The Blog

Our February #HeritageChat was led by Naomi Daw (@Naomi_Daw) and explored how heritage professionals can encourage communities to share their heritage with them, what communities want most from the heritage sector, and approaches to strengthening links between heritage organisations and community groups. A massive thank you to Naomi for leading such a brilliant session. Read a summary of the chat here.

The next Heritage Chat will take place on 21 February, between 1 and 2pm (UK time) on the theme of ‘sharing heritage with communities’. We are delighted that this chat will be led by Naomi Daw who will be tweeting from @Naomi_Daw. She is interested in photographic history and travel; and increasing involvement in the heritage sector. Naomi blogs as The Heritage Girl and runs The Heritage Hoot.

Please add any questions you would like to be explored during the chat to our google document. We will publish the questions that will be discussed a few days before the chat. Keep an eye out for them on @HeritageChat.

The 17 January #HeritageChat explored how infrastructure projects can be used to connect communities with place. Discussions focused on how communities can take a leading role in interpretation and be involved in post-excavation research, and what problems ‘client confidentiality’ poses to community engagement. Read the summary here.

Our next Heritage Chat will take place on Thursday the 17^th of January (13.00-14.00) and will explore how infrastructure projects can be used to connect communities with place. Please add any questions that you’d like to see discussed in the chat on our GoogleDoc before early next week. We will then share the questions that will be used during the chat through @HeritageChat and @Heritage2020.

In our December #HeritageChat, participants explored how the impact of collaborative working can be maximised in the historic environment. Topics discussed included the key attributes that are needed for successful collaboration and what the common challenges are in the historic environment when trying to work together. Attention also turned to how we can effectively measure the impact of collaboration and successful examples of models and frameworks. Read the summary here.

Our next Heritage Chat will be on Thursday 20^th December (13.00-14.00) discussing how we can maximise the impact of collaborative working in the historic environment sector. Please add any questions that you’d like to see covered on our GoogleDoc before early next week. We will then share the questions that will be used during the chat through @HeritageChat and @Heritage2020.

In the November #HeritageChat, people explored ways in which the Historic Environment can help to address health and wellbeing issues and how we can make the public more aware of the benefits of actively engaging with heritage. We also discussed was how we can ensure communities throughout the UK have equal access to programmes and the need for the sector to embed wellbeing into institutional thinking. Read a full summary here.

It was announced in the 2018 Budget that the government will establish a Future High Streets fund that will dedicate £675 million to help local communities respond to the challenges facing their high streets. The future of historic high streets is a key concern of Heritage 2020’s Constructive Conservation and Sustainable Management working group, and they have compiled a review of research, toolkits and projects that promote a heritage led response to the challenges. You can add information to this here

Our October #HeritageChat was on the topic of Apprenticeships in the Historic Environment sector. Topics discussed included how employers should approach recruitment, how Apprenticeships can help the sector and examples of good practice. The chat also provided a forum for individuals and organisation to learn about and share their understanding of the new government guidelines on Apprenticeships. Read the summary of the chat here.

Our September #HeritageChat explored mobile heritage. Participants identified the issues that pose the greatest risk to keeping historic transport mobile, including new legislation and a potential shortage in skills, before going on to suggest ways of addressing them. Also raised as talking points were increased collaboration between heritage institutions and the owners of historic transport, and the separation of horse drawn transport from conversations about mobile heritage. Read the summary here.