Work experience take 2!

By Natalia and Chloe

The Redoubt
 

Throughout this week, we have had the opportunity to work at the Redoubt Fortress as volunteers on work experience. Both of us have found this experience to be truly enlightening and inspiring. Due to the generosity and kindness of the staff, we were allowed to complete many tasks around the museum, and both of us have had a lot of fun.

Day 1: On the first day, we had an induction session with Sarah, during which we learnt a brief history of the museum and what kind of tasks are necessary to complete. After which Sarah, showed us roughly around the museum and let us get a taste of the atmosphere here at the Redoubt. Next, Marianne gave us a professional tour of the museum from which we learnt a lot of detail about its history and structure, with its uses to the present day. After lunch, we had a tutorial with Sarah about how we are supposed to handle artefacts, so that at the end of the day we could begin to cut out materials for the padded hangers. In our opinion that day one was very informative and welcoming and it made us look forward to the tasks which we would be assigned with.

Cleaning the elephants foot

Day 2: On this day, we had the privilege to visit the town hall were we got a clearer experience of the office work in the museum. To begin with we were assigned to sort out and describe paper artifacts that had not yet been identified. We found this task a bit tiring although it was still fascinating to examine the many theatre production pamphlets. Our second tasks of that day were different, as we were both assigned to different tasks. One of us was responsible for scanning old photographs that were related to the Redoubt onto the Redoubt archive. Meanwhile the other one was in charge with sorting out Eastbourne guide books in chronological order and recording the printer details, onto a document. Even though this day may not have been as creative, it was very productive and both of us enjoyed the feeling of working in a office- it felt very professional! :D

Saddle cleaning

Day 3: On day three, we were separated into doing different jobs, one of us was helping Victoria at the gift shop, and the other helped Kasey clean a uniform and repack artefacts in the back store. After lunch, we watched three advertising films of Eastbourne from the 20th century , this was a very relaxing activity and was also very intriguing to see how much Eastbourne has changed over the years. For the last hour of the day, we swapped tasks, so that one of us continued to go through all the items in the gift shop, whereas the other had to repack objects that were difficult for just one person to do. We both felt that this day was the most useful in terms of seeing how the museums are operated.

The elephants foot!

Day 4: We began the day by helping Victoria as we went around the museum and recorded the temperature and humidity of each casemate.  As part of the tasks, we also had to empty out the dehumidifiers, this was both a tiring and enjoyable activity as the buckets were filled with water! Yay!

The second part of the day consisted of us helping Nigel with cleaning artefacts from the Queen's Royal Hussars Regiment. Personally we thought that this was one of the most exciting activities of the week, as we got to clean an elephants foot that was turned into a cigar box over a hundred years ago. Other than that we were allowed to clean a saddle that was over two hundred years old, and enter this case were we could vacuum uniforms on mannequins, and re-organised the artefacts on the displays. But the highlight of that day, was the fact that we were allowed to wax and polish swords and knives. It was thrilling! 

Cleaning the display

Day 5: We began the day by having the responsibility of recording the temperature and the humidity of each casemate ourselves! This was Chloe's task as Natalia had the job to pour out the water into the drains. For the remainder of the day we focused on evaluating and reviewing our work experience here at the Redoubt Fortress.

In conclusion our week at the Redoubt has been a unforgettable experience, which truly introduced us to the world of work. We are very grateful to the staff here, for being extremely helpful, funny and welcoming to us. Further more, the museum itself provided us with a lot of knowledge, as well as enjoyment. It has been a pleasure to work here for the week, and we hope to one day revisit the Redoubt and come back with the feeling of excitement that we had felt, on our first day for work experience.



Thank you to you all!