The Old Royal Naval College Greenwich

As part of the national celebrations to mark 100 years since the formation of the Women’s Royal Naval Service, the Old Royal Naval College will be hosting an exhibition focusing on the WRNS in Greenwich.  We are looking for U3A volunteers to work collaboratively with ORNC staff and former personnel from the Greenwich WRNS to develop the exhibition as part of this Shared Learning Project.

Meetings will take place fortnightly at the Old Royal Naval College; starting on Wednesday 28^thSeptember at 11.a.m.

The minimum time for each meeting will be 2 hours, but if members wish to stay longer they will be very welcome.  The expectation is that between meetings members of the team will carry out their own research to feed back at the fortnightly meetings.

To start with we are looking for volunteers who can make a 6, 10 or 12 week commitment with the opportunity to continue until the summer 2017. We are looking for people who have an interest in:

Research

Photography

Interviewing (people with experience in conducting and recording oral histories)

Opportunities for research include:

• The ORNC archives
• To interview people who lived and studied at Greenwich
• The National Maritime Museum archives
• The Imperial War Museum archives

If you are interested in joining this project, please contact Linda Crook at linda.crook.slp@gmail.com for an application form by 31^st August 2016

The Old Royal Naval College flyer 2-1

Shared Learning Project – Oh Brother Where Art Thou?

 This autumn the Charterhouse is looking to research the lives of past Brothers of the Charterhouse

 This project will seek to look to into the lives of past Brothers from the 17th and 18th century. Spanning a range of professions, from florists to lieutenants, the Charterhouse has admitted a striking list of intriguing personalities.

We are now looking to find out more about who these men were their personal records, career, family and where possible create a short biography for inclusion in our forthcoming Museum exhibit focused on the lives of present and past Brothers.

Over its long history, the Charterhouse has witnessed many of the events that have shaped our nation. The story begins in 1348 during the Black Death, when the land was used as a burial ground for victims of plague. In 1371, the Charterhouse was built – a Carthusian monastery, which flourished throughout the later medieval and early Tudor period.

The team will be working at the London Metropolitan Archives in Islington. Each member of the team will be required to attend regularly and devote time to meaningful research on the topic outside of the scheduled meetings.

Some research may also need to be carried out at the National Archives in Kew. The data collected will be inputted into a spreadsheet via an online form so basic competency in the use of PCs and the internet is essential.

If you enjoy research and like working as part of a group, but can also be motivated to work independently then this could be the SLP for you.

There will be a team of 12 plus a project leader. The project members will meet weekly from 14:00—16:00 on Wednesdays from 5 October 2016 to 7 December 2016 at the Charterhouse. There will be two additional meetings in January to prepare for, and showcase, our findings to a small, invited audience.

If you are interested in joining this project, please contact Linda Crook at linda.crook.slp@gmail.com for an application form by 1 September 2016

Charterhouse flyer 2-1

SummerSchool2016_web

Dear U3A Members

My name is Zoë McHayle and I am a first year PhD psychology student at Kingston University London. I am writing this letter to you as I am looking for retired and/or semi-retired healthy adults to participate in my study from 1st July 2016 to 30th September 2016. I will be investigating age-related decline in visuospatial working memory and visuospatial attention. I will be using technology such as eye trackers and the experiment will include memory tasks and visual search tasks.
If this study sounds like an activity that your members would be happy to take part in I would really appreciate hearing from you. Please send an email to k1205553@kingston.ac.uk and I will be happy to give you further details on the aims and design of my study and potential dates.

Thank you for your time.

I look forward to your reply.

Yours faithfully,

Zoë McHayle
Psychology Research Student
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Kingston University London

Some questions followed the talk on how best to preserve and clean silver and these are  the web links sent by Dr Kirstin Kennedy from the V & A.

Dear Elinor,

Thank you for taking the trouble to pass on these kind comments, I’m really so glad your audience enjoyed the talk.
I must say I rather enjoyed giving it (and while I am looking forward to savouring the bottle of wine you generously gave me on a special occasion, it is nice to be able to enjoy the coasters every day! – I am very protective of my “mid-century modern” dining table!)
Apologies about the size of some of the slides – so difficult to tell when loading them on the small screen what they will be like on the big screen. (Oh for the days of real slides…)
I am not very used to handling a mike, and clearly my attempts to strike a balance between booming and pleasantly audible didn’t always work. Maybe one solution is simply to tell your next speaker to arrive in time for a warm-up, so he/she can get used to it, and you can check the decibels from the back of the hall.
Just a post-script to a couple of questions I was asked … you wanted to know about regimental silver.  A colleague suggests contacting the National Army Museum, who now look after all the regimental museums: http://www.nam.ac.uk/research
And a lady asked about cleaning silver: this is the link to the page on the practical side of the subject written by our conservators: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/c/caring-for-your-silver/

Many thanks again for cheering up my Friday!
Yours,
Kirstin