Museum of Barnstaple and North Devon Activity Plan Programme Co-ordinator, October 2017 – June 2020, North Devon District Council
“I do hope you realise what an amazing job you have (done) for us ……you really have been fantastic, and your commitment and skills at looking after all the story collectors and other volunteers are second to none.” (Alison Mills, Museum Manager)
Taking the Museum forward into its new phase of development during the building of the new Long Bridge Wing, to expand the venue and build audience, Sadie’s principal role was setting up a Pop-Up Museum to produce content for the new 20th Century Gallery. This involved co-creating with the Community of North Devon, collecting and recording people’s stories and photographs about living and working in North Devon for display in the new Gallery. This contributed to the Museum’s understanding of objects in it’s collection and therefore Sadie was pivotal in producing a significant step-change in approach. This enabled the Museum of Barnstaple and North Devon to be more connected to the local community.
“The game Euchre is a local game …….a bit like cribbage with a board ……Bideford play it different rules to us”
“Yeast cake is a bit like bread with a bit of sugar and fruit, its not eaten so much these days..”
Sadie was responsible for the Pop-Up museum; recruiting, training, empowering and managing volunteers; commissioning and producing a series of films; collecting stories and memories from the public; acquiring new objects; creating temporary exhibitions and programming future ones; developing audience through community engagement; promoting the project with media, press and social media and evaluating the Activity Plan.
Sadie curated and produced the inaugral exhibition in the new Longbridge Wing’s two gallery spaces when it opened to the public in October 2019. This highlighted and showcased many of the stories and photographs that the community contributed. Story- givers and volunteers were proud to be on hand to talk to visitors about the exhibition and share their experiences.
It also told the story of the behind the scenes and building work that was done over the previous 18 months. Examples of the ‘100 Objects’ project were featured, which Sadie co-ordinated – objects identified by museum staff, Trustees and volunteers were chosen to highlight significant, unique and favourite objects from the 85,000+ in the collection.
Sadie made a significant contribution to the Museum and was highly successful in her role.
“(Sadie has) always been easy to work with, always smiling what ever comes up. Advising on which is the best way to go about projects, how to get the best out of researching and coming up with ideas to help to record the info (by talking and recording people about their lives)” (Gwyn, volunteer and Trustee)
“I worked for Sadie as a volunteer at The Museum of Barnstaple and North Devon on transferring peoples’ stories to digital media. What could have been a repetitive chore was fascinating as she gave us the context and varied the work, so that we read the stories, learned about and met the folks who gave them” (Tony, volunteer)
100 People 100 Shorts film, Barnstaple Museum Youtube
House and Home short film, Greta Greenslade
Highdays and Holidays short film, Barnstaple Fair George Lovering