I love this picture, the room is in Saddlescombe Farm, and apart from the lightbulb looks almost exactly as it is drawn in a book about the farm in the 1860’s. If a funny little place, only open to the public a couple if days a year, but right onthe South Downs way. I spent a (freezing) Tuesday afternoon there, planning with colleagues how we might make it more accessible. We could try selling tea there on Summer week-ends, but we can’t attract too many cars there, as it’s such a sensitive site. So our main target will be walkers and riders, and perhaps we can attract people down from the top of Devil’s Dyke.
On Friday I found myself sitting at head office, working out the terms of reference for a proposed Technology for Engagement Group. It includes a number of people on the succesful Virtual Tours group (we had our phpto taken afterwards for the staff magazine, to celebrate our JODI award). We plan to support properties looking into using new technology for interpretation and it was interesting to hear the ideas that were coming in – Tyntesfield are exploring “mscapes” or mediascapes, and I’d not heard of these before. Other properties were thinking about podcasts and vidcasts and user generated web content.
The group also plans to be a first point of contact for companies and researchers approaching the Trust with innovative ideas, and I was keen that we should be a fixed term group, so we discussed running for two years. And maybe finishing with a technology conference.
Anyhow, today I’m thinking that we haven’t yet thought about how new media might improve access to Saddlescombe without attracting cars.
