Evaluation Projects

am currently the Project Evaluator for several projects. ‘Tending the Future’ is a National Lottery heritage Funded project at the lovely St Matthew’s Church in Morley, Derbyshire. The church has a grant to help restore four stained glass windows which were originally in Dale Abbey. Alongside this is an engagement programme working with local communities, schoolchildren and refugee groups. I used a range of creative techniques to gather responses to the church, countryside and workshops.

A word cloud containing words sued to describe the church. The most commonly used words are welcoming, beautiful and peaceful
Responses to workshops and visits to the church

Other projects include the ‘Peoples of Essex’ A historical and contemporary exploration of migration in Essex, ‘Open the Box’ an Essex Record office archives outreach and engagement project funded through a Heritage Grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, with additional support from The Friends of Historic Essex. I am also working on a project for Colchester City Council evaluating their project to transform Holy Trinity Church into a new community hub

Recent projects include  ‘In the Footsteps of St Felix‘ a National Lottery Heritage Fund project which helped to restore parts of the church of St Andrews in Soham. The project worked with local residents and schoolchildren to celebrate the history of the Town.

An image showing 4 reenactors dressed in red Tudor costumes and playing medieval pipes, and a drum. They are standing outside a church
Musicians at a Medieval Fair

Working with Luton Borough Council I evaluated ‘Curating Luton’, a two-year National Lottery Heritage fund project which aimed to create a partnership infrastructure and robust heritage delivery eco-system, and to co-develop a ‘community-owned’ Heritage Implementation Plan.

I have evaluated a wide range of National Lottery Heritage Fund Lottery Funded projects

  • The Accidental Archivist (Luton Community Arts trust 2024)
  • Great Grimsby’s Viking Journey (Heritage Lincolnshire 2023)
  • Communicating Connections (Essex record Office) 2022
  • Sharing Cultures (Wisbech and Fenland Museum) 2022
  • The Venetian Waterways Project (Great Yarmouth Borough  Council)  2021
  • Breathing new life into St Benedict’s (Heritage Lincolnshire),  2021
  • Marriot’s Way Heritage Trail (Norfolk County Council),  2020
  • Resorting to the Coast (Essex County Council) 2019
A Viking Battle-part of Great Grimsby’s Viking Journey

    Other evaluation projects include work for Share Museums East ‘Working with Volunteers’ and projects for the London Transport Museum, the Museum of the Home, the Cultural Development Service for Essex County Council,  and Museum Development East Midlands.

    Audience Development

    Working for SHARE Museums East on a project called ‘Wider Reach‘ I delivered training and 1:1 sessions to nine museums to support their development of an Audience Development Plans. As part of this I also created an Audience Development Toolkit.

    Cover of a publication called Steps to creating an Audience Development plan

    Wider Reach 2 delivered four ‘Audience Development 101’ sessions online and delivered 1:1 sessions with eight museums. The project continues and I am currently working on Wider Reach 3, extending the online training sessions and 1:1 support across a greater area as Share Museums East is now part of a wider Museum Development support network, Museums Development South East.

    Working with Ware Museum in 2024 I supported them to survey their current visitors, engage with targeted groups and go out into the community to reach and understand their non- visitors. From this work I helped them to update their Audience Development plan.

    A table in front of the entrance to an Asda supermarket in Ware. The table has objects from the museum, a stone hot water bottle, a washboard, a cobblers last and a wooden herb crusher
    Ready to talk to shoppers about Ware Museum

    I am currently working with Epping Forest District Museum to support them in the development of an engagement strategy and previously undertook work for Dunwhich Museum and the de Havilland Aircraft Museum to help them understand current and prospective audiences.

    Project Management and delivery

    Changemakers

    Changemakers focused on giving young people in Fenland new, flexible ways to get involved in volunteering at Fenland’s Museums and creating greater equity between the different generations of people who make up the museums’ workforce and the wider community. These young volunteers researched their local changemaker and working with Youth Champions at each museum to create an exhibition.

    A banner advertising the Changemakers Project and the availability of volunteering opportunities for young volunteers. It is set up at Ramsey Rural Museum in front of some historic tractors and farm machinery
    Waiting to talk to prospective volunteers at Romsey Rural Museum Plough Day

    Working with a colleague, Louise Haselgrove, we supported five museums to ensure that they are safe and  welcoming places for young volunteers and provided training and support for both Youth Champions and volunteers.

    Snapping the Stiletto

    Snapping the Stiletto was a partnership project working with 11 museums and over 200 volunteers. Volunteers researched collections within the partner museums and co-curated a travelling exhibition celebrating strong Essex Women to help dispel the negative stereotype of the ‘Essex Girl’.

    Several exhibition panels looking at wone at work. There is photograph of some women digging ditches as part of the Land Army
    The exhibition created by project volunteers

    Volunteers also worked with me to take the stories uncovered out from the museums and we visited festivals, theatres and shopping centres celebrating the hidden stories of these women.

    West Stow- Autopsy of the Sunken House

    West Stow was given funding from the Heritage Lottery Young Roots fund to work with young people (aged 11-25) and professional archaeologists to systematically dismantle the house and excavate the pit that remains.
    Between October 2015 and April 2016 a group of 17 young people worked together on this project under my guidance.

    7 young people standing in front of a reconstructed Saxon house.
    Some of the young volunteers at a celebration event for the project

    As part of this, they created new interpretation for the site including the film that you can see here

    Learning and Engagement Programmes and Projects

    I recently worked with the Museum of Power in Langford and the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge to develop their learning offers.

    A Lifesize Doomguy figure made of Lego
    Lego ‘DoomGuy’ at the Centre for Computing History

    January 31st 2023 is 70 years since the dreadful flooding along the east coast. This event was marked by local history societies and I was commissioned by the Essex Record Office to produce a teachers’ pack to support local schools to engage with the commemoration.

    In 2022 I worked with Heritage Lincolnshire and the Watkin Society on a pilot project aimed at linking  the work of Victorian entrepreneur Edward Watkin to school curricula in Grimsby and Cleethorpes.

    Previous work includes reviewing the learning offer for Ipswich Museum Service and developing new learning sessions for Christchurch Mansion (Ipswich). I have provided training and support for learning volunteers at the Norris Museum in St Ives and supported the Cambridge Archaeological Unit in their outreach and education programmes linked to excavations at Must Farm.

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