Almost There...

We are now half way through April and it's getting to that point where I'm looking back over the year and wondering where the time has gone. We have only a month left at the Palace and it feels like we have been there forever but then hardly there at all at the same time.

However, our projects are still running smoothly. We have now finished all the filming for the Vox Pop Project which means only have the editing to do in order to complete this task. We started this process on Wednesday which we knew was going to take a while. In this sitting we succeeded in getting all the footage from the videos onto a computer so next time we can start to edit. This took a little while longer than anticipated as we had to do it the video's natural playing time. We had one full tape and a little extra which was over an hours worth of footage. This allowed us to see the films which we had made and also allowed to split it into clips. However, there was no sound whilst we were transferring the footage so we had to guess where to do the splits. We have arranged a meeting for next Wednesday afternoon with one of the technical equipment staff so we can be taught how to edit effectively.

The Sensory Trail is also going well; I feel guilty because I haven't seen the progress which has been taking place over the past few weeks due to my trip to Rome and the Easter holidays. However, I understand that much of the digging has now taken place and the area should be ready for the planting if that has not already happened. Over the break, I did some more communicating with the electronics company and we have finally arranged what would be best for our project. I forwarded the email to Amanda so she can actually buy the parts for Ad to put into the posts for us. I feel this is a massive part of the project sorted now and all we have to concentrate on is getting it finished in time to open. It has been decided that the best time for a grand opening would be May half term, this is a little later than originally planned as we now want Ad to do a live demonstration in the grounds to create awareness of the project. However everything is running on time for the new opening date.

Other than the projects, we have to now concentrate on the tasks which need to be completed for the module itself such as the reflective essay and the presentation. Again, we just need to find the time where can plan and present together; the essay should be easier as it is very much individual.

Lights, Camera, ACTION!!

Our Vox Pop Project is well under way and we have the majority of the filming done and dusted.

So far we have had meetings with Taras, Tony, Rosie, Pam and Lynne and have gone further by filming Taras, Tony and Rosie.

All the interviews and filming have gone well; we have noticed how every volunteer is different and how nerves affect them all in various ways. However, all of them have been very willing and patient.

We have found that this project has caused most work for us as we have been constantly phoning and emailing to set all these interviews up. I have also found that the volunteers are much more comfortable about the whole experience once we have had the initial meeting so they fully understand what we are doing and why. The only volunteer we have left to speak to at all is Peter but that has now been arranged for next week, along with Pam's filming.

I have also noticed that the volunteers are quite enthusiastic about the project and are all anxiously awaiting the finished product.

We have decided that the editing should begin to take place soon, much of which we can do off site on our university campus. Imogen and I have arranged another meeting with Tom in order to learn how to use the appropriate software and how to make the most of it. I am looking forward to this as technology eludes me a little so I feel I may learn some valuable skills for the future. This will allow us to start the editing process straight after Easter so the project is finished in time.

It is all onwards and upwards from here.

Brownies take over the Palace

On February 13th 2013, I organised for some of my local Brownies to come to the Palace for the day. This was in aid of the Vox Pop Project so we could film the volunteers within their role at the Palace. This will be part of Rosie Petherick's interview which has been organised but not yet carried out.

We had a very lovely day, even though only two of the girls could come. We spent the first part of the morning making shields in the Learning Room. This was an activity based around the knights and their shields. It was amazing to see how the education department actually worked and to get involved with the activities.

It was interesting to see which patterns the girls chose for their shields and why and then what the symbols would have meant early in history on a knight's shield.

We followed this up through doing the Dragon Hunt which the girls thoroughly enjoyed and this gave us an opportunity to film them a little for the project. Sara did all the technical work but only stayed at the Palace for a couple of hours. However, we managed to get more than enough footage and pictures. I think the Dragon Hunt was the most popular activity as it did encourage the girls to be outside; they also loved the fact the dragon was a girl and they could tie ribbons on her. However, we did get to explore the inside of the Palace as well and I was surprised to see how interested they were about the History of the Palace as they sat and watched the video in the Long Gallery all the way through.

After our pleasing find, we took part in a Shield Hunt to warm up. This allowed the girls to explore the inside of the Palace a little more. This worksheet was a little more challenging with a complex activity at the bottom but they seemed to enjoy it.

Then all that was left to do was explore the market place a little before heading home.

I really enjoyed this particular week as it was a little break from all the work we have going on. I had a little bit of a hard time coming to terms with going on our Reading Week as it was meant to be a week away; however, I enjoyed organising the trip for the girls and making the most of the Palace as a visitor as well as enhancing our projects a little more. The Vox Pop project is finally beginning to take shape. Yay!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

So, a new year and a new start with a fresh wave of motivation.

