The working life of Museum of London

We’re back! Back on the Museum of London’s Blog pages and back in terms of our forth Volunteer Inclusion Project.
The VIP project has evolved from previous LAARC volunteer projects (Minimum Standards Project – 2002-2005; Archive Volunteer Learning Project – 2006-2007) and has four main remits: 1) to improve access to LAARC collections (2) to create more space for the collections (3) to offer inclusive volunteering (4) to create sustainable volunteering opportunities

During VIP1 – VIP3, our achievements include the repacking, reordering by context and closing up the gaps in the shelf space for all general finds from 37 archives dug from 1972 – 1974; the separation of general and registered metal finds from 353 sites and the relocation of these finds in sitecode order onto new shelving; the auditing of 5215 registered finds from sites spanning 1972 – 1974.

A total of 72 VIP volunteers have worked on the project, from a range of sources including Action for Employment, Connections at St Martins, UCL, University of the 3rd Age & Hackney Volunteer Agency. So what’s the plan for VIP4?Well, work shall continue in both sections of the archive; Glynn will tackle the next batch of sites from 1974, including huge excavations such as New Fresh Wharf (NFW74). Adam on the other hand will keep on going with the Registered finds from 1974, first tackling 199 Borough High Street (199BHS74) but hopefully getting all the way to Trig Lane (TL74), if not beyond…

Instead of the usual 5 volunteers a day, Mon-Thursday, we’ve upped it to 6 per day, exc. Wednesday, where we shall be joined by 10 volunteers from the University of the 3rd Age alongside three 6th formers from Mossbourne Academy. These lucky 13 will be working on the material from Shoreditch Park, as part of a Shared Learning Project

There will once again be 4 museum specialists running 4 workshops each fortnight, which are open for all volunteers within the museum (though to keep it a surprise, I won’t tell you what they are just yet). And finally… we’ve actually already set a date for our Christmas Party, which, to those in the know, is undoubtedly the best one around!

Each week Adam & Glynn will be posting blogs telling you what we’ve been up to that week, updating you on our progress and putting up photos of finds and people at work