2024 Community Engagement Round-Up
2024 Community Engagement Round-Up
Throughout 2024, the Dockyard continued to engage with the local audience in Medway through partnering with local organisations and charities.
Community Exhibitions
Between February and October 2024, the Dockyard hosted six community exhibitions in the Namur Room of the Mess Deck restaurant.
During the year, we engaged with new community partners including Medway Diversity Forum, Unravel & Unwind CIC, and Medway School of Arts to develop community co-curated exhibitions in our free-to-access community space. We also developed our relationship with existing community partners including Hazelnut Press, Kent Autistic Trust and Medway African Caribbean Association (MACA). For the second year in a row, we hosted community exhibitions linked to wider Medway creative events – Medway Print Festival and Medway Open Studios.
February: Mental Harmony – Medway Diversity Forum (Community)
March: DockArt40 (Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust)
April: Dockyard40 (Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust)
May: Transform – a collaboration with Medway School of Arts (Community)
June: Medway Print Festival: Hazelnut Press on Tour (Community)
July – August: Anchors Aweigh – linked to Medway Open Studios (Community)
September: ‘Transport Through The Ages’ – Kent Autistic Trust (Community)
October: Windrush exhibition: A Time to Remember – Medway African Caribbean Association [MACA] (Community)
As a part of Anchors Aweigh, Dockyard-themed post box toppers were installed around Medway plus a rather special knitted traffic cone and cape to the iconic Thomas Waghorn statue by Chatham station.
Engagement Through Access & Inclusivity
The majority of the Dockyard’s access work is free for participants due to the National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) funding received from Arts Council England. This year, we continued to work with partners on two British Sign Language (BSL) tours and two audio-described tours based on key Dockyard themes and temporary exhibitions. New for 2024, the Collections Team collaborated with local artist Wendy Daws to develop a book of tactile images linking to our Ralph Steadman: INKling exhibition.
Relaxed Opening Sessions
At The Historic Dockyard, we are keen to make our site as accessible as possible on a daily basis rather than just for dedicated access sessions. During school holiday events, we offered access to trails and a relaxed performance of The Brave and the Waves during the May half-term.
From Summer onwards, there was an improvement in the clarity of information available outlining the accessibility of the site. We developed a blog that details ideal times of day for SEND families to visit, potential sensory triggers, and any access to relevant information regarding the specific programming activities during holiday times.
In response to positive feedback for the relaxed sessions of Mission Christmas, we will continue to offer specific relaxed sessions in the 2024 festive season. New for this year, the relaxed sessions are on dedicated days.
Sensory Support Backpacks
This year, we introduced complimentary Sensory Support Backpacks. They are designed to help those with special educational needs make the most of their day at The Historic Dockyard Chatham.
The five backpacks are filled with resources to help make your visit a little bit easier. Families or individuals can pick one up when they arrive and return it at the end of their visit.
Dementia Café
This year, we have continued to build momentum and grow attendance numbers for our monthly Dementia Café. Medway Sunlight Rotary Club have generously supported our Dementia Café for 2024 – enabling us to continue this amazing access offer for the local community.
We have hosted a range of external guest speakers and sessions including Bright Shadow, Kent Fire & Rescue, and Carers First. We have also shared some of our outreach resources and hands-on heritage skills with attendees.
During our 40th anniversary year, we celebrated the Dockyard Dementia Café’s 1st birthday and Medway Sunlight Rotary have confirmed they will be supporting us for another year.
Zest Goes Green
Zest Goes Green is an outdoor touring version of the dementia-friendly Zest sessions delivered by Bright Shadow across Kent.
In the Summer, we hosted the Medway Zest Goes Green in the Commissioner’s House garden. Over five weeks, participants engaged in a variety of interactive and accessible creative sessions, responding to the surrounding nature, such as singing, poetry, playing musical instruments, and tie-dying using natural dyes.
Outreach
This year, we developed new sessions to deliver to residents in local care homes, bringing the Dockyard to those who cannot visit in person. The Community Engagement team visited five local care homes and engaged with over 600 residents.
Awards
We were thrilled to be awarded the prestigious Accessible and Inclusive Tourism GOLD Award at the 2024/25 Beautiful South Awards.
Events & Festivals
2024 was an important year to engage Medway with The Historic Dockyard Chatham as it was the 40th Anniversary of the dockyard’s closure and the creation of the Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust.
The Community Engagement Team attended several events including the Chatham Chinese Festival, Rochester Sweeps, Dragon Boat Challenge, Chatham Carnival, and Medway Pride. Although the weather was against them for many of this year’s outdoor events, the Team had a greater presence than usual at events across Medway. For the first time this year, we engaged with the Rochester Sweeps Festival and the relaunched Chatham Chinese Festival.
We also built on our presence at established events such as Chatham Carnival and Medway Pride. The HMS DOCKYARD crew sailed down Chatham and Rochester High Streets, showcasing Dockyard-themed accessories made by one of Nucleus Arts resident artists, Sofia Macmullen. The team delivered 40th birthday-inspired crafts and promoted upcoming events and exhibitions. The public also had the chance to test their knowledge of naval slang, with our new Jackspeak interactive.
