Category: Notes

Everybody is back in the office now so lots of hellos, emails and getting back to the grindstone.

• Started my first proper week in my new role
• Started sprint 8 of the Hidden Museum project at Aardman HQ
• Digital team 1:1 monthly sessions
• Ran a few staff sessions on using trello for task/project managing
• Agreed how we’d roll out our digital signage project
• Agreed our website phase two project with Fay at the helm this time
• Agreed our Q4 workforce development plan
• Discovered which boards/sign-off we need to follow from Bristol City Council
• Skyped with Mike Ellis about our work together in Q4
• Reviewed my monthly budget forecast. I previously only had a few to look at!
• Met Mary Godwin, our Arts Council England relationship manager to review quarter three and look ahead to 2015-18
• Met with our catering and event partner Levy Restaurants to look at how we can resolve a few issues and work together
• Handed over yet another project to my team. This time it’s the University of Bristol interaction cabinet project which Zahid will lead on and you’ll be impressed with
• Approved staff casual salary which is pretty important
• Waved farewell to Tim Corum who worked at the service for eight years
• Realised that I give Fay too much of my old workload so will be more mindful of the impact of my job switch – sorry Fay

Next week I hope to review all my teams progress for 2014-15 and look ahead to cracking on with 2015-16.

My favourite quiet week of the year. With so few people at work across the globe I knuckled down to getting ready for my job job.

• Enjoyed two days off for Christmas
• Cleaned out all my 2014 paperwork yippeee!
• Wrote a paper on all known data we collect to help me on a project to centralise
• Walked around Bristol Museum & Art Gallery to identify outstanding issues to fix during january – some of our IT is creaking
• Completed our Arts Council Q3 report on digital, marketing and audiences.
• Got 10mins working on the front desk to cover staff shortages – fun and several Banksy enquires which makes me think what else can we do to give visitors info about our elusive chum
• Started my job job as Head of Transformation on Friday 2nd Jan
• Welcomed our new Service Manager Laura Pye to the service!

A short week due to it being Christmas week where out of office messages are the only replies to expect.

• I finished tedious admin that was waiting for a quiet day
• Reviewed HMRC employment status stuff
• agreed some branding work for fundraising
• finalised some budgets for the final quarter
• updated some of our website pages

Between now and the new year i’ll be in the office trying to complete small projects that just need a little focus and peace to get done.

After working furiously for several weeks on our Arts Council application this week proved to be just as hardcore but rewarding:

• spent a morning with the Bristol Museums group led by Julie from Museums Development to talk all things audience evaluation
• Tried to squeeze as many team 1:1s in as possible to thank everybody for working so hard this year
• Agreed next steps for our Do Ho Suh installation
• Introduction with Rob Gilmore who I first met back in 2006 when I was in the IT department – time flies. I think there will be lots we can work on together in the coming years
• xmas lunch
• end of year wrap up with our Digital R&D for the Arts project
• agreed with Parks how to improve signage for Blaise Castle House Museum
• interviewed and accepted a new role starting 1st January 2015 as Head of Transformation! in addition to my digital team I will be leading our fundraising, Modern Records Office, retail, catering partner and Bristol & Region Archaeological Services.
• waved goodbye to Katie Harding who I have learnt so much from this year and wish her all the best!

So busy i’m posting this late.

• Admin admin admin writing a series of business cases for spending money in Q4 2014-15
• discussed how we can support the data collection for 2015 harbour festival
• How to improve our onsite signage and way finding… a mountain of a task i’m determined to crack
• Briefings to our front of house staff (absolute stars!) about the projects i’m working on that they can help with
• Management team meeting
• Suggested the next steps for a funding application with geology woot
• Submitted our revised plans for our 2015-18 Arts Council England application..epic amount of work

It was a busy week that had me rolling my sleeves up lots and rubbing my poor little head. I got up to:

• Delivered a briefing of my key areas for our new service manager (boss) Laura Pye
• Completed my final day of a leadership and management course
• Worked on our 2015-18 plan for an Arts Council England deadline next week
• Sprint 7 start up meeting for the Hidden Museum project. We hit 100 ibeacons installed this week.
• Met with Our Museum community partners to discuss how we can work more closely
• Met with Pat Connor who heads up BBC development to talk joint interests
• Reviewed our equalities action plan
• More Arts Council documentation
• Sorted out some finance fun
• Ran a short workshop for one of our volunteers and member of friends group Sue Thurlow who will need be tweeting about our areas of work which is great.
• Ava came for lunch yeeeah!

Exhausting. IF i ever used our flexi form i’d have to add a new page.

• Spoke via skype with David Turner who runs Getinvited, the online event booking tool i’m hoping to move from beta phase for our schools bookings
• Introduced the key performance indicators that I suggest we use across the service
• Met with our central design and marketing teams to agree our next steps for improving our service identity
• Made suggestions for using digital in our Ahead of the Curve exhibition – better late than never
• Attended day four of the leadership and management course
• Spent lots of time in spreadsheets about budgets
• Ran a morning session with the digital team about our strategic direction and processes
• Had a group workshop on tightening up SMART objectives
• Management team meeting
• Took lunch with my mum to celebrate her retirement
• Skype call with Vic H to agree the scope of a digital job i’ll be managing that we hope to advertise ready for April start
• Met with Bristol and Bath tourism group

Next week i’ll focus on our Hidden museum project, meeting community partners and completing our Arts Council december deadline.

Word.

• Ran a full day workshop for the SWFED called ‘An introduction to digital media on the web’
• Reviewed our latest Hidden Museum sprint 6
• Reviewed student project people tracker from team CSPD
• Agreed how to improve our Birds and Mammals gallery on the first floor of Bristol Museum & Art Gallery
• Decided how we’d revise and improve our proposed equalities action plan for 2015-18
• Spoke with Jon Walker from Tyne and Wear Museum about retail and spreadsheets
• Did a handover with Ray to now line manage the documentation team. Now we’re part of the transformation group together which I hope will mean some great cross service collaboration
• Made a plan to go digital by default for schools bookings
• Reviewed the 2015-18 proposals for new exhibitions
• Met with Lucy and Barney to see what opportunities lay ahead for us working together
• Agreed next steps for developing the offer of our historic houses
• Took some time with Ray to agree how to tidy up the much feared and messy shared service drive for information
• Met our in-house build team who I now also manage to hear how they work and how we’ll work together
• Received a bunch of children to help us develop our hidden museum project as part of Museum Takeover day
• Met local arts orgs to see how we can work better together