Ringing in the ‘Noon Year’

Welcome to 2011! It’s a brand-spanking-shiny New Year that I’m sure is going to be full of all sorts of surprises and adventures!

So what were you doing on New Years Eve? I have no doubt that most of you went to some sort of party with all of your friends and families. If you’ve been to Eureka! before, and I’m sure that most of you have, you should know that us Enablers love nothing more than to have a good party, and for New Year’s eve 2010, that’s exactly what we did: we threw a party.

Now because Eureka! isn’t open at midnight for the ‘real’ New Year, we decided to call ours a ‘Noon’ Years Eve party, and celebrated at exactly 12 noon when Archimedes took his midday bath. We invited all of our friends to join in with the festivities and my word, did they come.

The Town Square in the Living and Working Together gallery was jam packed with boys, girls, mums, dads, and grandparents all waiting to welcome the New Year in. Both Enabler Gillian and I were leading the big countdown to 2011 and with the help of everyone who came along it went with a real bang! Hundreds of balloons fell from the balcony, children jumped on bubble wrap to imitate fireworks, and party poppers were fired. It was brilliant fun.

Enjoying a bubble wrap stomp!

But the fun didn’t stop there, oh no. Immediately following the celebrations in the Town Square, I was joined by Enabler Becky and we threw a disco in the theatre where all our visitors could make there very own funky New Years hats, let their hair down and have a good old boogie.




Now, you might not have been able to join us this year at Eureka!, but is there some special way that you celebrate the New Year?

If you did come down to join us, or if you had a party of your own, we hope that you had just as much fun as we did. So from all of us here at Eureka!: HAPPY NEW YEAR!
  
Ben Guilfoyle is an Outreach Enabler at Eureka! The National Children's Museum

A festive farce from Twinkle and Jingle

It’s that time of year again when Santa’s Workshop sets up in the Eureka! Theatre. Inside our resident elves, Twinkle and Jingle, make the last few preparations before the big day. But (as always) something goes horribly wrong and the elves need a helping hand from some children in order to save Christmas.

This year’s play, 'Santa's Magical Toyshop' is not the first adventure that our elves have been involved in. Last year they found themselves in a similar mess for our 2009 Christmas show. I wrote last year’s show, and again volunteered to write the ‘difficult sequel’. I was determined to write a different script which contained new elements; it was important to me that the show was not the same as before and merely dressed differently. I also wanted to make sure that the 2010 play did not deviate too far from the framework we established the previous year as it proved very successful. As a result the activities the children (and adults) take part in during Santa’s Magical Toyshop are vastly different to last year but the dynamic interactions and banter between the two characters has remained constant.

Enablers turning the Theatre into Santa's Workshop!

The interactive quality of the show has been increased since last year, and requires many children from the audience to join the elves onstage and physically help them to complete their important jobs before Santa wakes up.

Where younger children will respond to the interaction of the performance, older children and adults will appreciate the humour in the guise of Twinkle and Jingle’s frantic dialogue. Jingle, the overworked and underpaid ‘line manager’ elf clashes with his docile yet kind-hearted worker, Twinkle. There are many one-liners within their interaction specifically aimed at an older audience that will amuse them while not confusing the young ones.

Writing for an interactive show differs in many ways to writing for the stage. A key difference is that you cannot be too narrow; that is, there must be room for the performers to improvise should anything go wrong including: the children not giving an expected answer or a toddler wandering onstage and starting to dismantle the set. The performers must be more fluid and be ready to change the contents of the show in response to the situations that occur, which is not possible if they have strict dialogue patterns or subtle punch-lines.

One of the main things that attract people to the show is, of course, the opportunity to meet Santa. All children can speak with Santa at the end of the show and get a photo with him should they wish. But the staging is beneficial for children who are intimidated by Santa as they have support, from all other children in the audience, a gentle introduction to him, and the choice to either go to see Santa up close or just  watch him from afar. So due to way it is staged no children have to miss out on the Christmas experience.

It’s fantastic to see a project through to the end and due to everyone involved the finished production is hilarious, heart-warming and full of Christmas magic.

Ben Healey is an Enabler at Eureka! The National Children’s Museum

Sledging

Wow, what a lot of snow! Can you believe it? And all before Christmas too!

If you’re anything like us here at Eureka! then I’m sure you’ve had a great time playing out in the snow on the days off from school and work. We might not have had a stretch of days off from work, but we did make time to go play in the snow. Across the Eureka! Park we made snow angels, threw loads of snow balls and, of course, went sledging.



