Galleries are Risky

For every Volunteer, Health and Safety is a must,
Though some of the requirements may seem crazy or unjust.
There's also some omissions that need to be addressed
for every day there's ailments that could make you quite distressed.

There's Elevator Digit caused by using both the lifts;
Rotating rosters make this move a problem duiring shifts.

The Waterfront is special but beware of Boathook Strain
Caused by moving buoys or islands that have got displaced again.

Inflator's Foot is common when you're working in Main Hall;
There's no one else to pump the raft; it won't stay up at all.

Then there's Toilet Pointer's Syndrome and that's a daily task;
Most tourists seem to be caught short and many of them ask.

Transmitter's Thumb is rampant if you're on the air at all;
It could become endemic by the late summer or the fall.

Genuflecting is required to Directors or Trustees;
I've even heard that some expect you down on bended knees!

This may be fine for youngsters who are flexible and fit,
But Oldies could lock solid: couldn't stand or even sit.

I've asked around my colleagues just to quantify the risk,
And from what I've learned, I'm worried we could overload Treliske.

Mike Pennel, Galleries

Under the Sea question beats BBC's 'Eggheads' challengers

by Clive Mathison (Quiz Addict)

Question to the team of Challengers: "Who in the 17th century invented the submarine?"

As an avid viewer of the BBC's 6pm daily quiz programme I was amazed that the challenging team in the final session of the general knowledge round did not know the correct answer to the 3 possible choice options, which caused them to be the losers of the contest and not win the 'pot' of money which rolls over each day, and allowed the BBC's 'Eggheads' to retain their reputation.

Although some members of the challenging team had 'obviously' or 'assumedly' visited Specsavers, they had not visited the National Maritime Museum Cornwall... where they would have learned that the answer was Drebbel who was born in the Netherlands and employed by the British Navy partly in connection with the submarine about 1620.

A more humane Mikado ...

The Cambridge University G&S singers made their now traditional visit to the Museum on Thursday 10 September as a break from their rehearsals at the Minack. They look like having some fine weather for the Mikado.

A bad hair day ...

... or Retirement is so relaxing
- Museum day today, it’s raining and I didn’t set the alarm, so overslept. Find we’ve run out of tea bags. A hurried breakfast, then re-thread a broken shoelace.
- I drive off in a cold car. Radio Cornwall promises “Some light rain later” as the windscreen wipers flail from side to side at full speed.
- At the Norway Inn a Police sign diverts all traffic to Falmouth via the back roads to Penryn and the traffic lights at Draceana Avenue are not operating.
- The Maritime Car Park is almost full of vehicles bearing Cornwall Council stickers (must be a Conference) and I find my umbrella is still at home.
- The Duty Manager is in a panic (panic? a Duty Manager? Never! - Ed) because none of the displays will switch on (and no Maintenance staff on duty today).
- No doubt the Five rostered Volunteers will carry the load with a smile, but at 0955 two incoming phone calls change all that to Three rostered Volunteers.
- My radio has no Roster sheet for Three people, and we all arrive in Lookout together. The toss of a coin lets me remain there, gazing at Flushing through the rain until I have to radio the DM about a screen being down, whilst trying to stop a young boy from wrenching the telescope through 360 degrees.
- A quick check in Nav. Station locates all the Council delegates playing on the children’s moving tideway, although none of the units will move more than three inches (DM advised).
- At 1045 I find Waterfront busy. The Volunteer is tearing out his hair because one yacht has been “dunked” by a child and Console 3 isn’t working at all. The Token Machine is only paying out Jackpots and one boy has enough tokens to last the morning. I take over, & notice a youth standing in the Small Boat Pool as his mate takes his picture – I speak to both in dulcet tones that they seem to understand!
- By 1130 Main Hall is beckoning – but it’s Coffee Break. The café cannot produce my usual cup of Espresso as the power has gone off. A Coke is no real substitute, although cheaper.
- A red-faced ex-Naval visitor appears at my table & demands to know where we are displaying the sailing dinghy donated by his father. I refer him to the Library (then realize it’s closed today)
- I return to Main Hall just in time to see the DM completing the re-inflation of the life raft, but hide in Cornwall until he’s finished - and I see the Naval visitor stomping away from the Library doors, muttering.
- A family is having a picnic in the Sail Loft and I advise them politely what to do with their sandwiches.
- The rain has stopped briefly but the next Crabbing Session is not until 1400 – so the morning shift is saved!! The first excuse to smile today!!!! At 1340 a relief arrives in the Cornwall Gallery, apologizing profusely for being unable to find me, and I sign off.
- A passing Cornish shower (or Thunderstorm as we Dorset folk call them) accompanies me to the car park and I head for home, my uniform shirt steaming with the heat in the car.
- Despite the rain, the two farm tractors ahead of me from Treluswell to Devoran are making at least 18 mph. I arrive home at 14 25 for a late lunch and find the Postman has delivered a large Visa Bill, my Telephone account - and my car needs re-taxing.
- I love being a Gallery Volunteer – far less stressful than working for a living!!

