“Even though so many people come to this sector because they love talking to people, the temptation to talk at people so often seems to triumph… We all have examples of museum interactions (mono-actions?) that have gone beyond the human to the inhumane”
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How our year of scaffolding is going, in today’s Substack
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What’s the best Vis Ex interview question you can ask - and how can you answer it?
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My first VEXblog post is live, and it’s basically a list of all my failures. Come for the schadenfreude, stay for the helpful Visitor Experience content!
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I’m keen to back to writing about visitor experience in 2026. So I’m starting a Substack! VEXblog will be a regular dose of all things vis ex straight to your inbox.
Subscribe below and expect new content soon!
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High-fiving the New Year like….
Long may yer lum reek from
Hampton Court Palace
Thoroughly enjoyed the amazing #MarieAntoinette exhibition @vamuseum.bsky.social
A brilliant time to visit the Wilderness at Hampton Court Palace - the autumn colour is stunning 🤩
A Welsh escape this weekend enjoying beaches, hills, BBQs and lush landscapes 🏴
#GotchaDay
Can’t believe it’s a year since I brought this fluff ball home 🧡
Yes I deliberately wore the same top
Flora and I had fun hanging out with London Fire Brigade and the RNLI as part of #WorldDrowningPreventionDay at Hampton Court Palace
As a riverside palace, so important for us to help engage our local community in water safety 💧
What are the new frontiers of VEX I would talk about if I was writing Delivering the Visitor Experience today?
Find out in my new piece for @blooloop.bsky.social
blooloop.com/museum/opini...
We’re well into the 2025 run of the Hampton Court Palace Music Festival - always one of my favourite times of year! James, Rag n Bone Man and Tom Jones have already knocked it out of the park (palace) - tonight it’s the turn of Bananarama!
It’s dahlia time in the Gardens!
Spent a wonderful day at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard and @maryrosemuseum.bsky.social as part of our HRP Ops Leads away day
Looking forward to being in Theatre 2 at 13:00 @museumsandheritage.com Show today - come and hear us talk about our new philosophy of visitor engagement!
Going all out for Flora’s birthday today - meeting up with her siblings this afternoon! 🥳 🎂
A man dressed in Tudor clothes kneading fresh made butter to remove the buttermilk before storing. Behind him is a large sixteenth century fireplace and in the front of the image is a replica sixteenth century butter making dash churn
You can't put a better bit of butter on your knife!
#ShowingMyAge
Weekends of cookery are back at Hampton Court Palace all year from today. Tudor preservation methods are the topic for the year, and the first few weekends are butter making.
There have been many power struggles over the centuries at Hampton Court Palace, but none more tense than that between Flora and her pigeony nemesis.
Peak blossom time at Hampton Court
I’m horribly fickle when it comes to Hampton Court tulips:
Here are today’s faves 🌷
Or these, quite frankly, bonkers Mariettes!
I INSIST you visit soon and choose your favourite! 🤩
Or the blousy decadence of the Don Pedro…
Like these sharp, crisp, citrusy bursts of Spring, Clusiana Crysantha…
My favourite bit is always the Lower Orangery Garden, where we showcase rare and unique tulips…
It’s the first weekend of the award-winning #TulipFestival at Hampton Court!
Hampton Court is really starting to bloom now 🌺
A MA student on a placement this week asked me about my career path and I realised afterwards that I’d made it sound all very simple. Which probably wasn’t very useful advice! When you have a job you love it’s easy to forget all the wasted applications and unsuccessful interviews. But for anyone who is struggling in the sector, I think it’s important to acknowledge the hard bits and the rejection too. Cracking in can be tough! So here’s a list of all the organisations who said no to me 😂 There are probably many more I have forgotten, but actually, I don’t consider any of them wasted. Spending time getting to know another organisation in the sector is always useful, and you can get surprising benefits from doing so (for example, I’d never listened to Jimi Hendrix before; now, I love his music 🎵) And yes, my current employer is on there, because I had to knock on the door a good few times before they eventually gave up and let me in 😂 So if your rejection list is longer than your acceptance list, please don’t despair. Only the right one has to say yes.
National Museum of Scotland National Galleries of Scotland Postal Museum V&A (South Ken and East) Freud Museum Handel & Hendrix National Trust English Heritage National Trust for Scotland Tower Bridge Gunnersbury Park Museum York Museums Trust Science Museum Southbank Centre Historic Environment Scotland Arundel Castle Garioch Heritage Centre Museum of London Royal Collection Trust Strawberry Hill House Historic Royal Palaces
An MA student asked me a question last week and afterwards, I felt like I’d answered it in a really unhelpful way!
I’ve tried again on LinkedIn, so posting it here too, with alt text.
