In your words, Dales Countryside Museum

Employment by the University of Leeds as the project’s Engagement Officer between June 2021 - November 2022

A University of Leeds project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund is updating the most comprehensive survey of English dialects ever undertaken and is inviting people right across the country to get involved and share their own words.

The project aims to encourage people to uncover their own dialect inheritance and cultural heritage, and to share their language and stories for the benefit of future generations.

By digitising and making available the Leeds Archive of Vernacular Culture, the project will also marry the rich resources with the five partner museums’ complementary and contemporaneous artefact collections, putting the collections back into the communities it was originally collected. The five partner museums are Dales Countryside Museum, Ryedale Folk Museum, Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings, Weald and Downland Living Museum and the Museum of East Anglian Life.

My role in the project was based at the Dales Countryside Museum where I looked to develop local relationships, community delivery partnerships and deliver engagement and volunteering programmes.