Drop In Classes
Weekly (Saturday)
9:45 – 11:15 am and 11:30 – 1:00 pm
Cost £3.00 per session
* N.B. In the event of weather conditions liable to cause disruption please consider classes cancelled. If in doubt please call Sandra to confirm the situation.
Home Telephone: 0121 444 7919
Mobile Telephone: 07811 079140
_______________________________________________
If you would like to comment on any of our news posts you can do so by clicking on the “Leave a comment” link underneath the post you would like to reply to. Then all you do is follow the instructions. It will allow you to leave a reply either: as a Guest, using your Twitter log-on or using your Facebook log-on.
You can also sign up to updates from Pen Museum News – using the button on the right hand menu.
Wednesday 31 July, 10am – 12.30pm The Pen Museum.
In this workshop, join us as we head to the home of the pen, exploring the streets of the Jewellery Quarter and artefacts at the Pen Museum to gather materials and inspiration. Investigate some fun ways to write collaboratively and creatively. No previous writing experience required! What will you write? Anna Lawrence Pietroni’s first novel, Ruby’s Spoon, is set in Halesowen, the Black Country town where she grew up. She runs writing workshops and is passionate about enabling others to write authentically. Anna is currently Writer in Residence at the University of Gloucestershire.
Tickets are sold in pairs – one adult and one child aged 8-14. £15 per pair
Book at:www.writingwestmidlands.org or telephone 0121 245 4455
Coffin Works records now have a temporary home at the Pen Museum so Birmingham Conservation Trust Volunteers can begin research work..
Confessions of a BCT Development Officer
Wishing all of our visitors, volunteers and stakeholders a very happy Easter Holiday.
We are pleased to announce that David Cannadine FBA has kindly agreed to become one of our Vice Presidents.
The following is a brief synopsis of David’s career:
David Cannadine is Dodge Professor of History at Princeton University and Honorary Professor in the University of London. He is a graduate of Clare College, Cambridge, St. John’s College, Oxford, and Princeton University. He has been a Lecturer in History at the University of Cambridge, and Professor of History at Columbia University. Between 1998 and 2003, he was Director of the Institute of Historical Research, in the University of London, and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Professor of British History – also at the IHR – from 2003 to 2008.
Professor Cannadine is the author, co-author and editor of numerous books including The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (1990), which won him the Lionel Trilling Prize; G. M. Trevelyan: A Life in History (1992); Class in Britain (1998); Ornamentalism: how the British saw their empire (2001), In Churchill’s Shadow: Confronting the Past in Modern Britain (2002), Mellon: An American Life (2006), Making History Now and Then (2008), The Right Kind of History: Teaching the Past in Twentieth Century England (2011), and The Undivided Past: History Beyond Our Differences will be published this spring..
In addition, Professor Cannadine is General Editor of the Penguin History of Britain, and the Penguin History of Europe. He is a former Chair of the National Portrait Gallery and of the Blue Plaques Panel of English Heritage; he is Vice Chair of the Westminster Abbey Fabric Commission and the Editorial Board of Past and Present; a Trustee of the Wolfson Foundation, Gladstone Library, Gordon Brown Archive and the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum; a member of the Advisory Committee of the Royal Mint and of the Editorial Board of the History of Parliament. He is also a regular broadcaster on television and radio in the United Kingdom.
We are honoured that David has joined us and we are certain he will be a great asset to the museum.
February 22nd 2013 eight of the boys and girls enjoyed a tour of the museum, Brian Jones had welcomed the guys and told them something about our work. Our tour guides for the day Linda Murch, Patrick McBrine, plus Newman University work placements, Charlotte Hancox, Daniel Wilson and Casey O’loughlin, each provided the group with introductions to nib making, braille and writing with a quill pen. Plus of course our school room, trails and activities! The Boy’s Brigade is celebrating their centenary in 2013 and during the visit looked at our local cemetery records to compare with the organisations founders and early members of the peoples chapel.
