Themes

Community Curators

As part of the Sea Your History project the museum has been working with local community groups to help them become Community Curators.

The museum encouraged local people from Buckland, Portsea, the Friday Club and MAST, via the John Pounds Centre and the Buckland Community Centre, to investigate their locality and its links with the Royal Navy.

Members of the Friday Club at the John Pounds Centre and MAST, a community newspaper, both continued with the project and have been finding out more about the work of the museum. The Sea Your History Team also helped them to explore the website and provided master classes on how to use it to undertake research.

Friday Club

The Friday Club is a group that meets regularly at the John Pounds Centre in Portsmouth.

The Friday Club on their visit to the Royal Naval Museum (RNM)

Artefacts were used during reminiscence sessions to help our Community Curators remember things from their own lives which were to form a significant part of the project. The interests and memories that came out of these sessions led to the creation of a special magazine based on real life experiences which also includes images and information chosen, and in some cases written, by those taking part.

The magazine that was created from their work is called Senior Service. Follow the link to see photographs of the group and the magazine.

MAST

MAST 'Media Access, Support and Training' are a volunteer run group that produces community newspapers in the Portsmouth area.

MAST on their visit to the Royal Naval Museum. (RNM)

Members of the group had the opportunity to explore parts of Portsmouth Dockyard and Naval Base where the public are not normally allowed to go.

There were also sessions about taking care of different sorts of collections such as photographs, manuscripts and artefacts and opportunities to explore the stores at the museum which are full of fascinating and unusual things.

The walking tour and the visit to the museum stores gave the group inspiration to make a display of photographs, 'Behind the Dockyard Wall' - follow the link to find out more.