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Museum still looking good
Claire, the RNSM General Manager, reports that all is well on the RNSM site. She has been covering the weekends and bank holidays, ensuring that the site is checked daily. She further reports that this task has provided a joyous opportunity to get out of the house … the rest of the staff being on Covid-19 furlough! The Memorial Garden (funded by Friends donations) is looking good, although the GM is somewhat concerned that we may need to look at improving the water retention in the planters as she has been spending much of her time on site watering. When this Covid-19 situation is over, this requirement will be further explored with the recently employed Memorial Area gardeners (funded by Friends donations) to see if they have any ideas to resolve this problem.
Claire also reports that the Facilities Team have been hard at work getting the site ready for reopening. The recently detected cracks in Holland gallery have all been filled and are awaiting paint. Also, the wooden seating plinth by the water’s edge is having rotten timbers replaced and the waterbus jetty railings have been rubbed down ready for painting.
The photos of the Memorial Garden and VC Exhibit, forwarded by Claire, are displayed. These show that the plants in the Garden are thriving and that the newly cleaned flagstones give the whole area a greatly improved ambience. Those of the VC Exhibition space show that the walls are now a shade of purple representative of the VC medal ribbon, and that the area has been tidied up by relocating a small number of less relevant artefacts. This is intended to improve the visibility of this, one of the most important displays on the site, and to catch the eye of visitors and draw them in. With the already added interactive display (funded by our donations), the Friends suggest that the area now stands out far better and is more fitted to a 21st Century museum display.
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5 comments on “Museum still looking good”
Well done.
Dick Sharp
Thanks, Dick (on behalf of the committee). But the kudos must go to Claire Baverstock, the General Manager, who really got behind these projects and found alternative solutions, when necessary, to keep things moving along.
Personally, I hope our experience with the interactive display will lead to the development of an interactive Memorial Book, which could also have a research function.
There are other possibilities for interactive displays whereby items in the reserve collection could be given a virtual presence in the museum. There are many more Jolly Rogers in storage than are on display, each with its own unique story to tell. And what stories they are!
I presented one of my father’s Jolly Rogers (HMS Upright) and would very much welcome it being on display – even if only virtual.
Unfortunately, Richard, we have a little way to go to make virtual reality a reality! The VC Exhibit was the Friends’ first venture into the world of interactive displays and there aren’t many examples in the NMRN. So, there is some reluctance in some areas to “jump into” this area. Our next project, I hope, will be to create an electronic Memorial Book, which is already partially started or partially complete (depending on your point of view!) having started out some years ago as the draft of an actual book.
The potential this sort of display has for expanding our ability to tell stories of submarine heritage using audio visual recordings describing artefacts in the reserve collection would allow the museum to greatly increase the variety of information placed before the visitor.
As an aside, the NMRN had an exhibition entitled, “Jolly Roger: a Symbol of Terror & Pride” already going in the Historic Dockyard at the start of the “Covid Crisis”. I understand that some Jolly Rogers from the Submarine Museum Reserve Collection were brought out for that. I’m afraid I don’t know which, and it may be difficult to find out with most of the staff now on furlough!
Thank you Claire