Dragon Boat Challenge
The crew of HMS DOCKYARD took part in the Medway Sunlight Rotary’s flagship fundraising event for the second year. Always up for a challenge, our motley crew was this year made up of Trust staff and volunteers from many departments including visitor experience, catering and hospitality, public engagement, collections, ships, learning, maintenance, commercial, and events.
It is a brilliant team building experience and we’ve had amazing support from colleagues, friends, and family. We had a brilliant time competing this year, as part of our 40th anniversary. The crew even beat last year’s time by 8 seconds – our fastest yet!
Armed Forces Day at The Historic Dockyard Chatham
In previous years, Medway’s Armed Forces Day event has been held at the Great Lines Heritage Park in Gillingham which the Community Engagement Team has attended since 2022.
This year, as part of the Dockyard’s 40th anniversary, we hosted the event at the Dockyard in collaboration with Medway Council.
From a public engagement perspective, it was the first event to feature the Dockyard Human Library which was developed during the 40th anniversary year, it utilises the knowledge and experience of Dockyard volunteers who were also Dockyard apprentices and workers.
The Community Engagement Team and volunteers had a brilliant time engaging with people and hearing a wide variety of Dockyard stories from local people (including former workers). The human library had great fun sharing their memories too.
Heritage Open Days
As part of Heritage Open Days 2024, former Dockyard Apprentices and Mateys took members of the public on a journey around the Dockyard – as seen through their eyes. Those on the tour discovered hidden and overlooked objects along with unexplained historical oddities in areas of the site not often explored by the general public.
Talks Programme
This year, we have developed and maintained a successful, well-attended evening talks programme. We engaged a variety of speakers linking to Dockyard40 and temporary exhibition themes, alongside international anniversaries for example D-Day 80, Three Cruisers 110th anniversary, and Cavalier 80.
New for 2024
For the first time this year, the Community Engagement Team attended the Medway History Showcase at the Royal Engineers Museum and Medway Fun Palace at the Pentagon Shopping Centre. At both events, we engaged with many local people who had personal connections to the Dockyard via our newly formed Human Library (former Dockyard apprentices and workers who are now volunteers), sharing stories and memories of Dockyard life.
Workshops
We worked with several new and existing partners to deliver a series of free-to-access reminiscence and creative workshops.
Electric Medway – Young Hacks
This year, we collaborated with existing community partner Electric Medway as part of their series of digital workshops for young people to help develop entry-level skills in creative technology.
We delivered object handling sessions, using CHDT collections material and provided a selection of digitised collections material to provide inspiration for digital outputs as part of the workshops.
Dockyard-themed sessions (in collaboration with Medway Archives)
Medway Archives Centre in Strood holds monthly drop-in sessions for members of the local community and fortnightly reminiscence sessions specifically for older members of the community who may suffer from social isolation. This year, we partnered with Medway Archives who delivered a Dockyard closure-themed drop-in session showcasing some of their Dockyard material. We also collaborated on the delivery of two Dockyard worker reminiscence sessions, one at Medway Archives and one at The Historic Dockyard.
We met some really interesting people and heard some fascinating stories, including some from our volunteers who were Dockyard apprentices and/or workers.
Medway Print Festival
During Medway Print Festival, Heather Haythornthwaite from Hazelnut Press delivered simple drop-in lino cut print workshops, suitable for all ages and abilities linked to images of the Dockyard.
Participants were able to create their own tactile response inspired by the popular Dockyard landmarks and mysterious hidden spaces on display. People could choose from a couple of Dockyard-themed designs and create their own print to take home.
Summer Workshops
Running every Wednesday across the summer holidays, we collaborated with community partners to deliver a series of free-to-access workshops, linking with wider Dockyard history and Dockyard40 themes.
Anchors Aweigh: working with Unravel & Unwind’s Faye Lamb from Gillingham-based CIC, as part of the wider Dockyard40 Anchors Aweigh project, the public had the chance to crochet their own anchors to contribute to the project or take away with them.
For the first time this year, we were part of the official Medway Pride Fringe programme with Faye delivering a further two crochet anchor workshops, this time with a rainbow theme.
‘Read All About It’: Nucleus artist Nick Ashton delivered two accessible drawing workshops based around the real-life Dockyard story behind The Game is Afoot summer programming. Participants created a Victorian-style newspaper mugshot using basic features selected at random as a starting point.
Wendy Daws – Tactile Detectives: local artist Wendy Daws from Mess Room CIC delivered two tactile foil embossing workshops during which the public could create their own mysterious patterns which they could then turn into a hanging decoration to take home.
Dockyard Mysteries: participants had the chance to work with representatives from Medway-based CIC Electric Medway to uncover mysteries from history linked to The Historic Dockyard Chatham and use digital technology to build an Augmented Reality (AR) scavenger hunt trail through the Dockyard landscape.
As part of the workshop, our Public Engagement Officer delivered an object-handling session where young people had the chance to touch and learn about objects from our collection. They also had the opportunity to 3D scan these objects and use them as part of their scavenger trails.
October hALF TERM
Ink Splatter Shenanigans: comic artist, writer, performer, and director of the creative hub House of Stars, Nadia Perrotta, delivered a drop-in workshop for all ages inspired by our latest temporary exhibition: Ralph Steadman: INKling.
Participants had the chance to explore the art of ink splatter to craft quirky, funny characters and build imaginative stories around them. They experimented with spontaneous ink techniques, just like Ralph Steadman, and created their very own unique piece of art.
