside Museum and Ryedale Folk Museum in North Yorkshire; the Food Museum in Suffolk; and the Weald & Downland Living Museum, East Sussex.
The aims of the project were threefold:
to digitise 40,000 items in the Leeds Archive of Vernacular Culture (LAVC), enhance the online catalogue and make the collection more accessible to researchers around the world.
to share ‘this vital aspect of our heritage’ with communities across England, connecting contemporary audiences with the dialect and speech of their ancestors.
to invite a diverse range of people to take part in the Great Big Dialect Hunt survey or to work with specially trained volunteers to contribute 132 Oral Histories to the collection.
Each museum hosted an Engagement Officer from 2021 to 2022 who coordinated activity in the surrounding communities, encouraged people to respond to the Great Big Dialect Hunt survey and recruited and trained volunteers to record new oral histories for the collection.
A sixth partner, North Yorkshire Libraries, emerged in 2022 and the project team supported the service to take the project to a further 41 community libraries across the Yorkshire Moors and Dales.
Supported by a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, project work began in 2019 and within 6 months ran into the challenges posed by the Covid-19 lockdowns. Fortunately the first phase of delivery was to enhance the catalogues of the Leeds Archive of Vernacular Culture and digitise the items from the Survey of English Dialects. This meant that after the briefest pause, the Collections team found a way to get on with the work in preparation for the next stage: an 18 month programme of public engagement activity in rural communities across Yorkshire, the West Midlands, East Anglia and the South East.
Between January 2020 and December 2023, the project partners delivered:
256 events in 144 venues across England attended in person or online by 14,824+ participants.
12 exhibitions, visited by 127,272+ people over for 2,153 days.
A new website featuring 268+ pieces of content.
Training for 137 newly recruited volunteers who contributed 2,918 volunteer hours, valued at £167,950 to the project delivery
They documented and digitised:
5,085 documents from the LAVC (34,035 individual items).
10,0693 responses to the Big Dialect Survey.
132 new oral histories.
Although Professor Douglas already had experience of dialect-focussed public engagement work through an earlier partnership with Dales Countryside Museum, this project was far bigger in scope. As part of the evaluation process I was asked to research the developmental impact on the project delivery team in the School of English and on the University Special Collections team as well as on the partner organisations.
It was a lovely project which had a strong inter-generational appeal. It differed from other heritage projects I’ve evaluated because it focused on the intangible heritage of dialect: how it’s used, how it’s changed and how it’s moved around the country. I enjoyed watching event participants sit down together to fill in the Great Big Dialect Hunt Survey over a cup of tea. Within minutes there would be heated debate about how to pronounce ‘scone’ or what words people used for ‘seesaw’. And laughter! Lots of laughter.
If you want to have a go at the Great Big Dialect Hunt, you can complete the survey here.
Full details of the project activity, the artworks created and the early findings from the Great Big Dialect Hunt Survey can be found here.
Durnin Research Ltd and Jenni Waugh Consulting Ltd are delighted to have been appointed by Newark and Sherwood District Council as evaluators of the Newark Castle ‘Building Bridges’ project. Funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, ‘Building Bridges’ will establish Newark Castle and Gardens at the heart of the town, creating a significant, culturally creative heritage venue for the people of Newark, and making Newark a better place to live, work and visit.
Through the community co-curation of a programme of heritage interpretation and the creation of inspiring activities and events, the project will increase the diversity of local people who engage with the heritage for their inspiration, enjoyment and wellbeing. The project will complement a major capital works for the renovation of the Castle running alongside Building Bridges, funded by the Towns Fund.
The evaluation will capture learning from the experience gained in undertaking the project, and measure success against the expected outcomes. The evaluation will include input from visitors, community participants, volunteers, staff, and other stakeholders.
With the support of the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Diving In promises to complete the transformation of Moseley Road Baths. The restoration will create a positive ripple effect across the community making Balsall Heath a more exciting place to live, work and visit and increase the diversity of local people who engage with heritage for their inspiration, enjoyment and wellbeing.
This first stage of the National Lottery Heritage Fund investment will allow the partnership to develop their ambitious £32.5m Diving In project, which by 2029 will return swimming to the Gala Pool for the first time in 25 years and adapt other spaces, including the old laundry and slipper baths, to host fitness and wellbeing classes, a gym and building on its existing programme of cultural and arts events.
