Community Engagement Programme
The Mary Rose Trust runs an extensive community programme in Portsmouth, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight and beyond, including:
- Visits to Community Groups
- Family and Adult Learning Events in Portsmouth
- Working with Portsmouth Football Club
Visits to Community Groups
Trevor Sapey, Community Engagement Officer, and team visit a wide variety of groups who might find it difficult to visit the Museum. However, following an outreach visit many groups organize a trip to the Mary Rose Museum. Groups visited include: Hampshire Stroke Associations, Solent Area Pituitary Support Group, Countess Mountbatten Hospice, Southampton, The Rowans Hospice, Portsmouth, St Wilfrid’s Hospice, Chichester, Woking Hospice, Cussens Day Centre, Hythe, Residential Centres, Multiple Sclerosis groups, Visually Impaired groups, Alzheimer's groups, Combat Stress, Parkinson’s Society, Andover Day Services and Petersfield and Portsmouth Headway.
These hands-on sessions include a PowerPoint presentation telling the story of the Mary Rose. This is followed an opportunity to handle real and replica artefacts from the ship – some are obvious, others are very hard to guess! Sessions finish with the chance to dress in Tudor costume – great fun is had by all!
These are just some of the comments from groups visited:
“The slides, pictures, posters and artefacts, costumes and talk were all very interesting and enjoyable. For my group who have communication problems following a stroke there was plenty to keep their interest and promote discussion, they all were very positive about the afternoon. Thank you – very worthwhile.”
Portsmouth Dysphasia Club
“The team presentation was excellent and being in a small group extremely personal, which added to the interest of actually handling the artefacts. Printed matter and photographs mean little but handling objects with explanations of their use was wonderful. The team were knowledgeable and patient throughout and yet another visit in my opinion would not go amiss. I am now eagerly awaiting the possibility of a visit to the remains of the Mary Rose.’
Rowans Hospice Day Centre
“The group thoroughly enjoyed the visit, asking lots of questions. They enjoyed guessing what the artefacts were used for and the fact the team came in costume added to the atmosphere.’
Friday Club, John Pounds Centre
‘Absolutely brilliant and very interesting;’ ‘Great – and entertaining! Enjoyed it more learning as an adult’ and ‘Interesting to re-learn after my stroke.’
Basingstoke Stroke Association
‘It was one of the most interesting and enjoyable visits we have organised. The staff were fantastic at involving service users and making the history of the Mary Rose extremely easy. Our service users talked needlessly of the visit and were very excited about the second visit. They particularly enjoyed the dressing up and that made the visit more real and interesting to them. I cannot stress enough how much fun was had while learning about the Tudor lifestyle. Your staff were very flexible in adapting their presentation to the needs of our service users. I think we will organise a trip to the Mary Rose herself.’
Andover Day Services (Two groups from this organisation did indeed visit the Museum)
To arrange a visit, please contact:
Trevor Sapey
Mary Rose Museum
College Road
HM Naval Base
Portsmouth
PO1 3LX
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