I name this ship ...

... the Volunteer. The pride and joy of the Boat Building team was formally named on Thursday 3 September when Ellen Winser joined the team of stalwarts who have worked day and night, raided skips, begged, borrowed, stolen (as if), purloined, cajoled, re-used and generally bodged to get the boat - the Museum's very own tug - onto the water.

After a glass of bubbly Ellen was persuaded to risk an exploration of the harbour, accompanied by a team of engineers ready to kick the engine into life if it dared to miss a beat.

This was actually a great achievement and thanks are due to all of those involved. We now have a general utility boat that can be used to tow out our engineless craft and fetch and deliver from Ponsharden.

That she is called the Volunteer is not to be taken as any sort of hint that the lads might have spent too much time propping up the bar in the pub of the same name, nor that they named it after their favourite watering hole - The Chain Locker would be a strange name for a boat - but a direct thank you to all the volunteers who make the Museum what it is. Like some of them, she sometimes develops a cough, moves at a decorous speed, needs to be handled gently, requires the right liquid in sensible proportions but gives excellent service when treated with respect.

There is nothing like dame

Many of us had the privelege of hearing Ellen MacArthur speak on Monday and Tuesday after the Bank Holiday. Despite her public personna of a rather shy, quiet, almost monsyllabic interviewee, Ellen turned out to be incredibly fluent, speaking without notes and to a wrapt and silent audience. Her talk avoided the inevitably chronology of 'We started on the race; then we came to this storm, then that iceberg' and was an essay on the delights, fears and feelings of sailing alone for long distances under a weight of expectation. Her love of animals shone through and her acting of the two swallows that spent the night huddled up on her chart table was charmingly infectious and it is not surprising that a baby albatross fell for her.

Her charity, the Ellen MacArthur Trust, gives young people recovering from cancer the chance to regain their confidence by tackling sailing and she told the touching story of Flora who had suffered from an aggressive form of the disease. Seeing her two years later, Flora was looking stressed. When Ellen asked why she was told 'I have my GCSEs' and Ellen was delighted to hear that Flora's problems were so 'normal'.

In a third part which she admitted privately she found incredibly difficult, she explained her current passion for sustainability, emphasising that we are likely to run out of oil in her lifetime and appear to be fiddling while Rome decays around us. This was not the rant of a green, flat-earth activist but a heartfelt desire to get us to address the problem for real. She wants to do for oil what Al Gore has done for the climate: make us face up to the inconvenient truth.

As she said 'The politicians know there is a problem but unless the people know it, they will be able to do nothing about it. No one will vote for a party which tells us to change our lifestyles so radically.' At a time when the leaders of the two main political parties were bickering about whether we should or should not have released a dying man from prison on compassionate grounds, it was not hard to believe that Ellen had a point when she said that politicians were not leading opinion. Jo Lumley for Foreign Affairs, Esther Rantzen for Children's Minister and Ellen as Energy Minister in a new form of Parliament, say I (who needs men?).

And there was praise for the Museum too. She adored seeing Wanderer as Margaret Dye had inspired a recent trip along the canals of Britain and she admired Ben Ainslie's Finn. She even recalled playing on the Waterfront pool just before she left on her voyage and thanked everyone for their help and support. But the biggest surprise for her was to discover the Library. Her school library in Derbyshire had only had four books on sailing and here was a whole library full of them. Moreover, there was one book which told her all about the building in which she is currently living in Cowes. If for no other reason, she said, I am coming back for the library.

Her quietly husky voice gives you the impression that she is about to burst into tears at any time, as indeed she was when speaking of her courageous and spirited grandmother, and this just helped to highten the tension and brought the audience to its feet at the end.

Between them, Pete Goss and Ellen MacArthur have been stand-out speakers this year. Both had captivated their audiences by their openness, frankness and courage. Let's have more of them.