Introduction

So, we have been working in Wells for over a month now and finally the projects seem to be taking off.

We have three main projects to look at:

1) Vox Pop - This is an Oral History project set up with the aim of finding new volunteers for the Palace and informing them of the role they would be expected to fulfill and what volunteering for the Palace is like - highs and lows, opportunities and anecdotes etc.

So far, we have compiled a list of questions and have trialed them with the wonderful Anneli - the volunteers coordinator at the Palace. We hope to start filming soon with Bobby's beautiful pink camera. All we need to do is tempt some fellow volunteers into a room with plenty of tea and biscuits. We learnt from our trial run that our volunteers must have an idea of the questions we will be asking to limit the number of pauses and "ummms" and "arrrs" etc. so some emailing around and organising needs to be done.

Imogen and Sara are overlooking this project but I'm hoping to help out with the filming and most definitely the editing as that will be a huge learning curve for me. Our general aim for the project as a whole is to make a walking tour of the Palace grounds and stopping to interview various volunteers along the way; but also to create links from the volunteer application page on the website so it goes straight into the role the aspiring volunteer is interested in. We have to talk to Sarah Moore to see if this is all possible but hopefully it should all come together.

2) Fundraising for the Great Hall - I definitely find this project most daunting. The aim is to raise money for restoration of the thirteenth century Great Hall which was originally used by Bishop Burnell for entertaining. We are approaching this project in a similar way to the Vox Pop by performing little interviews with visitors to find out what sort of events they have been in the past at the Palace and which were successful. We hope within this we can promote the Palace a little more and attract lots of visitors. We have also done a brainstorm of ideas for events: these have been as huge as a traditional thirteenth century banquet with entertainment to as small as a penny mile. We are still looking into final ideas which I will post in more detail later.

We hope to begin the interviewing of visitors this week (Wednesday November 7th) with the aid of Jo - the fundraising coordinator. This should hopefully give us a solid ground to start working on events.

Again, Imogen and Sara are taking the lead on this project. I hope to help them as much as possible. Last week, Imogen and I scrutinised the list of ideas we have so far and came up with some feasible ideas. We also perfected the list of questions to ask the visitors so hopefully this week should run smoothly.

3) The Sensory Trail - This is the project which I am concentrating on and therefore the project I am most excited about. Our aim is to make the Palace more accessible to people of all ages and abilities; the sensory trail is specifically aimed towards children and vulnerable adults. It is designed to be a place or reflection, relaxation and above all a space that excites all the senses. We have concentrated closely on sight, smell, touch and sound. I will do another post with all the details of planning and final plans as I have sketches I can upload.

We are now at the stage where we can begin to clear the area and work towards finalising ideas and making sure everything will work how we want it to. Our main focus is the end point where we will have a resting area and some small wooden blocks designed for climbing on and feeling.

I would particularly like to encourage nature onto the sight by looking into making some bird feeders with school children and talking to James about building some bat boxes. I feel the project has a lot of potential to be extremely successful.

Currently, the end point consists of weeds and overgrown plants - I will take some pictures as we go along - so our first port of call is to organise a day for volunteers to work with James to clear most of the area so we can start building around December/New Year.

That is a brief introduction to how far we have come with planning so far. As well as our projects, we are finding that we also have to make an extra effort to be approachable to the other volunteers - we do not want to appear as outsiders or taking over their roles so we are making a conscious effort to get to know as many volunteers as possible. Last Wednesday, a leaving party was held for Sophie (who was covering maternity leave for Helen and was leading the Sensory Trail Project). It was a fantastic opportunity for Imogen and I to meet some of the volunteers and socialise out of a specific role. We also got to meet Helen and her baby boy - Henry, who was definitely the most popular boy in the room!! This led to Sophie offering me another project she had been working on called Interpreting Trees.

It is a small project which consists of a group of nine school children visiting the Palace and choosing their favourite tree. These children have been selected specifically because they are struggling with confidence in class so the idea is to film the children talking about their said trees to help boost their self esteem.

My role in the project is to help it run smoothly and to essentially entertain the children whilst they're waiting to be filmed. It is going to be fantastic.

I think this is a long enough entry for now. I will aim to publish again on Wednesday with our progress and any updates. I will also post in more detail about the Sensory Trail.

:)