The early new year is often a time for charities and musuems to undertake staff training and maintenance in the ‘off season’. Online, several organisation offer free training and briefing videos relevant for industrial heritage sites. Some of the recent offerings listed below provide an opportunity for armchair training.
The East-West Workshops on Industrial Archaeology aim to exchange ideas and knowledge among Western and Eastern colleagues to build a more international and diverse industrial archaeology. The workshops are organised jointly by the Institute for Cultural Heritage and History of Science and Technology (USTB, China), and the Association for Industrial Archaeology (AIA) together with its Young Members Board. Videos of all the workshops are available on the AIA’s YouTube Channel, including the latest event from November 2024 on ‘Weaving the Industrial Period’. Follow this link to view the workshops: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCILr2TkRAOIfk_NKchshwZQ
On Thursday 21st November 2024 the ‘Craft of the Miller’ network held an online conference on ‘Managing Health & Safety Risks in Your Mill’. Jon Cook gave an introduction to highlight a number of key risks in a working mill, including hygiene, flour dust, vacuum equipment, and fire risks. Jippe Kreuning explored how to work with a stone crane and how to operate it safely to lift a set of millstones. You can catchup with the recordings from the conference here: https://network.molens.nl/
Finally, Historic England have a range of heritage webinars to watch with topics from flooding, embodied carbon, and renewabler energy, to heritage building skills, roofs, and windows. The Historic Environment Webinars strand includes a session on the role and work of the Canal & River Trust form November 2024. Follow this link to view the webinars: https://historicengland.org.uk/services-skills/training-skills/training/webinars/recordings/#technicaltuesdays
Industrial Heritage Networks 