The funding will support the development of cross-generational cultural programmes with Balsall Heath library, focusing on families and older people, and learning opportunities for schools. It will also include the development of a Volunteering, Skills and Participation model with a multitude of opportunities to support activities and operations across the two buildings.
The evaluation will capture learning from the experience gained in undertaking the project, and measure success against the expected outcomes. It will include input from visitors, community participants, volunteers, staff, and other stakeholders and will support the establishment of ongoing quality monitoring and evaluation.
The capital works are also being supported by funding fromthe Levelling Up Fund, Birmingham City Council, Historic England and World Monuments Fund. For more information, see https://moseleyroadbaths.org.uk/
The Minibrum gallery and associated learning and community engagement programmeswere co-produced entirely with Early Years children (0-8 years old), their families, specialists and educators, and expert advisory panels.In creating Minibrum, Birmingham Museums Trust (BMT) broke new ground, becoming the first UK Science Centre to create a STEM-learning gallery and programme entirely dedicated to this age group.
Just as lockdown began in March 2020, I started work on the evaluation of the fascinating MiniBrum project at Thinktank in Birmingham. Over the next 18 months I worked with staff from BMT and a range of experts to create tools that ensured the young children’s responses were at the heart of the evaluation as well as the development.
The co-production team was led by an Early Years Specialist and supported by an Advisory Board and Working Group that included both external stakeholders and staff from across BMT’s Learning and Engagement, Curatorial, Conservation, Operations and Commercial teams.
The children, their families, education and community organisations were involved in all aspects of design from the developing the content and layout of the toilets, café and gallery zones, to the focus of the learning and events programming. The project team also drew on expertise from academics, STEM providers, teachers, parents, health and community workers.
When MiniBrum opened to the public in May 2019 it was an immediate hit with families, schools and children’s groups. Throughout lockdown BMT continued co-production work online, on and offsite with children, schools and community groups to develop further elements including the Jewellery Factory exhibition, early years planetarium show and multi-sensory family activities.
Observing the galleries and activities today, it’s a delight to see how confidently babies, infants and young children use the spaces playfully and imaginatively to explore STEM in the world around them.
The following 2 pdf guides were created at the end of the project to provide 9 top tips to co-production with this challenging and inspiring age-group. Feel free to download and share with your colleagues!
Note that I will be discussing the project evaluation at the Visitor Studies Group annual conference on 13 May 2022
Minibrum was supported by a grant from the Inspiring Science Fund, a partnership between UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and Wellcome. Between 2017 and 2021, 16 nurseries and primary schools, 6 community organisations and 3 universities took part in MiniBrum co-production activity.
Jenni Waugh Consulting and Durnin Research are delighted to have been appointed by Nottingham City Council and Nottingham Castle Trust to deliver the Nottingham Castle Evaluation.
Funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership, Nottingham City Council and Nottingham Castle Trust, the project includes creation of new galleries dedicated to Robin Hood, Nottingham’s famous outlaw, and the story of rebellion in the city.
Architect’s impression of the restored Nottingham Castle site, 2020
The programme of works includes the renovation of the Castle building, the construction of the new Visitor Centre and the redeveloping Ducal Palace, the Grounds, and the sprawling cave systems hidden within the Castle Rock. The project will also fund the renovation of the Castle building to create a new Robin and the Rebels themed visitor attraction, creating new jobs and attracting new visitors.
The project aims to establish the Castle as a significant visitor destination and is one of the most prominent heritage projects in the country. The wider benefits to Nottingham as expected to include:
400,000 visitors attracted in the first year
Additional spend in the local economy of over £90m over ten years
395 jobs sustained
230 construction jobs created
500 volunteer placements
20,000 school visits per year with events, workshops and activities to enliven the site.
The evaluation will capture learning from the experience gained in undertaking the project, and measure success against the expected outcomes. The evaluation will include input from visitors, community participants, volunteers, staff, and other stakeholders.
There’s no need to dwell on the weird times in which we live and work right now – I’ll save that for another post – but I have found it helpful to see the emerging research that might help us to regroup and recover in future.
We are all concerned about the implications of CoViD19 restrictions in relation to our work, our social lives and our families. For me, every day brings another *Gasp!* moment, when I think of another link in the chain that might potentially be lost – I can’ only support one of those at a time…
Here, I’ve collected together links to some of the material I’ve found useful to my thinking so far and I will add more over time. It’s not exhaustive, and I’m afraid I haven’t had chance to absorb the findings enough to provide any incisive synthesis, but I hope you might find something here of value to your own plans.
