News
Winning Joy for the Mary Rose Trust
Joy Critcher, a volunteer at the Mary Rose Trust is the winner of the inaugural South East regional Marsh Award for Museum Learning.
In a fantastic celebration of volunteering last week, Joy attended the award ceremony at The British Museum to collect her prize and certificate. The judges were particularly impressed by the contribution made by Joy and the gathered audience were shown images of her in action in her voluntary work.
“I feel proud to have won the Marsh Award for Museum Education. Even more so because the work I do with the outreach team helps to bring the Mary Rose experience to people who because of diability or social constraint cannot visit us at the Dockyard.
This is the first year of the Marsh Awards which is a collaboration between the British Museum and the Marsh Christian Trust to recognise volunteers in engaging museum audiences. Applications were judged on how they make a difference, how they improve the museum experience for visitors and on positive feedback from visitors and staff.
Joy was awarded for her work with the Mary Rose Trust outreach programme, which aims to engage with people unable to visit the museum for a variety of reasons. These visits, led by the Community Officer, Trevor Sapey, include Stroke clubs, the visually impaired, hospices, day centres for the elderly and adults and children with learning and physical disabilities.
To hear them laugh and talk, in many case, as they have not done so before, is the reason why I enjoy volunteering to do this work. I have met some amazing people and we have a great time together.”
Joy gives up her own time several days a week to meet the demand from these special need groups which have proved very popular and mutually beneficial. This work is in addition to her role as a costumed volunteer guide in the museum on at least two days per week.
Joy helps the Mary Rose Trust to deliver outreach sessions in costume and helps with artefact handling and dressing up. This raises the confidence of many individuals in these groups who often feel excluded from museums. The programme helps the Trust to welcome a more diverse range of visitors.
Joy’s experience of dealing with a variety of special needs on outreach has also helped her to engage with similar visitors to the museum whilst she is there as a guide. This outreach programme aims to meet individual learning capabilities. It also encourages groups to visit the museum for the first time.
Some of the positive feedback Joy has received included:
“Our clients were diverted from their illness and amused” (Countess Mountbatten Hospice)
“It is difficult to run a session such as this for all abilities but it was brilliant” (Portsea Gateway Award).
The Mary Rose Trust has a thriving volunteer scheme that is going from strength to strength with 50 volunteers.
For further information please contact:
Melissa Gerbaldi, Press Officer
Tel: 023 9289 4558 or Email: melissa.gerbaldi@historicdockyard.co.uk
1 July 2009
The Mary Rose has a new "Artist in Residence" - Sophie MacPherson.
She has 3 paintings of the Mary Rose, all of which are going to be part of her exhibition at the Portland Gallery.
14 April 2009
Mary Rose Trust, and looking on is Vice Admiral Alan Massey CBE ADC Second Sea Lord - 10 Apr 2009
Geoff Hunt's completed painting of the Mary Rose - 30 Mar 2009
Prints are available for sale from the Art Marine website www.artmarine.co.uk/maryrose
Leading maritime artist Geoff Hunt works on a new masterpiece to mark the 500th anniversary of the Mary Rose - 8 Dec 2008
While President of the Royal Society of Marine Artists, Geoff Hunt visited the Mary Rose and became intrigued by the story of this ship, which heralded the building of King Henry VIII's navy. Built in 1509, she was at the forefront of naval technology and served as a flagship until she sank in 1545 off Southsea in a battle with the French fleet. Geoff then studied the ship in great detail, exploring the outer side to get a close up view of the hull before embarking on a major painting. (The photographs show him in protective overalls and breathing apparatus sketching inside the 'hotbox' where the conservation is taking place.) His research has included detailed study of the contemporary illustrations of Henry’s navy and much time talking to the archaeologists who were involved in raising the hull and then studying it while it undergoes conservation. Some measure of the painstaking study is the fact that Geoff spent a staggering 113 hours or more of preparatory work before he even lifted his brushes!
Many new facts have come to light over the 26 years since the Mary Rose was lifted and Geoff's picture incorporates the new thoughts on her size, shape and sailing characteristics. His experienced eye will contribute an invaluable new interpretation of this remarkable ship.
Geoff Hunt is one of the world's finest painters of 18th and 19th century ships. Through his research for paintings he is a leading authority on naval history and ship architecture of that period and beyond. He is mid way through working on the painting and is pictured here in his studio at the beginning of December. The painting should be complete in the New Year and will first be exhibited at the major exhibition on the Mary Rose which opens at Whitgift School, Croydon, in April 2009. It commemorates the 500th anniversary of the building of the ship.
John Lippiett, Chief Executive of the Mary Rose Trust said: "I am enormously excited to have such a renowned artist involved with the Mary Rose. His work is outstanding and I know we are going to have a masterpiece next year that befits this great ship, the flagship of King Henry VIII."
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