Your Place or Mine? The Slideshow

JOIN THE DEBATE

• Posted by Julie Lewis - 5th November
  

  Have you got any pictures of Billy Bragg He’s such a good looking man.

• Posted by Matt O'Neill - 5th November
  

  Hi Julie,
  I’ve uploaded a picture of him to the slide show. Just revisit it from the link on the ‘Slideshow’ post, and you’ll see him there. Enjoy!
  All the best,

  Matt (BlogED)

• Posted by Sarah - 6th November
  

  Hi
  i would just like to say what a great conference and well done to Miriam and the rest of the Outreach Team, the hard work was worth it
  regards
  Sarah Watson-Jones
  Outreach Officer, East, English Heritage

• Posted by Nick Molyneux - 6th November
  

  Hi

  Not much on here yet: there should be. What a great conference!

  I have come away with a whole load of ideas buzzing around in my head. When such events work they come together on several levels. The peformances were inspirational, some of the speeches and workshops really good (and we can forget the few lesser contributions). We could have done with just a little more debate, which almost ignited into something interesting once or twice.

  The fundamental messages for me, we must try harder (particualry on the employment front) and by engaging with wider audiences we will ALL benefit. I was impressed that one of the few people wearing a poppy was a young Asian who had worked on the memories of Second World War veterans, which chimed well with what was said in the closing remarks by Yasmin A-B.

  Thanks for a tremendously well organised event.

  Nick Molyneux

  Team Leader & Inspector of Historic Buildings, English Heritage, West Midlands

• Posted by Jessie Brooks - 8th November
  

  Sorry, I was unable to attend the conference.
  During my attendance at various meetings this year, it has been drawn to my attention that many Black British Caribbeans would like to record their Heritage - “My Place”, but due to lack of funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund for individuals with “GREAT IDEAS”, many stories are not being told.
  We would like to tell “Our Story” and be in charge of telling that story, therefore we would like help in SETTING UP ORGANISATIONS of which many of us lack experience. As a result, I am sure there would be a rich and vibrant record of our Heritage.

• Posted by Sarah Watson-Jones - 13th November
  

  Hi Jessie sorry you couldnt make it to the conference,
  Im sure members of our Outreach team would love to hear from you. Take a look on the English Heritage website under learning and communities, and find the contact for your local officer.
  www.english-heritage.org.uk

  regards
  Sarah Watson-Jones

• Posted by Michael Taylor - 14th November
  

  It’s been a couple of weeks since the conference but thoughts and ideas sometimes take a little while to mature especially after such a wonderfully original and stimulating event in a sublime venue. Thanks to everyone who had a hand in organising it.

  There’s so much to do in the diversity field but perhaps the central question for me relates to how the fluid and multi-faceted view of heritage presented in Manchester connects to our everyday business of listed buildings, scheduled ancient monuments etc.

  My conclusion is that it doesn’t very much, or at least that any convergence is many years away in the future. We’re all committed to doing the statutory stuff and, since our targets and deadlines are defined by the efficiency with which we handle it, that aspect of our work will always dominate. Always???

  The fact is that the statutory stuff is our ‘core business’ and the diversity agenda is clamouring for attention which it gets with scraps of our time and energy. Simon Thurley allued to this in his contribution to the panel debate on the first morning at Manchester.

  We are working on a project related to diversity in English Heritage West Midlands and I am lucky to have a committed group of colleagues working together to develop our project. But it has still taken several years to get going because of the resource problem.

  The statutory stuff will always be there and that is the nuts and bolts of how we protect the historic environment. But it is protecting a relatively static view of what the historic environment, and a view concerned with a limited range of types of material evidence. But time keeps moving on and, with it, the definition and scope of history.

  Perhaps YPOM is the start of a change. Our colleagues in the museums sector have, after all, gone through this long before those of us working in the historic built environment field. English Heritage’s joint sponsorship of YPOM is encouraging but we need to ‘mainstream’ diversity work and to have positive leadership from senior management. Until the two agendas converge we can at least develop a parallel priority with our statutory work.

  It would be great to look back at YPOM in the future and reflect that Manchester in November 06 was the place and the moment when things started to change. And I was there!

  Michael Taylor
  Historic Areas Adviser
  English heritage
  West Midlands

• Posted by Chris Winter - 14th November
  

  Considering the subject of the conference what struck me most forcefully was the make up of the audience: mostly white and mostly female - could that have been something to do with the ‘caring’ agenda? If we fail to attract a broad audience to even discuss broader access, then how can we hope to achieve it?

• Posted by Miriam Levin - 21st November
  

  I agree, Chris. I think the lack of diversity in the heritage workforce is one of the biggest obstacles in the way of us engaging new audiences in the long term.

  We need a workforce which reflects the makeup of society in general, so that visitors to our public sites see people from diverse communities staffing them so they can lose the perception of being only for white, middle class, middle aged people; so we make decisions about the value of the historic environment with as wide a perspective as possible, and so we make the definition of heritage as broad and as inclusive as we can, involving the stories from all parts of the community.

  I’d be very interested to hear from anyone about how we could actually go about doing this?

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