RECOVERY IN BRUM
A useful panel debate between professionals drawn from Birmingham’s public, arts, finance, commercial, property and retail sectors.
It took place on 19 May 2020 and from it I gained an illuminating insight into the interconnectedness of all things, of how tricky it will be, when trying to recover the life of our richly complex city, to reconnect the circuits and ensure that as few people get left behind as possible.
The chair was Marc Reeves, Editor-in-Chief, Business Live, and the speakers were:
Councillor Ian Ward, Leader of Birmingham City Council
Lara Ratnaraja, Freelance Cultural Consultant
Mark Orton, Partner, KPMG
Nicola Fleet-Milne, Chair, Colmore BID and CEO, FleetMilne Property
Sam Watson, Chair, Retail BID and General Manager, Selfridges
Steve Banham, Divisional Director, Brewin Dolphin
You can find a lot more material on the KPMG website about business and commercial recovery which will help you to get a view of the wider picture.
In planning for a life beyond lockdown, and for re-opening, we need to know how our audiences feel. It’s essential to understand how keen they are to return, what they miss the most and how we can make our visitors and our workforce feel confident enough to come back.
After the Interval (Indigo) has been designed to capture audience views how they feel about missing out on live events during lockdown, booking tickets now and in future and what they feel about returning to live arts events.
ALVA (Association of Leading Visitor Attractions)have commissioned Decision House to undertake similar Recovery Tracker research to build an understanding of how the sector can build trust and confidence among the attractions-visiting public.
Both have released wave 1 reports (relating to surveys carried out in April) on their websites (click on the links above). These reports will added to as the waves continue, with final reports planned for October 2020.
ALVAposed two major practical questions that attractions are likely to have ahead of re-opening:
How should we physically present ourselves on re-opening to build public trust and confidence in visiting?
What communications messages should we put out there to build confidence and capture the public mood?
Some headlines from the ALVA Wave 1 report indicates how cautious the respondents feel, even at an early stage in lockdown when the full implications of how long restrictions might last was unclear:
The tracker indicates a growing anticipation of visiting attractions within the next 3-6 months, perhaps a reaction to horizons for overseas travel becoming further away
Market is highly cautious overall, but a quick return is more likely for gardens and country parks.
Many potential visitors are adopting a ‘wait and see’ approach in fear of a second wave of the virus.
A significant proportion of attraction visitors are currently feeling that they will not return until a vaccine is available or the virus at least appears to be comprehensively beaten.
Caution is widespread, but there are some groups who are more likely to return as soon as the opportunity arises.
Around two thirds of the market will feel increased anxiety about a visit, so reassurance before and during a visit will be critical. Anxiety appears to be less related to the type of attraction.
After the IntervalWave 1 findings echo this caution:
93% of respondents are missing live events; 74% miss the buzz of the audience, and 55% look forward to supporting their local arts venue.
Only 17% are actually buying tickets now; 75% would want some form of safety measure to be in place before they return; and 28% would prefer to stay away from large gatherings, even when events get back underway.
DIGITAL SKILLS
Lockdown life has forced people online and accelerated our need to understand, embrace and develop our skills in operating in the digital realm.
The National Lottery Heritage Fund has commissioned research in to digital attitudes and skills in the heritage sector. Your responses will inform their strategic funding direction in the coming months so it’s really helpful to take part. They are seeking to find out:
What key digital attitudes and skills heritage staff and volunteers already have.
What new uses of digital technology they would like to explore.
A National Museum Directors’ Council (NMDC)-led cross-sectoral working group is developing good practice guidance on museum reopening with DCMS’ support. The approach is guided by the safety of visitors and staff, and financial sustainability. The guidance acknowledges the complexity of the sector, where each museum will be working within a unique set of circumstances and responding to local contexts. The guidance will be available in early June.
Ecsite, the European network of science centres and museums, has been collecting a series of CoViD19 resources, plans and guidelines for re-opening from venues across Europe and sharing this material on their website. There’s a lot of material here and the site is well worth rummaging about on – material has been submitted from all over Europe so you might need Google translate as well!
What a super day! 2 years in the making (don’t ask) and then yesterday I met up with 15 of the region’s keenest and we had a splendid day mucking about with outcomes frameworks, logic chains, question banks and love them/loathe them survey tools.
