We recently hosted Ashley for a flexible work placement spread over a number of weeks where he shadowed a number of staff and saw the range of skills our team use every day. We are really pleased Ashley enjoyed his time with the team and has learnt new skills; he has kindly documented his experience in the blog post below.

We are now taking work experience enquiries for summer and autumn 2025 which can be sent to the team by emailing sro.volunteers@staffordshire.gov.uk.

Sarah – Engagement & Access Manager

In need of up-to-date work experience to go on my CV whiles seeking further paid employment, I recently learned about what Staffordshire County Council have been working on in preparation for a local history museum to open on Eastgate Street, Stafford late 2024 and decided that I would meet with Sarah (Engagement & Access Manager) through Vicky (Employability Officer), who I had already been in contact with regarding work experience.

Because I have other commitments in the week, my day-to-day work experience with Archives & Heritage at Eastgate House took place on a weekly basis on Wednesdays to fit around my personal schedule, and so on my first day I was given a guided tour of Eastgate House. I then spent the rest of the morning with Lisa going over conservating some interesting ancient scrolls and documents, and that afternoon was spent shadowing and assisting Julie, Henni and Claire in the Strongrooms with locating historical volumes and other interesting documents.

On the second Wednesday at Eastgate House I got to spend the morning working with Hannah on a community project and to assist her by looking up and documenting some memory-sparking imagery from 1950s, 1960s and 1970s household lifestyles and school days using Google Images. That afternoon I shadowed Ben (Digital Officer) as he explained to me the process of photographing large historical items such as huge volumes dating back to the 16^th century, and having observed Ben at work with the Canon DSLR camera and lighting equipment I was then tasked with digitally cropping and scanning some animated works from old magazines.

Wednesday after that, I got to work with Helen (Community Engagement & Partnerships Officer) at Unit G on site out of town and was given a tour of the warehouse containing ancient carriages, vintage household items, historical clothing, and early original photograph plates, followed by a tour of Unit V housing mostly the agricultural equipment from the local past. For the remainder of the day on site, I carefully went through boxes of Victorian age children’s clothing, table runners and cloths to perform the repetitive but satisfying task of checking and matching the list of label number codes. After this was done, I then had to further verify the contents on the digitized system Calm and use the software to ensure the same label number codes existed here as well as in storage. I was introduced to Sophie (Collections Interpretation Officer) who gave me a detailed insight into what she does in her role at Unit G.

My final week on Wednesday saw me back at Eastgate House helping Ben by photocopying the contents of an 1867 rental log book in A3 size sheets to be delivered to a volunteer working from home, and after that I worked on a spreadsheet with which to collect and document weblinks to sites with various special and random Days of the Year. The spreadsheet I created and titled National Days consisted of titles of days such as National Unclaimed Property Day and World Puppetry Day. I also got to meet Lizzie (Learning Officer) who was nice enough to tell me all about what she does in her role at Eastgate House.

The additional work experience for my skillset now includes attention to detail, observation, use of specialist software and equipment, research, learning how to properly and gently handle delicate historical archives and ultimately understanding everything that is going on behind the scenes to bring this museum of Stafford’s local history to life.

Ashley Bennett