We say thank you and goodbye…

Chris Robertson has been volunteering with us for over two years, and has helped done some fantastic work during his time here. As he leaves to concentrate on other commitments, he has written about his time volunteering with Brent Museum:

During my time at Brent Museum I have really enjoyed the huge variety of historical objects that I have come into contact with, especially an incendiary bomb which landed on Brent; huge bayonets that were used on the end of muskets; a rich collection of decorative ceramic vases and ornaments; two model houses replicating Ernest Trobridge’s amazing architectural designs; and miniature furniture set pieces for a little doll’s house.

I have been volunteering at the Brent Museum for 2 years and 1 month as Collections Assistant where I helped to improve the storage conditions of the museum’s collections, using precautionary preservation techniques, packaging itemsusing special materials including acid-free tissue paper and foam board. I also catalogued the historical items into an Excel database where I input their accession numbers, location storage areas, and their condition.  About 2165 museum objects were input into this database and their preservation conditions were dramatically improved.

Another interesting aspect of being at the Brent Museum was getting the opportunity to gain experience in Adlib, which is the collection management database used by the Museum and Archives, which can be accessed by the public via the online catalogues. I input 218 unrecorded acquisitions into the huge database from the accessions register book, and checked, corrected and updated 715 recorded acquisitions already in the Adlib system.

Altogether, I have dealt with over 3000 items in the museum’s collections, and it was a delight to see some of the historical items that I dealt with being displayed to the public in both the permanent and temporary exhibitions at Brent Museum. Not only that, but it was an honour to win the Highly Commended position in the Developing in a Role category at the London Volunteers in Museums Awards last year. It has been a pleasure to volunteer at the Brent Museum, and the staff there have been absolutely marvellous and supportive.

Last, but not least, I created the Archaeology Layers Handling Box for visitors to touch and discover items of the past. I constructed and cut-out foam-board layers representing different time periods with historical objects inserted in and illustrations drawn. Visitors can handle  objects ranging from a Ghost Busters computer game from the modern era, to 17^th century musket balls, to fossils and a replica stone-age axe.

Posted by Chris.