I have been quite guilty of neglecting my blog of late so here comes a massive update on where we are and what is happening:

THE SENSORY TRAIL:

Okay, I'm going to start with my project as it is developing pretty fast and there's lots of exciting developments coming along.

So I had a review meeting with the lovely Amanda after the Clearing Day and we discussed the amazingness of our Clearing Day and then continued to make a timeline of events which need to happen in order for the grand opening on May 1st.

It has been decided that March will be digging month where we will remove all the roots at the end point ready for the planting to take place. James has agreed to organise the levelling of the area for us and this should take place end of February or early March in order for our digging to take place. This leaves late March or early April for Angela to mark out where our flower beds will go. Depending when the Easter holidays are, we shall invite Lufton College back to do some planting.

We then went on to discuss the potential audio element of the sign posts.

I did some research and contacted a company BlackBox-av and they have been rather helpful in terms of prompt replies and friendliness. They sent me this link to a project they have just finished with Llanyrafon Manor in Wales.

After discussing this further with Amanda, I have contacted them again with the hope of getting a solar powered audio equipment installed in the first post of the Trail.

Last Wednesday, I attended the Manager's Meeting with Amanda to discuss the Sensory Trail. They were very enthusiastic and this was very encouraging. This has allowed us to give the final go ahead to Angela and Adam. This means we can give definite dates for marking out the flower beds and for the wooden elements to be installed. We discussed the possibility of Adam coming into the Palace and performing some form of wooden based event as this would raise awareness of the Trail and raise some money for marketing the Trail once it is time to open.

Also from the meeting, we discussed the idea of introducing sensory trail related items to the shop such as mini chalk boards similar to those we will have on the trail. I am going to do some research into this at some point. And we threw around ideas for an alternative name as the idea of a Trail suggests a fixed, paper based route which isn't the right idea for this particular project. So we are also brainstorming that.

I think that's all up-to-date now.  I am meeting Amanda on Wednesday to discuss audio feedback and the possibility of Adam coming in. Looking onwards and upwards.

VOX POP

Moving on to good old Vox Pop.

We had a general review meeting with Anneli last week to discuss progress of the last term in general. This involved a lot of feedback from Taras in regards to the interview he took part in.

From this, we have learnt we must meet with each volunteer before any filming takes place. This will allow us to discuss our aims and the questions we will be asking. We want to make everyone feel as comfortable as possible so by doing this, hopefully the volunteers will have an active input on the questions. We will also have a flipchart with us during the actual interview so the volunteers don't get lost or panicked at any point.

We are also putting in actual visual examples of the volunteers within their roles. For this, I have been in touch with the Brownie Pack I volunteer with every Thursday evening. I am hoping to arrange for the girls to come to the Palace during February half term for the Learning video with Rosie. We have arranged to have a meeting with her this coming Wednesday where I shall present this idea.

We finally managed to steal a few minutes of Sarah Moore's time to discuss the project. She was very supportive and has given us some guidance on how to go about the more generic advertising video. We are waiting on some story board plans from her to get going on this and we are hoping we can pull most of the content from our original interviews through major editing.

This week has been relatively successful in terms of Vox Pop as Imogen and I sorted the camera situation so we now have working visuals and sound in good quality. We then carried out Taras' meeting and interview which ran very smoothly. He has been so helpful and so patient with us which has made us a lot more confident.

FUNDRAISING

Fundraising seems to slowly be taking shape as well.

Before Christmas, Imogen and I carried out a series of surveys on visitors. This was a success and gave some interesting results - it is clear that an event based around art would be very popular.

After meeting with Jo, it was decided that we would no longer be putting on an actual event as this seemed really daunting for us. We are now going to essentially planning an event. This will entail doing a lot more research through surveys and questionnaires and then building on this information to make a business plan which we will present to some of the managers in February.

I think this has made us feel better as it has given us a steady ground with achievable aims. We will act on this by carrying out some more surveys this coming week. This should be interesting as it was decided to go into the market place outside the Palace as well as the Bishop's Table to get more varied results.

I think everything is running rather smoothly at the moment. Hopefully it will continue that way.

The Mid Year Report

My project is taking place at the Bishop’s Palace in Wells, where we are focusing on three completely contrasting projects. The idea is for each of us to take a lead on one of these different projects so, not only do we gain experience working within an historical establishment but also gain some leadership experience. It was easily decided that I would take on the Sensory Trail Project whilst Imogen and Sara shared responsibility of the Vox Pop Project and the Fundraising Project; however, it was agreed that we would essentially work as one big team and help each other.