My ambition for the day was to provide museum professionals with an overview of how to plan for and structure an evaluation programme that is embedded in project activity from start to finish. All were encouraged to base the ‘hypothetical’ planning work on live projects in their own organisations.
I took the group through the planning process from formative enquiry, carrying out monitoring and transitional assessment research through to summative evaluation and reporting.
Yes, it was as nerdy as it sounds but we had enormous fun and there was a great buzz in the room as people worked together to share their knowledge and experience and banish their fears of EVALUATION. It’s a beast, but the course feedback suggests I’ve helped people to tame it!
We also
created our own evaluation framework and question banks
considered the levels of resource (money, time, staffing, training) required to carry out evaluation work
discussed the pros and cons of various approaches to monitoring and survey
finished with a good natured debate over whether to tackle the work in-house or commission an external consultant for the job.
As I said, it was fun with information attached. Actually, we were having so much noisy fun that a member of the Cider Museum team asked what kind of party we were having and could he join in!
Keep reading below the picture for links to evaluation guidance and resources…
Here are some of links to information and tools we talked about in the session which might well be of use to you, my darling readers.
What types of evaluation are there? Here’s a handy guide from the V&A Learning Team to some of the terms used by consultants!
We* decided to finish up Ombersley Remembers the WW1 Home Front by making a short film to show off some of the many discoveries made during the project. Hope you enjoy the trip!
It’s been a delight to work with the Ombersley Remembered research volunteers – I’ve never had so many keen researchers stick with me throughout. I think there were about 15 by the end, but I do admit I lost count!
I think they were particularly enthused because the subject matter they were researching focussed on their own homes – we looked at the history of the parish in WW1 by finding out who lived in each featured house and what they were most likely doing through the war.
We were really helped here because the combination of surviving official records between 1911 and 1921 which meant we could tie individuals to their homes and occupations by using the 1911 census, the 1910 Finance Act returns (correct for 1914), electoral registers and commercial directories. So much information, and that was before we started rummaging in the parish registers, newspapers and school log books!
The research was then used to create two parish tours focussing on the WW1 Home Front, which you can find and try out for yourself by visiting the project website.
Ombersley Remembers is my fifth community history project focussing on the WW1 history of Worcestershire. Continue reading →
The project was funded through the HLF Collecting Cultures programme and focussed on bringing people from some of Birmingham’s diverse communities together with artists and curators to shape the future of Birmingham Museum Trust’s collecting policies.
Over 1,800 objects were acquired through consultations with local people including The Rivers of Birminam, a series of 100 black and white photographs by Vanley Burke chronicling 40 years of Caribbean heritage in Birmingham. The photographs are by far the largest and most significant collection of work by the celebrated photographer in any public collection and were displayed at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery earlier this year.
I feel like the photos belong to the people of Birmingham as so many people feel connected to the stories and experiences documented in them. I’m very pleased they will be part of the city’s collection.
Vanley Burke
As an evaluator, it was exciting to see how eager the Collections Team of curators, conservators and cataloguers were to get involved with community engagement activity more usually carried out by the Learning & Engagement team members.
As the project team worked across the whole Trust to bring many permanent staff members’ skills to bear on creating networks, it is clear that Collecting Birmingham has significantly increased the network of communities and local experts with whom Birmingham Museums Trust hopes to work in future.
The very public nature of the project and the open consultation processes employed have gone a long way to demonstrate goodwill to and build trust with communities who had previously had reason to suspect the institution’s intentions. The team have also supported external partners to ensure a more representative process of collecting and presenting culturally significant objects to wider audiences in future years. As a result, participants have demonstrated changes in attitude towards BMT that augur well for future collaboration.
There is no doubt of the impact that Collecting Birmingham will have on BMT’s Collections Development Policy and on the organisation as a whole. As Rebecca Bridgman, Project Manager and Curator said:
As a result of Collecting Birmingham, I don’t think we’ll ever go back to the method whereby only curators decide what new objects to acquire for the collection.
What a super day! 2 years in the making (don’t ask) and then yesterday I met up with 15 of the region’s keenest and we had a splendid day mucking about with outcomes frameworks, logic chains, question banks and love them/loathe them survey tools.
Much as I love all my clients, it’s a tremendous buzz when their work wins prizes!
Jenni Waugh Consulting Ltd 