About Me

Heritage Lincolnshire is running an innovative approach to managing heritage at risk by training and supporting a network of volunteer 'heritage stewards' to complete surveys on Lincolnshire's heritage assets including historic buildings, places of worship, parks and gardens, conservation areas and archaeological sites. Project Officers Michael Knapton and Natalie Hamilton, together with some of our keen Heritage Stewards, will be writing a weekly blog on the Heritage at Risk project which will provide updates on the latest news and goings on, as well as offering an insight in to the day to day running of the project and the experiences of our Heritage Stewards.

Monday, 13 June 2011

Being a Project Officer

Last week was very typical of a week working on the 'Lincolnshire Heritage at Risk' project. Everyday is different.

Monday was mainly preparing for a talk. Getting the Power-point ready, sourcing suitable photographs and, of course, writing what I was going to say. It took much longer than I thought, especially the Power-point which contained some very dodgy animation. I'm sure my nieces and nephews could have done better.

Tuesday involved a staff meeting with fellow Project Officer Natalie and Senior Project Officer Matthew. The bulk of this meeting was concerned with our 'Hands on Heritage' expedition for young people. Still lots to sort out but making good progress.

Much of Wednesday was spent dealing with volunteer queries. Our volunteers are essential to the success of the project so we aim to deal with them as quickly as possible. Queries might involve: booking events, problems with the website, locating assets, questions about particular buildings etc. Answering questions can take quite a while especially when we have over 240 volunteers. I also posted out ID cards to our newest recruits who were trained at Alford by myself and our Director David Start. Hopefully these new 'Heritage Stewards' will be able to start surveying to add to the nearly 4000 completed surveys so far.

Thursday and Friday both involved more planning for my talk. printing off forms, the register and, most importantly of all, making sure we had enough tea, coffee and biscuits. These two days also involved a number of hours validating completed surveys. The project team check every single survey that gets completed by our volunteers. Sometimes its difficult to keep up with the amounts being completed!

Saturday was my talk at Benington. In the morning I talked about common building defects and after lunch we visited All Saints, a grade I listed church. The church is currently vacant but there are plans for its future. After a (very) short architectural tour by me members of the Community Trust explained what they have been doing and their plans for its future.

Overall, as always, a very interesting and varied week.

Michael, Heritage at Risk Project Officer

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