Hello Bulb Buddies,

Schools from across the UK will be planting their bulbs as close to 20 October as they can. 

Click here for activities and resources that will help you with this part of the project and with looking after your bulbs over the coming months. 

These resources will help you on planting day:

• Adopt your Bulb (an overview of the care your bulbs will need)

• Planting your Bulbs (guidelines for ensuring a fair experiment)

And these activities are fun to complete:

• Bulb Adoption Certificate

• Make Bulb Labels

Please read the resources as they contain important information. For example, do you know to label your pot so that you know which side the daffodil and crocus are planted?

Remember to take photos of your planting day to enter the Planting Day Competition. Do this by sharing your images on Twitter or via email. 

Keep an eye on Professor Plant's Twitter page to see how planting day goes for other schools.

Best of luck Bulb Buddies, let us know how you get on.

Professor Plant & Baby Bulb

Black Lives Matter.

For generations, even up to recent years, that’s been a controversial statement. Thomas Picton is only one of many instruments of the British Empire who exported, demonstrably, an opposing belief.

I’m unsure where I heard this but it’s stuck with me since:

“The instant a subject becomes aware they have been exposed to propaganda, that propaganda ceases to be effective”

In the case of Thomas Picton and his legacy, drenched in the blood of Africans and Native Caribbeans, was sanitized, valorised iteratively while he lived and especially following his death. The murder of George Floyd spurred people and institutions into gear, Amgueddfa Cymru were thankfully one of those institutions.

At the heart of the idea of empire is a differential sense of importance. Some places are more important than others, setting up the Metropole and the Colony. A center and a periphery. The prevailing narrative has always been fundamentally white supremacist, at the expense of Africans and Natives. The British Empire used the metropole-colony model to evade accountability for events driven by people like Picton.

Reframing Picton represents a divergence from this narrative. 

In the time we worked on this project we made a point to expose, not erase history. It was essential that we directly involved people connected to Trinidad, where Picton entrenched his reputation for barbarism during his tenure as Governor. 

Amongst the goals for this exhibit is the creation of a site of conscience rather than indoctrination. To create a dialogue between museums, the governments that fund them and the communities they serve. To create healthy ways of addressing.

Finally, I’ll leave you with a quote that I think encapsulates the purpose of the project most pertinently:

“If we want our future to be better than our past we need to challenge which aspects of our culture we preserve, build upon and deconstruct”

The 30th of September is National Sporting Heritage Day, and this year’s theme is diversity in sport. 

Today is an opportunity to celebrate the sporting heritage of under-represented communities and use the stories they hold to educate and inspire.

This blog will explore highlights from the collection at Amgueddfa Cymru to shine a light on diverse sporting stories in Wales.  

Cardiff Dragons FC shirt worn by Murray Harvey

Cardiff Dragons FC was founded in 2008 and is Wales' first and only LGBTQ+ football team. Their first match was held on Sunday 26 October 2008 where they beat the London Romans 5-4 at Caedelyn Park, Whitchurch, Cardiff. This football shirt was worn by the captain, Murray Harvey (a member of Cardiff Dragons from 2008 until 2018), at this first match. 

Swansea Vikings RFC shirt worn by David Parr

Swansea Vikings RFC are a gay and inclusive rugby team. Founded on 9 May 2015, they are the first ever created in Swansea and the second to be created in Wales. 

This is their first kit and was worn by David Parr who joined Swansea Vikings in January 2016. David stated that,

“Being part of an open, inclusive club that doesn't discriminate has been great for my self confidence, physical and mental health and has enabled me to make many lifelong friendships. I wore the kit on many occasions throughout 2016 and 2017 including against fellow LGBT team the Cardiff Lions in January 2017”.

Signed publicity photograph of boxer, Pat Thomas

Pat Thomas was born in 1950 on the island of Saint Kitts, and moved to Cardiff aged seven. In a career spanning fourteen years he won several titles in two weights, including British Welterweight (1975 & 1976), British Light Middleweight (1979 and 1980) and Welsh Light Middleweight (1977). He founded the Tiger Bay Boxing Club in 1984, and after retiring from professional boxing he worked as a trainer.

