Gi conference 2014 claire carolanpptx

Creation & Success of

Aberdeen City Centre’s

Women’s Heritage Trail

Presented by Claire Carolan

Written with help from

Morag Smith, Glasgow Women’s Library

&

The Aberdeen Women’s Heritage Trail

Group Members

Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality

Content

• Aberdeen City Centre Women’s Heritage

Trail

• Mile Stones

• Reflecting on the walk and beyond

• Questions?



equality and diversity

information literacy

lifelong learning

local history

partnerships

community-lead

Librarians

empowering

People

Aberdeen City Centre Women’s

Heritage Trail


What is the Aberdeen City Centre Women’s

Heritage Trail?

• 90-minute walk around the City Centre

• Created and delivered by volunteer guides

and researchers

• Features pioneering women who have

made a contribution to the city, or have

played a big part in Aberdeen’s history



Heritage Trail

• Over 20 women

• From past to present

• Fields include : arts, medicine, philanthropy, politics, and more …

• Notorious deeds rather than achievements



Heritage Trail

• The walks ran from May to September

2014

• Free

• Open to both men and women.


Map of the Walk


Mile Stones:

the extraordinary story

of how it was done


Mile stones• Different Reasons for joining the project

• Mapping Memorials to Women

• Walks and Talks

• Aberdeen Women’s Alliance AGM

• Illuminated Letters

• Glasgow Women’s Library Workshops

• Funding Applications

• Scripts written

• Glasgow Trip

• International Women’s Day Launch

• Brochures published

• May Publicity Launch

• May to September Walks

• Dundee Trip

• Plaques and outreach programmes


Different catalysts and pathways

into joining the project

• All based on good communication and networking:

– “Phone call from someone who I knew from another group. I was a bit fed up and needing a challenge, having moved to sheltered housing –bored with lack of interesting topics”

– “Chance conversation at International Women’s Day. I remarked that I was looking for a new interest/project to get my teeth into.”

– “Invited by a family member who knew of my interest in history.”





– “An email came through to our community centre where I am the Chairperson. I attended Open Day for AWA at the Town House”

– “Saw the Mapping Memorials to Women website online and was interested in doing something for it with AWA”

– “Saw the newspaper then booked for Mapping Memorials – couldn’t go but was contacted later to say the group was going to meet more.”





– “Speaking to my Library Chartership Mentor about

gender issues in the workplace, she suggested I

attend the Mapping Memorials to Women Event at the

Public Library.”

– “Having been involved in two previous proposals for a

women’s trail, I was delighted to see a new item

online and emailed Lesley and Morag in October

2013-ish”





– “Saw the advert on TheZone, which is the Aberdeen City Council website for Employees. Thought it was a one-off only. The rest as we say is history! Pardon the pun!”

– “My Friend saw the event advertised in the Evening Express, and asked me to go along to the first meeting, which she missed. Meantime I went along to Town House on International Women’s Day and heard all about the project and went to the second meeting”




– “Got invited to AWA AGM 2014; Attended the

Wednesday evening walk; post came up for a

paid volunteer co-ordinator and got the post.”

– “In November 2012, a friend asked if I’d be

interested in a session by Glasgow Women’s

Library on Mapping Memorials to Women as I

had an interest in women’s history.”




• Conversation at events

• Phone calls

• Mentoring conversations

• Newspaper ads

• Word of mouth

• Emails to Community Centres

• Website

• Intranet


Mapping Memorials to Women

Event organised by Glasgow Women’s

Library, and intended as a one-off!



• Glasgow Women’s Library was promoting

the Mapping Memorials to Women project.

• This project was born from a reflection on

history.



What does history mean to you?



• Morag Smith likes to quote Jane Austen

here:

“… I am fond of history."

"I wish I were too. I read it a little as a duty,

but it tells me nothing that does not either

vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and

kings, with wars or pestilences, in every

page; the men all so good for nothing, and

hardly any women at all -- it is very tiresome"



• http://www.womenofscotland.org.uk/


http://www.womenofscotland.org.uk/


• Aberdeen Group met up a few weeks later

to see who had added what.

• And nothing had happened.

• Upon reflection, we identified a gap in our

research skills, and decided to up-skill as

a group.


Walks and Talks• Summer Programme included visits to

following libraries, to learn research and

library skills:

*Aberdeen City Libraries: Central

Library, Local Studies Services

* Special Collections at the University

of Aberdeen

*Aberdeen City Archives

* Tolbooth Museum…


Walks and Talks


Aberdeen Women’s Alliance AGM

• By the time we had all added one person

to the map or researched one woman, we

had collected quite a bit of information.