                I came into the Sensory Trail Project after the planning stages had successfully taken place. At first, it all seemed quite overwhelming as everyone else involved were much more aware of what was going on and therefore, what had already been achieved; however, I soon caught up. The overall aim of the Sensory Trail is to improve access physically, intellectually and culturally to prospective visitors and members, with particular concentration on those with special needs. This should broaden our visitor scope as well as encourage repeat visits to the Palace. Through using the senses, we also aim to spread seasonal interest to our visitors; this will be achieved through the incorporation of signs to highlight specifically what can already be heard, seen, felt and smelt throughout the walk. Coupled with the planting of certain herbs and plants that have distinctive colours and smells should enliven visitor’s senses naturally.

                The part of the trail that was still in the ideas stage was the end point and for the first few weeks, we were still throwing around ideas. Out of our budget of £7200, the Palace had paid Angela to design 9 different possible endings to the Sensory Trail. This was the final design:

  

With our budget in mind, we are only going to do the top half of the design; the green crescent shapes are going to be filled with scented herbs and colourful plants which will flower at different times throughout the year so the trail is always outlined with colour. We decided that we liked the idea of a final resting point so we hope to have a chair which circles a tree. The pole maze is where wooden stepping stones shall be placed and the blackboards are going to be made portable so guests can take them round the trail recording what they can see, hear and feel.

                Currently, the Sensory Trail stands with the end point area cleared and ready for planting. We devoted Wednesday December 5th to clearing and I organised for Lufton College to come in and help us. I felt the day was a success and this can be seen through pictures of the area now:

Before

After

After

                Working with a Special Needs school is very rewarding and I felt happy with the results we achieved. I am meeting with Amanda next week to discuss our next steps with the Sensory Trail; I know we still have to organise the signs and receive a quote from Adam who is working on building a chair for the final point and the stepping stones which will be used to climb on. However, I am very happy with where the Sensory Trail is going and feel we are on target to open it by May.

                In terms of our other projects, Vox Pop is certainly running more smoothly than Fundraising. The Vox Pop project is based on Oral History and the overall aim is to interview a number of volunteers about their placement roles at the Palace, so prospective volunteers and current volunteers can watch them to gain information about the role they are fulfilling. So far we have discussed with Anneli suitable questions to ask volunteers and have run our first videoing shoot. This was done with the help of Taras, the Learner Mentor. It was a success in the way that it highlighted all the things we need to work on such as camera quality, making the interviewee feel comfortable and asking appropriate questions for the role. In this run through, I was asking the questions whilst Imogen and Sara worked the equipment. This worked well and I feel this is what we shall continue to do. I learnt that in order to ask relevant questions, meeting with the interviewee before the interview would be much more beneficial than sending a simple email and would make the whole ordeal more comfortable. Our next move with this project is to create a timeline for Anneli which will show when we will fit in all the interviews and meetings. We are also going to look into filming the volunteers within their roles and have been looking at examples of this online. This will need more planning and another meeting with the interviewees.

                The Fundraising Project is the one I feel I have least involvement in. The overall aim for this project is to plan and run an event which will raise a net profit of £10 000. We plan to do this by forming and discussing any initial ideas with Jo and testing them through a visitor survey to see if they would be successful. However, things are advancing very slowly; we have discussed ideas at length and a number of draft surveys have been created. I think it needs our full concentration next term and we need to meet with Jo exactly what she wants from us as the surveys originally designed by Imogen and Sara were a little wrong and need some adjusting.

                In conclusion, I believe that we are working well towards our goals at the Bishop’s Palace. I feel the Sensory Trail is going particularly well after our successful clearing day on Wednesday 5th and I am looking forward to meeting with Amanda next week to see what is next on the agenda. The Vox Pop Project is also going well and once we get more organised and sort our technical difficulties then the filming process should fall into place. The Fundraising Project needs a little more work but I feel there has been some miss-communication and miss-understandings and once these have been addressed hopefully things will begin to advance once more. Overall, I think there are more positives than negatives and we will make a difference to the Bishop’s Palace. 

The Big Day

I can't believe how quickly December 5th came around, it feels like I have been at Wells for no time at all. However, this is the day we've been working towards all term and I feel it was a great success.

I was a little anxious that I had not heard back from Ben and Lufton Collage at the beginning of the week and thought they may have changed their minds but Ben finally got back to me on Monday afternoon with news that they were aiming to arrive around 10:00am. This was fantastic as it was a little earlier than I anticipated and therefore I was hoping to get more done.

I managed to beg Immy to leave a little earlier on Wednesday so we arrived at the Palace around 9:30am which gave me a bit of time to help Amanda set up although she was extremely organised and was pretty ready to roll.

I was stood by the drawbridge all ready for the collage to arrive and time began to tick away and again anxiety bubbled when they were still nowhere to be seen at 10:20am. By this point I was feeling rather cold and was beginning to wonder what I was going to tell Amanda if they hadn't arrived within the next 10 minutes. To my immense relief they did and by 10:30 we were all warming up in the Learning Room with tea, coffee, biscuits and a health and safety chat.

