Garlogie Beam Engine Trust -  Audience Development Plan for Garlogie Beam Engine Trust

Apply for this SGSAH-funded internship with Garlogie Beam Engine Trust, up to 12 weeks FTE, between January & October 2025.

The project is titled Audience Development Plan for Garlogie Beam Engine Trust and will involve collecting audience development information to better understand who comes to Garlogie to see the museum, and what steps can be taken to improve and broaden the Trust's offer

Deadline for Applications is 15th November 2024.

Location

This project will entail:
1. Site visits - presence at open days and other public engagement events for general public contact, plus 1:1 conversations with our trustees, active volunteers and the wider membership to understand what interests them.
2. Time spent locally to understand the context of our proposals, in particular what the other museums and heritage attractions in NE Scotland have to offer and how Garlogie can address the shortfall in quality industrial, social history, STEM teaching and environmental awareness museum projects in the area.
3. Time spent remotely to compare and contrast what Garlogie has to offer compared to other museums and identify the key factors that would make Garlogie successful or cause it to fail.

Project

We need good quality audience development information before we can satisfy the MGS accreditation requirements. Audience development means understanding who comes to Garlogie to see our museum and why, and what might we do to improve and broaden our offer.

Our charity was set up in 2019 and we acquired a 99 year least for the site in July 2023 from Aberdeenshire Council. Our plan is essentially to make the site publicly accessible once again and restore the Garlogie beam engine and hydroelectric plant to operation and to create new a museum telling the story of textile manufacture in NE Scotland, which in the early 1800s was Aberdeen’s most important industry. We started restoration work and showing the public around the site in earnest at the start of this year.

Outputs

We wish to understand (1) who our current audience is and (2) how how our museum themes might be developed to encompass the full scope of what is possible for our proposed museum.

We believe there is scope in the areas of industrial history (early steam engines), industrial and mill heritage more generally, the history and current practice of sustainable power generation, local and social history (including the impacts on education and the factories acts), the future of organic fibres and their place in sustainable fashion, STEM learning and teaching at all levels (including at engineering undergraduates).

Timescale

Application Deadline: 15th November 2024

Start date (or must start by): Second Quarter 2025

End date (or must end by): October 2025

Project can be worked full time, part time or flexibly in blocks

Benefits to the Researcher

We believe that research gathered at Garlogie on how to make the museum accessible and relevant will put the researcher in a good position to pass on insights and experience to other successful museum projects

Key Relationships

1. Garlogie Beam Engine Trust Trustees and Volunteers
2. Visitors at Open Days
3. The various museum professional we are currently working (ex Grampian Transport Museum curator, University Collections, Aberdeen City Museums).
4. Local teachers at primary and secondary level (Skene Primary School, Alford Academy)
5. Aberdeen University Engineering Faculty
6. Local history societies
7. Echt and Skene Community Council members
8. Mill of Benholm Enterprise (SCIO).
9. Alford Community Museum

Person Specification

Apply here

Return to the Internships & Artists Residencies 2025 page to see other internship opportunities.

First published: 4 October 2024