Hello, my name is Francesca Pellegrino and I am the Heritage and Venue Team Manager. I have been with the museum for just over 6 years now. I started on a temporary contract for 3 years as the Audience Development Officer, then I got a role as the Commercial Activities Officer before getting my current role in June 2019.

The job role I’m currently in consists of managing the staff within the Heritage and Venues team as well as overseeing the projects and budgets for the team.

I do enjoy working with the Heritage and Venues team but also the wider Community, Culture and Wellbeing service. As a result I’d certainly recommend this team as its very creative and supportive. The role and work we do is very varied and no matter what your role is you get a chance to get involved in lots of different types of work.

This can be everything from collections work, exhibitions, marketing and customer services.

I do enjoy visiting other museums and culture/heritage sites in my spare time but once you work for a museum you can’t help but look for ideas at these places even when you are not at work!

Following my GCSEs, I decided to do A-Levels in English, Art, Religious Studies and French. I followed this by going to college for one year to do an Art Foundation and then finally went to University to do a History of Art degree which took 3 years.

My favourite object in the museum…well this is a tough one as I have many! I love art so I do really love all the pieces by Walter Spradbery we have in the collection.

Hello, my name is Charlotte Hay-Campbell and I am the education assistant. I have been based at the museum since November, and I work in schools and at the museum to educate children about different aspects of history.

My role involves facilitating a variety of workshops that give children the chance to gain more knowledge about the past. I am also developing an exciting new range of whole day museum visits with education officer Catherine Hammond. This involves researching, planning and delivering new sessions around a topic. Two of the new days will be “Local Legends,” which tells the story of some fascinating and important local people through the ages; and the ever-popular topic of toys from the past.

The staff at the museum work as a team, and so I assist with occasional events like Museum Takeover Day and Holocaust Memorial Day. I help to deliver other projects like Arts Award, and I also get the opportunity to be involved in planning and putting together new exhibitions. I have also been developing some content for the museum’s social media forums.

Each day in this role is different and the work is very interesting. I have lived in this area for most of my life, and I really enjoy being able to learn more about the people and places that have shaped Epping Forest District, and to learn from and share this heritage with our local community.

The people in the teams I work with are really supportive, creative and adaptable, with a great range of talents and skills, and we all benefit from each other’s skills and experience.

The qualifications/experience I have are:

• After GCSEs and A Levels I completed a three-year degree, and then did a further teaching qualification which took another year.
• I have experience from teaching in schools and working for another museum’s education department.

Hello my name is Catherine Hammond and I am the Heritage Education and Outreach Officer. I can’t quite believe I’ve been here 14 years!  It has flown by.

This job role consists of doing a lot of work with schools and other groups to engage them with the collections at the museum. With schools I teach workshops which give children the chance to work hands-on with historical objects to help them learn about the past.

With other groups I do the same sort of thing, but over a much wider range of topics and age groups – I work with everyone from toddlers to families to older people, including those with additional needs.  There are a variety of workshops and activities throughout the year that I develop and deliver.  I also put together many of the resources and activities available for families to use in the museum, such as the play stove in the Day to Day Gallery, and trails.  I get involved in lots of other work at the museum from developing exhibitions, giving talks and putting in grant applications to supporting other people on their projects.

I really enjoy my job and the team I work with.  There’s so much variety and many interesting projects to work on and great people to work with.  I’d certainly recommend this team as its very creative and supportive – we have a huge range of talents and skills that we share and benefit from.

After GCSEs and A Levels, in order to get my qualifications, I did an undergraduate degree in history which took 3 years, then I did a Postgraduate Certificate in Education which took 1 year – this gave me a teaching qualification which helped with becoming a museum education officer.  I then also did a Masters in Archive Administration and Records Management – this gave me a lot of professional knowledge and skills which are useful for museum work, although my real love is archives – working with historical documents – and I was lucky enough to work at the National Archives for 6 years.

There are a couple of items I like at the museum.  I’ve got to really love the Spradbery art ever since working on it for an exhibition. But my favourite thing is probably the nails that have been hammered into the fireplace in the Tudor Gallery – they are such a great connection to the people who lived in the house in 1670 (Thomas and Constance Taylor) and their beliefs – they put the little cross in to stop a witch from coming down the chimney!