We hope they enjoyed the visit – Rob Clarke the Boys Brigade leader and Chaplain to the Girls brigade thanked us on the day and also via the internet plus social networks for a great visit. Of course we hope to see them again soon.
The Pen Museum is asking our Stakeholders to complete a small survey to help us plan our future key aims.
The survey is open to everyone who is a member, funder, visitor or volunteer.
Responses are anonymous.
We value your input and thank you for completing the survey.
Visited the Pen Museum on February 4th 2013.
Born in Birmingham, John is the first son of Jefferson and Doris Lines. He attended local schools in Bartley Green and Woodgate and left school at 15 to become an apprentice motor engineer. He attended both Halesowen and Oldbury Technical Colleges and spent a period in the Armed Forces – R.C.T. as a driver.
John’s interest in motor sport, racing saloons and sports cars gained him his national racing licence. He established his own motor vehicle business in the late 60s including high performance tuning and much later, classic car renovations.
He has always taken an interest in the environment but his keenness early on to protect the countryside and wildlife was the catalyst for him to become involved in politics. He was subsequently elected to the Bartley Green Ward as a Conservative in 1982 and has served continuously ever since.
From early on John showed an interest in Housing issues but there followed involvement with Environmental Health and West Midlands Passenger Transport -(PTA) Committee’s. He was also the Group’s Chief Whip for many years.
Prior to becoming the Cabinet Member for Housing he was the Conservative opposition spokesman for many years and then as Chairman of Local Services Over View Scrutiny 2003/4, he led the review on recycling. In 2004 he became Cabinet Member for Housing and has successfully transformed it since, winning no less than 36 awards since 2005, including the most prestigious UK housing award for ‘outstanding achievements in housing’ and ‘the overall winner for the UK for 2011’. It has also included spearheading the largest retirement village projects in the UK, 5 in all, transforming housing for older citizens. He has increased Birmingham’s decent homes programme from 34% to almost 100% and embarked on a new Council house building programme with his Birmingham Municipal Housing Trust, the first for a generation. One of John’s most proud achievements is being the first Council in the country to build the new ‘Homes for Heroes’ programme and launch the ‘Veteran Home Buy’ for former armed service personnel.
John has championed the role of apprenticeships and training, leading to over 1000 young people being placed in schemes across Birmingham. John was Chairman of the Regional Housing Partnership and the West Midlands LGA portfolio for housing until it was dissolved.
John has been married to Kathleen for 45 years and has three children. He is also a proud grandfather. They were introduced through an old business friend in the Motor Trade, in not the most romantic of settings but there was obviously a ‘spark’ as they have been together for so long.
John has many other interests including angling (both fly and coarse), cricket, British wildlife, ornithology and caravan touring, particularly in Scotland.
During his year as Lord Mayor, John is very keen to search out the ‘un-sung’ heroes of our society and will be hoping to meet as many volunteers as he can who support the organisations and charities across the City but particularly those who support the homeless and local community activities.
February 1st 2013
Emma Buckler our Museum Development Officer is moving to take up the same role for Leicestershire & Rutland.
We wish Emma every sucess in the new post and the new challenges ahead.
She has been a great source of support to The Pen Museum throughout her time here as MDO.
Find My Past photo expert has analysed the photograph recently.
Photo-dating expert, Jayne Shrimpton
Please find below Jayne’s response.
We have recently received an enquiry from Gary Green project manager for a Heritage Lottery Funded community project recording the history of Hartlepool primarily through family photographs (www.hhtandn.org), but also using images from the Hartlepool Library and Museum Service collections. They have found an unusual image in the Library Service collection, showing a group of men, presumably on an outing, each wearing what appears to be an over-size pen-nib on their lapels, the only information is on the reverse side of photograph “Hartlepool Specials – Cycling 1895″.
We are particularly interested in solving the mystery of the pen nib lapel badge.
If you can assist in helping to solve the mystery please leave a reply to this post.
Hartlepool Cycling Trip 1895 – Permission: Hartlepool Library