Traditionally, people would use wooden sledges called toboggans, but these days you’re most likely to find sledges made of plastic. The great thing about sledging though is that anyone can do it, with almost anything! We didn’t have a sledge of our own, but all it took was some imagination and creativity to put together our own ‘sledging devices’ out of cardboard and plastic.

Now, if you ask me, I’m most likely to say the bigger the hill, the better the sledging. It’s just because I like to get the sledge going as fast as possible. For safety’s sake, make sure you should only sledge on a hill that you feel safe with, and before you start sledging take a look around. Can you see what is at the bottom? Are there any humps and bumps that might throw you off your sledge? It’s always good to make a thorough check. At Eureka! the hill we used had a nice, long slope, and we were able to go quite far and fast!

There’s a lot more to sledging that just sliding down by yourself. Why not take your grown-ups along for the ride? Or see if you can fit another person on your sledge. You might even try lying on your front and sledging, or if you have two sledges, racing against someone to the bottom to see who has the faster sledge.

There are so many different games you can play, and it’s completely up to you! So go on, get out there to play and discover as many different ways of sledging as you can. You might even show them off the next time you come to Eureka!.

And hey, if you don’t think that sledging is for you, then you can’t beat building a snow fort and having a good old snowball fight with your friends!

What’s your favourite way to have fun in the snow?

Ben Guifoyle is an Outreach Enabler at Eureka! The National Children’s Museum

Making a 'Big Give' for Eureka!

As a charity, fundraising at Eureka! is always busy, as we develop and fund new outreach programmes for schools and the local community or raise money to improve the museum itself. But 2010 has been a particularly interesting and varied year, not least of which because we’ve been working to raise 2.9 million pounds!

The majority of our efforts this year have been spent fundraising for the new flagship gallery, Me and My World.  Me and My World will be the reinvention of the existing Me and My Body Gallery, one of our most famous and beloved galleries.  With the financial climate as it is currently it has been really difficult at times to make any headway, but now we are in a really good position, having raised £1.7m towards our final target of £2.9m. With the gallery set to be launched in 2012, we still have a long way to go, but the progress has been good.

Artist's conception of exhibits in Me and My World

Our most recent adventure in fundraising for Me and My World is something totally new for Eureka!.  We have been selected to take part in the Big Give Christmas Challenge.  This is an online fundraising idea that aims to get our visitors and supporters donating online.  All donations made between 6th December and 10th December will then be doubled.  This felt incredibly daunting at first as we have not tried to fundraise in this way before and we were unsure how it would be received, so we have been working hard to make sure that we get it right.

First of all we had to secure a £5,000 pledge to act as some of the match funding.  Eureka! is in the fortunate position that our Chair of Trustees wanted to make this pledge which made things much easier for us.  We could then set about talking to other trustees and ex-trustees to seek their support during the fundraising week in December.  This exercise was also successful and we have secured pledges to donate on the 6th December totalling £5,500! 

Our next step will be to send out e-mails to all our visitors and business contacts to seek their support.  It’s hard to gauge how much people will want to support our campaign, but we won’t know until we try.  With Eureka!’s success as a visitor attraction many people will not recognise our role as an educational charity which makes it even harder to ask for support in reaching our £20,000 target.

We hope that everyone who has visited Eureka! (including me back in 1992 when I was ten with my brother Dan and my Auntie Carol) and had an amazing experience talking to Scoot, learning about Archimedes and most importantly playing in Marks and Spencer’s will see the value in making sure the museum is renewed and refreshed for the next generation of children.

The Big Give will be taking place from 10am on December 6th 2010 and donations will be doubled up until December 10th.  You can donate by visiting the Eureka! Big Give website or learn more about what we have been up to on our website or by contacting the Fundraising Team.

Kate Goldring is the Fundraising Manager for Eureka! The National Children's Museum

Pirate Training Day

Yargh! Shiver me timbers and hoist the main sail! Light the cannons and climb the rigging! I’ll be a monkey’s uncle if Eureka! didn't hold a plank walking shivaree of a corporate event.

As much as I’d like to, I’m not going to write this whole post in pirate style. I will however write about how I spent most of my day as a pirate at the beginning of November. And believe me, I enjoyed it very much.

On 1 November, Eureka! opened its doors to staff members from a local primary school, coming to take part in one of our fun-filled corporate team building days. This was the first corporate event I had done at Eureka!, and we were trying out a new piratical, shipwreck board game-style activity that I had been working on with our Business Development Manager. It was a completely new game, and I was a little bit nervous.