• The Aberdeen Women’s Alliance gave us

the opportunity to present our findings at

their AGM



Presented by Claire Carolan

27/08/2013 Women's Alliance AGM

Illuminated Letters


:

Glasgow Women’s Library

Workshops

• Creating a women’s heritage walk in Aberdeen

• Introduction and icebreaker

• Talk about the development of women’s heritage walks with examples from Glasgow

• Women’s Library and other women’s walk projects.

• Creating a first map of women in Aberdeen –discussion and hands on activities

• Used discussion and group activities to start mapping ideas, themes and places – who and what could be included? where were the question marks?



Workshops

• Feedback from first session

• Talk and discussion on research tools and resources

• Included online sources, bibliographical resources, local history sources and

• capturing voices that aren’t always heard – social history/oral history

• Using Dropbox for group research - demo and discussion

• Discussion and group activities focusing on individual and group research topics,tools and methods

• This session included handouts and examples on research sources and a visit from a GWL walk researcher / exploring the local studies section.



Workshops

• Feedback from second session

• Developing a route, planning route stops

and using Google maps



Workshops• Feedback from previous session

• Writing a walk script

• This session looked at the process of writing a walk script.

• Included sample final scripts, research to script process examples and the different equipment and

tools and techniques that can be used to enhance the script (including use of images).

• Had a go at writing a small sample section and developing some ideas for an Aberdeen walk script)



Workshops

• Feedback from previous session

• Becoming a tour guide

• Showing of GWL DVD One Small Step and examples, images and film footage of tour guides on Necropolis walk and others. Sample of tour guide training options and contracts.

• Visit and question/answer session from experienced GWL tour guide(s)



Workshops

• Practical matters - First Aid Training – risk assessments, insurance, tour guide

• Responsibilities, forms, accessibility and permissions

• Exercise – a vision of your walk in Aberdeen

• Planned a group visit to sample walk in Glasgow and Dundee

• Walk-round of sample route in Aberdeen


Funding Applications

• Resilience

• Knowing what Funders are looking for

• 8 applications made, 3 were successful

• Equality and Diversity


Scripts written

• Individual Research

• Collaborative editing


Glasgow Trip


International Women’s Day Launch


Brochures published


May Publicity Launch


May to September 2014 Walks

• Over 300 people attended in total

• Wide range of groups attended

• Visitor input valued as much as the

research we had done


Dundee Trip

• Different approach

• Advice on plaques

• Booklets


Plaques and

outreach programmes

• The heritage walks project plans to

expand into other areas of the city,

encouraging more women to get involved

in promoting their history, research and

sharing information.


A self-directed, community-lead project, achieved

with help from and sincere thanks to:• Glasgow Women’s Library

• Aberdeen Women’s Alliance

• Local partners:

Aberdeen City Libraries

Aberdeen City Council

Aberdeen inspired

Vibrant Aberdeen

All the librarians who kindly shared their knowledge and skills

on researching women who had a connection to Aberdeen,

including the Aberdeen City Archives, Aberdeen City’s Central

Library: Local Studies Service, University of Aberdeen Special

Collections, and Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museum’s Historian

Chris Croly.

• Serendipity which brought us together and saw the project develop

as we went along!Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality

http://womenslibrary.org.uk/

http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/council_government/equality_and_diversity/eqd_Aberdeenwomensalliance.asp

http://aberdeencity.gov.uk/libraries/

http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/home/home.asp

http://aberdeeninspired.com/

http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/community_life_leisure/arts/culture/art_vibrant_aberdeen.asp

http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/education_learning/local_history/archives/loc_archiveshomepage.asp

http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/Library/local_studies/Lib_LocalStudies.asp

http://www.abdn.ac.uk/library/about/special/

http://www.aagm.co.uk/AboutUs/MeettheTeam/christopher-croly.aspx?text=large

Reflecting on the walk


Reflecting on the walk


• Lessons learnt and skills gained:

– Public speaking

– Presentation skills: .ppt, TV, radio

– Research skills

– Communications skills

– Listening skills

– Team working skills

– Sense of achievement

– New friendships

– Increased confidence

Plaques and

outreach programmes

• Depending on funding, the group

members hope that the women who

captured their interest will have the same

impact on other groups and women in

Aberdeen, inspiring them to find out who

the female historical superstars are in their

local areas.


Looking ahead


• Outreach Projects in Torry and

Woodside

• £9,000 funding towards Historical

Plaques and outreach project

• Local History project with Aberdeen

City Libraries

So, as promised…



equality and diversity

information literacy

lifelong learning

local history

partnerships

community-lead

Librarians

empowering

People

Thank you for coming along.

Any questions?


Gi conference 2014 claire carolanpptx

Presentations & Public Speaking

Transcript of Gi conference 2014 claire carolanpptx