On Saturday 14 October the Pitt Youth Action Team (Pitt
YAT) hosted their first museum Takeover event from 7-9pm. The Pitt YAT is made
up of twenty young people aged 14-19. It’s convened by Katherine Rose (Secondary
and Young People Education Officer), supported by Andy McLellan (Head of
Education), and meets once a month at the Museum on a Saturday morning. The
young people come from all over Oxfordshire. Many have joined independently;
some joined because a friend was in the group.
We decided through group discussion that the theme of our first Takeover event would be ‘Magical Soirée’, based on objects in the collection that interested members in the group and thinking about what would make an appealing event that we could market. We aimed to sell 150 tickets, and decided to price these at £4 per ticket.
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| Magical Soirée Takeover event © Pitt Rivers Museum |
We planned that the event would involve specially designed
light projections, an object trail that morphed into a tour, object handling,
hands-on activities such as biscuit decorating and potion making, as well as
face-painting. We divided up event planning roles, taking on different areas of
responsibility such as production, marketing, collections research and activity
planning. The group thought that Live Music was a key part of an appealing event,
and one of the group asked the local four-piece band The Land Girls to play.
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| Live Music © Pitt Rivers Museum |
The month before the event was hectic with everyone working
hard to get everything ready. It was a big success162 people attended the event, including the Youth Panel from the
Natural History Museum and
Ashmolean Museum, as well as the
National Gallery Young Producers. The event generated an income of £553 which will be used towards the next Pitt YAT Takeover event.
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| Object Handling © Pitt Rivers Museum |
One visitor said: 'Thank you for a Marvellously Magical Soiree! There was magic everywhere:from the swirling constellations to the artefacts which seemed to feel the spirit and almost leap out of their glassed cabinets. Thank you for sharing your energy, enthusiasm and knowledge with us and making the museum we love even more special!'
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| Attending the Takeover event © Pitt Rivers Museum |
The Pitt YAT is supported by a
Young Roots grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund and is run in partnership with
OYAPTrust. If you want to find out more or become involved in Pitt YAT then please contact Kelly Smith, the Secondary and Young People Education Officer (maternity). Kelly can be contacted on
kelly.smith@prm.ox.ac.uk