Flyer designed by Anthony Evans for the Wales Anti-Apartheid Movement

Double sided Flyer designed by Anthony Evans for the Wales Anti-Apartheid Movement (WAAM). The flyer was made to advertise a demonstration held in Cardiff on 16 April 1986 to protest against a rugby match between the British Lions and the Rest of the World. The Rest of the World squad included six Springboks from South Africa.

Inscribed: 'NO LINKS WITH SOUTH AFRICAN BLOOD SPORTS / 'Mae nhw'n chwarae â gwaed yn NE AFFRICA - dim cysylltiadau.

Olympic Games Blazer Badge worn by Eileen Allen

This is a blazer badge decorated with the Union Jack with the inscription: OLYMPIC GAMES 1952 The Olympic Games of 1952 was held in Helsinki, ten years later than intended due to the outbreak of World War II. 

The badge was worn by Miss Eileen Allen from Cardiff, a member of Team GB 1952, and one of two Welsh referees on the hockey panel of that year. 

This was a great achievement for a female referee, succeeding in a male dominated world, when only men could compete in hockey at the Olympic Games. 

Stonewall Rainbow Laces 

Lastly, these are a pair of Stonewall ‘Rainbow Laces’ in original packing. These laces were first launched by Stonewall in 2013, to promote LGBTQ+ equality and tackle homophobia in sport. This pair was given out to people attending a Stonewall Cymru Role Models Programme in Cardiff in November 2019.

The label reads:

MAKE SPORT EVERYONE’S GAME 

The people mentioned in this blog have made an immense contribution to Welsh sport, insuring that sport is inclusive to all. Their stories have become part of the national memory and will continue to inspire generations of people to follow in their footsteps.

It’s important that we continue to increase representation in the national collection, so that it is more representative of the contemporary diverse cultures of Wales.

Please get in touch if you have any objects you would like to donate to help build up the sports collection at Amgueddfa Cymru, so we can continue to diversify the collection and ensure that future generations will be able to learn about all of Wales’ sporting heritage. 

Finally, you can search and view objects from the collection on the Museum’s Collections Online catalogue. 

#NSHD2022

 

‘Our Museum Garden’ volunteers carry on improving our grounds at National Museum Cardiff. They have continued with the clearance of dead shrubs and overgrown ivy, started to plant up new spaces and cared for the Urban Meadow. 

The most obvious difference has been the clearance and planting of a herbaceous border. There are two ‘mini-gabions’ in this space filled with stones, branches and pinecones to provide habitat for insects. The planting has been planned to appeal to pollinators as well as make a welcoming entrance for visitors. It will be a gorgeous splash of colour next summer. Hopefully in the next few months, larger versions of these gabions will appear in the space too. 

The herb bed has survived well over this heatwave of a summer – the rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus) and lavender (Lavandula) have been enjoying their ideal conditions. The borage (Borago officinalis) has made itself at home and spread seedlings everywhere. 

The volunteer group is also tasked with looking after the ‘Urban Meadow’. We completed the ‘Every Flower Counts’ survey again in July and found a wide variety of wildflowers. We also enjoyed seeing burnet moth, soldier beetles, grasshoppers, flower beetles and many cinnabar moths during our time on the survey. 

At the beginning of September, Matthew Collinson came to teach us how to cut the meadow using Scythes. It was hard work but we all learnt so much about meadow management.

We have three major installation projects happening over the next couple of months. We’re going to be busy and would love some extra volunteers to help us. If you think you might like to help please find details of how to become a volunteer here: Current Opportunities - Become a Volunteer | Museum Wales. We have raised beds to install and plant up, a roof garden to revamp and gabion baskets to build. This project is funded by Welsh Government’s Landfill Disposals Tax Communities Scheme, administered by WCVA.