There were 12 students and 4 staff from Lufton College plus some regular volunteers all willing to help out so it looked as if it would be a promising day.

At the beginning of the day, the surrounding area looked like this:

Most of our work was concentrated behind the tree, along the back wall and to the right. The volunteers were fantastic, they were all really eager to work and so refreshing to be around. I learnt so much from them whether it was about different tractors or Family Guy or even Call of Duty. Their staff were amazing as well as it takes a lot of patience and encouragement to work with special needs especially in an environment like ours where we didn't have all the time in the world.

By lunch time, it was clear that we had made quite a sizable dent:

 From the same point I took the original picture, it looks like little has been done but you can see that all the border along the back wall has been cleared ready for planting and although the sun is the way, the other picture shows where we began to clear away the area to the right of the trees.

After lunch, we had another couple of hours before the volunteers had to leave for their trip back to Yeovil. We had the extra help from some of the Cathedral School volunteers as well to add to our workforce. My role changed after lunch, instead of helping the college clear the area itself, I took over Amanda's initial role of standing on top of the ever growing compost heap that we were creating and ensuring that it was piled up high rather than running into the pathway. It was a glamorous job but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was working with two of the College students - Jack and Leah - as well as Elspeth, one of the Palace Gardeners. It gave me the opportunity to get to know them all a little better and there was Christmas songs involved at one stage; Last Christmas was a particular favourite.

After working hard, these were  our final results:

Whilst I was busy playing in the beautiful mound of what-will-be compost, the other volunteers were busy cutting away all the excess grass and weeds and even beginning to dismantle a tree. The end results looked absolutely fantastic and I was blown away by all their hard work.     The feedback I got from Ben is that everyone really enjoyed their day and Amanda has said that we will invite them back when the time comes to begin planting.

 

 Next week, Amanda and I will be having a meeting to discuss how the day went overall as well as the next big steps for the project. I think it is all running smoothly at the moment and I'm happy with the progress we are making.

...And If You Could Move Slightly To The Left...?

Wednesday 21st November was the first big filming day.

It was a difficult day all round, mainly due to the horrendous weather and various flooded roads; to suggest we almost had to swim down to Wells is nothing short of hyperbolic. It's safe to say we all breathed a sigh of relief when it was clear we had survived the initial journey.

The purpose of this particular session was to test the equipment and work out how the filming process would take place, focusing on camera angles etc. Taras agreed to be our guinea pig and this worked out nicely.

We had poor Taras constantly moving left, then right, then left again and then a little more to the right. However, he was very patient with us. The questions we asked him were also very simple and were based around his experience working at the Palace in general:

• What is your main role and how long have you worked at the Palace?
• Tell us about your favourite parts of your day.
• What attracted you to work for the Palace in the first place?
• How easy was the application process?
• What has the Palace done for you?
• How vital is the role of history within your volunteer post?

All these questions had been emailed to him previously so his answers were very good. It became apparent very quickly that he was nervous in front of the camera and the more takes we did, the more relaxed he became.

Wednesday November 28th was feedback day. We met with Anneli to discuss how the filming went - problems and surprises.

Our first big issue was the quality of the film - the picture that came out was very blurry and fuzzy so we may have to speak to Bobby about finding a replacement. The sound also appeared to be out of sync at various points which is a big problem.

It also became apparent that we will need to meet with the interviewees before the filming rather than merely emailing them beforehand so we can discuss their roles a little and how the filming process will work. This was a result from Taras getting a little confused over the purpose of the filming the week before.

Taras has two important volunteer roles within the Palace and during the interview he kept swapping and changing between the two so by meeting with him beforehand, he would have understood that we wanted him to talk purely on the Learner Mentor Role even though this was stated in the initial email.

Also by meeting with the interviewees and discussing their roles, we can form more specific questions to get the most out of what they do as Taras' answers were often a little vague.

Anneli also wants us to film the volunteers within their roles so the video is a little more lively than a person literally answering questions in front of a camera. She sent us a very useful video as an example of this.

With Taras this should be rather straightforward as we are his main priority as a Learner Mentor so we can film ourselves with him discussing our projects. However, the other roles will involve more in depth organising.

We will be focusing on the following roles:

• Visitor Services Volunteer - Tony Hathway and Taras
• Guide - Pam Morris
• Learning Assistant/Palace Water Walk - Rosie Petherick
• Risk Assessments (Events) - Peter Jones
• Learner Mentor - Taras
• Gardening - to be confirmed.

To film these volunteers within their role will involve finding members of the public who are willing and patient enough to be filmed. We discussed the possibility of inviting friends of the volunteers to the Palace or even using Anneli within the films. This still needs thinking about.

Our next move is to make a timeline of events so we have a sort of deadline - when will we be filming who etc. This should make the process run more smoothly.

All moving onwards and upwards!!