Team building here starts with a few ice-breakers, and it’s ‘getting to know you’ for everyone on the course and us Enablers who are helping out for the day. This group was big enough we could split them into two groups. One group, with Enabler Jennie, got to put their engineering heads on and try their hands a spot of car building. The second group came with me as I transformed myself into my pirating alter-ego, ‘The Captain’, complete with foam cutlass. Yargh!

As ‘The Captain’ I quickly put my ‘new recruits’ through an intense spot of pirate training to sort out the scurvy and the sea sick before the terrors of the seven seas! I can happily report that all new recruits successfully graduated the training camp and earned themselves a place aboard my ship, the ‘Slippery Eel’.

It was then time to put the new game to the test. The Slippery Eel had been hit and was sinking. With only one life raft, the ‘crew’ had to decide which items to rescue from the sinking ship and take with them to a desert island where they would have to survive until rescue. Each item had pros and cons, an amount of space it would take up in the life raft, and a certain point value that only I knew. When each team had decided what they would be taking with them, I gave them the point sheet, and whoever had the most points would win the game. Sounds complicated I know, but believe me its not, and it was incredibly fun, and quite a success. I then put their teamwork skills to the test by getting them to build a catapult to protect themselves whilst on the ‘desert island’.

Exploring the galleries on a corporate event!

After a quick swap round of groups and repeating the pirate games, the teams then took to exploring the galleries and answering questions about them in the ‘Gallery Challenge’.
For my first corporate event, I was really happy that the whole day was, in my opinion, a great success.

Ben Guilfoyle is an Outreach Enabler at Eureka! The National Children’s Museum

For more information about corporate events and teambuilding at Eureka! please visit the Corporate Events section of our website.

From start to finish on the new Nursery play area

Part of my role here at Eureka! as the Exhibition Manager is to manage projects around the museum. Over the past few months I have been working on the new outdoor play area for the Eureka! Nursery. It replaces the old play area in front of the 1855 Building, on the grass of the Eureka! Park.

While my role calls for me to design exhibits inside the gallery, for this project, we have been fortunate enough to be able to employ the skills of a landscape designer, who was able to help bring our concept for the Nursery play area, as a natural play area to life.

As my background is in design, I was able to work closely with the designer to ensure we got a design that fulfilled all of our requirements. In order to get to the stage of issuing a brief, there were several stages we needed to go through first of all!

Before we were even able to hire our landscape designer, we had to apply for planning permission. This is because the proposed site was adjacent to our 1855 grade three listed building. As project manager, I was responsible for submitting this application. It can take several months for a decision to be reached, but thankfully our application was successful and we were able to proceed.

Once our application had been granted  I held internal meetings with the rest of the Eureka! team which included our Director of Play and Learning, and the Nursery Manager and communicated the project requirements to the designer. Before writing a brief for what we wanted to see in the play area, I went on research trips to visit other successful nursery play areas .

The brief had to include examples, to give the designer guidance on what we wanted to see. I produced some design sheets based on my findings, and other research I had done. It was also important that the brief recognised the practical considerations, such as fencing, entrance and exit gates to the play area and making sure it was sizeable enough to hold an entire group from the Nursery.

Based on our content, we gave a brief to the designer, who was then able to present several design concepts to us. We chose a final design picking bits that we liked from each design, which has resulted in the creation of a natural play area that we set out to achieve. The new play area will is very natural, using timber, sand and stone, in all sorts of colours, sizes and textures. A unique mosaic water feature encourages interaction, with children able to affect the water flow. A mini nature trail runs along one edge of the site, and come the Spring will be filled with different wild flowers, herbs and interesting shrubs like bamboo, and will encourage children to use all of their senses to explore their new outdoor habitat.

The design plan submitted for the Nursery play area

My favourite feature is the large, permanent timber story chair, which will be used for story time outside. I really like the idea of the new area having different uses, whether it is for play, exploration or story time.

Our designer then worked the concept drawings up into detailed plans, and, delivered them to a firm of contractors to start work on the play area. While I wasn’t laying sod or installing the tunnel, as project manager part of my job was to co ordinate deliveries and make sure things turned up on time! One of my main responsibilities was also to make sure that the site remained safe, as we want to ensure that even during construction, our visitors have a great experience at Eureka!.

It is always exciting seeing a project progress from start to completion. Project management is a challenging role, and at times quite stressful – especially when faced with adverse weather conditions. Despite this, I really enjoy my varied role here, as I get to meet and work with lots of different people, and no day is ever the same!

