In the last week of July this year, we hosted college student Tia on a work experience placement at the Museum. In this blogpost she tells us all about her experience: who she met, what she got up to and what she learned.
Over the course of the last week, I have spent my time at the Museum of the Order of St John for work experience. I have had such a wonderful time here and meaningfully expanded my knowledge through the wonderful Museum galleries and tours. I never fully knew about the Museum and first heard it mentioned by my father who has been contracted by the Museum to move furniture through his removal service. I went to help on a job at the Museum and met Zach and Claudia. They were both so kind to me and are wonderful staff at the Museum. Initially I only thought about the fact that there was a church and knew that it would be a nice place to do my work experience as the school I attend is highly religious, so I felt as if I had extensive knowledge to help. However, when Zach mentioned to me that there was a Museum, I thought that it would be a wonderful idea to learn more about that. Initially I questioned Zach and Claudia about the Museum and they then allowed me to visit the crypt located underneath the church and told me some of the information about all the wonders it holds. One of the amazing facts I learned was about there being bones behind a room in the crypt. After finding out some contact emails I managed to get a placement and met most members of their amazing team.
My week started on Monday 25th July. I remember my first day travelling was considered as an absolute nightmare to me as I missed my bus which was then delayed. I was so worried I was going to be late but managed to get there early at 8:50am for work which started at 9:30am! I was so nervous experiencing this as I had no context about the history of St John or hadn’t even known the existence of the Museum previously. I was greeted by two wonderful members of the team called Rachel and Sarah. We were initially meant to go through collections management which included lots of checking over things in the Museum and getting our hands a little dirty to make sure that the Museum as well as all other rooms were clean and tidy for any visits that may occur. They wonderfully were giving me a tour of the downstairs galleries, where I learned lots of information about the Order of St John and what they did throughout the years, when we got a shocking message from one of the other lovely members of the team named Rob who came to let us know that the president of Fiji was visiting! I remember my initial reaction halfway through the tour was absolute pure shock. We decided to go around and make sure that all the rooms were completely clean, once we had finished the remainder of my tour which consisted of many rooms (and many stairs which I got lost on the first few times!) The cleaning consisted of making sure the gift shop was looking top notch as well as other rooms including the Malta Room which is furnished with beautifully decorated paintings and furniture ranging from the 16th all the way to the 19th century! My personal favourite item was the marble pietra dura table, with gilded and heavily carved wooden legs that is decorated with a multi-coloured design featuring doves and an eight-pointed cross on red background. After all the cleaning was done, at around 12:30pm, the president of Fiji arrived with a fleet of around 10 people including his lovely wife. He was then taken on a tour by Rachel and had a wonderful time with us at the Museum.
On Tuesday, I met Amie and Felicity when I was working in the learning centre. The learning centre is open for members of the public to bring their children for family-friendly fun-filled activities. Some of these activities are the Seacole sessions. The Seacole sessions are sensory-friendly events for families with children who may need a quieter environment to enjoy the Museum. This includes exclusive use of the Museum space as the Museum is not open to the public on Tuesdays so families can enjoy the garden and other areas of the Museum to themselves. In the session this week we were creating sensory gardens inspired by the plants that grow in the Cloister Garden. It was a very fun-filled day full of children smiling and creating their own mini gardens and I also got to create my own and am currently growing cress out of it. The day then continued with us re-organising boxes which were visually so satisfying to look at once finished. I then ended the day helping by checking all the family buckets and getting confused finishing a puzzle with Amie for around 30 minutes.
On the Wednesday I spent here I once again was with Amie and Felicity when we had the standard family session. In this session, we were creating garden trails based on natural plants and flowers found in the garden. Whilst the children were enjoying creating their garden trails Felicity and I decided to help paint car sponge ‘bricks’. We managed to paint about 20 of them for a new learning bucket for children where they can stack the car sponge ‘bricks’ to re-create the wonders of the Gate for themselves. The great part about Wednesday was once I had finished with painting the sponges, Amie thought that it would be a wonderful experience to begin to set up for the paint naturally family activity on 3rd August. Amie gave us some charcoal to crush up which was a life-changing experience! It was my first time using a mortar and pestle so I was struggling by the end of the two hours of extensive crushing and I managed to cover my face completely in charcoal and my clothes as well! It was a nice experience as we all managed to have a great laugh out of it.
As my week continued, on Thursday I met Maggie and Mel who are the amazing front of house team. During my time working front of house, I helped set up the stock in the gift shop as they were selling out of some of the great items that they sell. Mel and I had wonderful conversations about the history of the Museum and how they run the front desk while she re-organised the till with me. Maggie and I also went to the donations boxes and we emptied them and counted them up. Throughout the rest of the day, I welcomed people in the downstairs galleries and even occasionally showed them around telling them about the history of the items in the Museum all of which I have learned whilst currently working here for the week. I was also able to get myself onto one of the tours led by one of the marvellous tour guides Carey. She led us over to the church where she told us her knowledge of how the church was bombed during the Second World War and was then rebuilt later on. By learning these wonderful facts about the church, it allowed me to have more knowledge, which is great for someone who is in love with history and wants to use it soon and have some cool facts to share. As the week came to a close, I met Sophie who is the Archivist. She is a magnificent treasure to the Archive at the Museum of the Order of St John and has taught me lots of information about the Archive and what it stores. Today, Friday, we catalogued some of the old Cadet magazines found in the Archive which will be digitised. I also miraculously have counted over 3000 wonderful pages of old magazines of “The Review” which had some cool information about the Order and other cool facts about medical history during that time. I have now reached the time where I am currently working on this blogpost.
I just wanted to dedicate the last few lines to the members of staff here: thank you to everyone who I have met over the last week! You are all wonderful people and have made my week so fun-filled and adventurous. I have had so much fun listening in on everything and learning such inspirational things. The history here is super cool and once again thank you for all you have done for me over the last week. I hope to be back very soon (especially after clearing out the gift shop!) I hope all of you have a wonderful year and, last but not least, I hope Hannah had a wonderful birthday. Happy birthday to her!
