Hello! Sophie and I joined the Polar Museum about six months ago, replacing Fiona as the conservator after she had moved to New Zealand. We will be updating the SPRI conservation blog soon with more news about what we've been doing here. In the meantime, here's a bit about our backgrounds and a picture of us getting stuck into a fun cleaning project in our first couple of weeks.

Merry Christmas!

Sophie (left) and Christina (right) cleaning a very dusty muskox head: more about this later…

Sophie Rowe

I joined the Polar Museum as conservator in April 2012, and since then have been responsible, with Christina, for caring for the object collection. My conservation specialism is treatment of organic artefacts – that is, objects made from anything that was ever a plant or animal. This covers a wide range of materials from wood to plastic, and includes fur, food, teeth and textiles, all of which we have in this museum. I have a special interest in conservation treatment of Ancient Egyptian artefacts but admittedly these are not well represented in the Polar Museum! For me the great pleasure in working here is that we have such an extraordinarily mixed collection, and in a small team like ours I get to be involved in everything, from mounting exhibitions to improving the storage of the objects. I am also very interested in pest management in museums, and I monitor the insect population in the building regularly, prepared to intervene quickly if any pests threaten the collection.

Christina Rozeik

I came here in May 2012 as the 'other half' of Sophie – we're doing a job share. Fortunately, Sophie and I have known each other for a long time and know that we work well together! Like Sophie, I have a particular interest in the conservation of antiquities, having worked on the redisplay of the Fitzwilliam Museum's Ancient Egyptian and Greek & Roman galleries. However, I am also very interested in the history of science, something that comes from my time at the Royal Institution's Faraday Museum. While at the RI, I worked on objects as diverse as a Wimshurst machine, Michael Faraday's experimental induction coils, and a boomerang used in one of the Institution's Christmas lectures. I have a particular interest in conservation outreach and publication, and hope to be involved with both while at the Polar Museum. I also monitor the environment in the building – the temperature, humidity and light – to make sure that the conditions are suitable for storing and displaying our historic collections.

Greetings from New Zealand.

The new SPRI conservators Sophie and Christina kindly asked me to write a quick update on what I have been up to since leaving SPRI in November 2011.

I emigrated to Dunedin in New Zealand to take up the post of Senior Conservator at the Toitū Otago Settlers Museum. Dunedin is in Otago region of the South Island and has a strong Scottish and Māori heritage.

My initial task has been to prepare objects for re-display during the museum's $37.5m redevelopment. The project was four years in length with the museum being closed to the public for the last two years whilst major building works were carried out. This has resulted in the doubling of the foot print of the museum and exciting new galleries.

Portrait Gallery – old and new technology. (Photo: Steve Munroe)

The museum reopened on Friday 7^th December 2012 with a whakawatea and mihimihi. Mihimihi are introductory speeches which take place at the beginning of a gathering. The museum was then blessed before the Civic ceremony took place.

Part of opening ceremony (Photo: Steve Munroe)

Food is very important and I got the opportunity to try tītī (muttonbird) for the first time, and also to eat some of my absolute favourite, crayfish.

Me and Claire (Registrar) enjoying our kai! (Photo: Steve Munroe)

It has been an exhausting but enjoyable experience, and now everyone is ready for a holiday over the Christmas and New Year period.

This is the pohutukawa or New Zealand Christmas tree.

Don’t forget to pop in and visit the museum if you are ever in this part of the world.

Fiona McLaughlan