Amanda Phillips is the Exhibition Manager at Eureka! The National Children’s Museum

Walking the plank with Scurvy Sam

Life as an Enabler is full of challenges, and not all of them from the children we work with! Take outreach: you might not know that almost every day during the term times, one of us is out giving a workshop or programme at local schools. One recent visit was to Leeds, with my partner in the day's workshop, Enabler Michelle, where we gave the ‘Scurvy Sam’ workshop at Ingram Road School.

It was a two-workshop day, and we had just arrived from Todmorden, no thanks to our GPS. After lunch, we found our reliable van would no longer lock! Off we went though, there was a workshop to deliver!

Thirty-five children, aged nine to 11 were waiting to experience Scurvy Sam, delivered by Dr Lind, the 18th century naval surgeon who actually discovered the cause of Scurvy and Captain Sam, feared and respected pirate of the high seas. (That’s still Michelle and I, by the way). The ‘Scurvy Sam’ outreach is funded by the ‘Big Lottery Awards for All’ who are keen to put out a positive message to children about health.

Our stage was a hessian-cloth covered table with a huge pirate flag for Dr. Lind to hide on when he’s not on deck with Captain Sam. We put out a large treasure chest, covered in fishing nets and assorted sea-life, for the Captain sits to tell her story. To really complete the shipboard experience, there were assorted lanterns, fishing baskets and the aforementioned anchor and lifebelt strewn around for extra atmosphere.

Enabler Tasha with a heap 'o pirate treasure

Once we were set up I went to change into my pirate outfit; shirt, jewellery, jacket, fancy headgear and a great pair of buckled black boots I’d recently purchased from a local charity shop – perfect for Captain Sam. I walked back into the hall and nearly slid straight onto my behind! Fancy high-heeled boots and shiny school hall floors are not a perfect combination!

To describe the workshop in a nutshell; Captain Sam and her crew have been coming down with some '’orrible bodily conditions' and need to get better in time for her wedding in a month. They have captured Dr. Lind, who believes they are suffering from the scurvy; among other things. The children’s task is to diagnose the pirate’s symptoms, find out which vitamins and/or minerals they are lacking and what foods they need to eat to get better. They then examine the pirate’s diet – looking at ‘Ye Olde Plate that tells you how to eat well’ and remembering what they discovered in their research. Having come to the conclusion that it is the pirate’s diet that is the cause of all their problems, they then devise a new diet that will cure all the pirate’s and keep them fit and healthy.

The whole thing is a rollickingly good adventure; with very active pirate training (climb the rigging, fire the cannon and man the lifeboats for example) and, of course, a bit of song and dance for everybody to join in with. We take Dr Lind’s clinical trials and put them to the tune of ‘What shall we do with a drunken sailor’ – changing the words to:

What shall we do with a pirate sailor?(x3)
When he’s got the scurvy?

And the verses give the clinical trials and their results, e.g.

Gargle with sulphuric acid. (x3)
That just makes your throat sore!

(Incidentally, the real Dr. Lind is widely believed to have conducted the first ever clinical trials)

The song is accompanied by a hilarious pirate dance; which we knew would be a big hit because in training we were all practically crying with laughter when we learned it! The children did love it, and you’ll be pleased to know I did manage to stay on my feet, despite the fancy footwear!

Children getting 'hands on' at a Scurvy Sam workshop!

Near the end of the workshop the children, in four groups, had devised a day’s worth of food and drink from the range of food on offer.

Breakfast – corn flakes & milk, wholemeal toast with low fat spread and jam and fresh orange juice
Lunch       - baked potato & beans, crisps and cola
Dinner     - pasta Bolognese with salad and broccoli, water and a slice of cake
Snacks    - grapes, orange segments and carrot sticks

When we put the groups together they decided there was a bit too much sugar so the ‘lunch’ group immediately volunteered to change their cola for a strawberry smoothie. I thought overall it was a pretty successful menu.

The last part of the workshop involves us turning the children into a giant bar of chocolate … to show the relative percentages of sugar, fat, protein and flavourings contained in one! I do amuse myself sometimes imagining what a parent might think, when they ask their child what they did at school today, if they reply –

 'I was turned into a bar of chocolate by a pirate and an 18th century naval surgeon!'

After all the clearing away we set off to the car park with all our props to see if the van was still there - thankfully it was. Our satnav was still acting up, and she finally gave up the ghost, but luckily, we knew where we were and had a straightforward journey back to Eureka!

As always, it was a thoroughly enjoyable day, despite the technical problems.

Jill Ward is an Enabler at Eureka! The National Children’s Museum