Melissa Bennett Email & Phone Number

London, Gb

I work in the Community Engagement team at City Hall. Our priorities and roles are ever-changing but previous work includes:- Leading on the London Community Story programme, a pioneering project that aims to change what policy makers and funders see as insights and increasing their engagement with creative data. I worked with experts to produce Connecting Community Insights to Policy, commissioned research on community collecting during COVID-19 as well as designing and managing the associated grants programme and leading on the online exhibition of grantee outputs. - engaging with Londoners about the impact of COVID-19 and what changes they would like to see as we move through the various phases of this pandemic. Methods of engagement include community roundtables, data and insight gathering, and building partnerships.- delivering the community engagement programme for the Mayor's Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm.- supporting other teams across the organisation with their community engagement work and grants programmes.- Leading on community engagement for the Mayor’s annual Slavery Remembrance event and Black History Month.

London, England, United Kingdom

Secondment covering the role of Principal Community Engagement Officer. Managing the Engaging Londoners programme to ensure that London’s diverse communities have opportunities to influence the policies that affect their lives and that policy makers are confident to deliver high quality community engagement projects.

Muswell Hill, England, United Kingdom

I am Co-Director of Muswell Hill Rhythmic Gymnastics, a not for profit community interest company that runs rhythmic gymnastics classes for children and young people. We offer classes in North London for a range of abilities from beginner to elite level and have gymnasts competing in regional and national competitions. I am a qualified gymnastics coach and also teach regular classes at the club, developing on my own experiences as an elite rhythmic gymnast.

As a Research Assistant for Paul Mellon funded Birkbeck/National Trust project: 'Unlocking the Photographic Archive: Identity & History in the National Trust’s Photography Collections'. My responsibilties included:- Framing the key research questions for the project and drafting all project documentation and plans.- Liasing with key stakeholders and experts and securing their participation.- Re-shaping and re-designing the project as the pandemic unfolded to an online project rather than a series of workshops.- Working to improve terminology in the Trust's catalogues to increase accessibility and inclusion in line with the Trust's vision that everyone is welcome.- Arranging research interviews with key influencers, academics, archivists and other heritage practitioners to gather their ideas and thoughts. Writing questions for these interviews as well as interview summaries.- Writing the overall research report for the project as well as five shorter thematic reports based on different areas of the collections.

London, United Kingdom

From January 2018 to January 2020 I managed the museum's higher education and research programmes and research partnerships with the aim of developing our reach, impact, and profile in this area to help the museum to stretch thinking, become better known, and reach more people.I managed the MA and access to higher education courses hosted at the museum for Kingston, Westminster and Birkbeck universities. I was responsible for the museum's CDA students, organising their inductions and acting as their first point of contact.I led and organised a diverse range of specialist workshops and study days for university partners tailored to their university course syllabuses. I managed the museum's Academic Panel and Academic Research Steering group. Along with the Head of Curatorial I drafted the museum's current research strategy that sets out our priorities for the next few years before the move to the new museum site at Smithfield.I also had responsibility for content and programming related to the London Sugar and Slavery Gallery at the Museum of London Docklands, including public tours, gallery talks, academic symposia and large public outreach events.Along with a community curator, I co-curated the highly successful Krios of Sierra Leone exhibition which opened in September 2019 and will be on display until March 2021.

London, United Kingdom

I coordinated the practical organisation and delivery of the museum’s higher education teaching partnerships and workshops. These included MA and Access to HE courses, as well as one off workshops and study days. I coordinate student placements at the Museum of London and am working to establish a new structured placement programme for doctoral students.I facilitated student projects and collaborations with the museum in a range of fields, from art and science to theatre and performance. Some notable projects include the recent gallery drawing project with students from London College of Communications, who produced illustrations and animations based on the museum's collections that can be seen here: https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/lccmuseumoflondon/I was the first point of contact for academics and researchers who wish to work with the museum on research projects, events, and exhibitions and offer advice on putting together applications for research support and external funding.

As Special Projects Officer I carried out ad hoc project work for Women In Football including events planning, research, and campaigns.Most significantly I was involved in the inception, planning, and managing of the social media campaign (#shameonthegame and #shebelongs) launched by WiF to combat sexism in football and celebrate the achievements of women working in the industry. The campaign gained national news coverage and I was invited to speak at other organisations to explain the reasons for our successes as a result. I also wrote content for the website including the previous main story, 15 profiles celebrating 150 years of female pioneers in football http://www.womeninfootball.co.uk/celebrating-150-years-of-female-pioneers-in-football.More recently I have been involved in assisting with events held at Barclays Bank and the House of Lords, and wrote an article on the black history of women's football as a part of WiF's Black History Month outreach. The article is available here: https://www.womeninfootball.co.uk/news/2017/10/20/where-is-the-black-history-of-women%E2%80%99s-football/

Coventry, United Kingdom

As a seminar tutor, I planned and taught hour long seminars to first year history undergraduates for the module Making of the Modern World. The classes covered a range of topics, from the history of race and gender, to environmentalism and postmodernism. I marked and provided feedback on essays, group projects, and final exams. I also led academic writing workshops for students outside of my usual seminar group. My termly feedback reports from students were overwhelmingly positive, and this was extremely rewarding to see. Students described my classes as 'well-prepared', 'clear and interestingly presented', and valued that I often put a lot of extra work in to provide them with content that was not discussed in lectures. They described me as knowledgeable and engaging and my classes received consistently higher ratings than the other aspects of the course.Outside of my role as a seminar tutor, I had an active and visible role in the department. I organised the Comparative American Studies Seminar Series, arranging for range of international and local speakers to visit the department and deliver their latest research. I created digital and printed publicity material for each seminar and arranged catering and room bookings.My largest organisational task however, was to be part of the two person organising committee for the history department's 2017 Postgraduate Conference. The conference gives PhD and MA students a chance to present 'work in progress' to a friendly audience'. I was tasked with arranging prospective abstracts into themed panels and producing the programme, sourcing chairs for each panel of the two day conference and arranging conference registration. During the two day conference I was on hand to solve various issues such as speakers withdrawing at the last minute and faulty air conditioning units. I live tweeted the two day conference and managed publicity on twitter and the departmental web pages.

London, United Kingdom

As part of the Summer Archive Project I worked as part of a team of five interns for three weeks to catalogue and repackage more than 4,000 architectural plans of UK venues held by the Theatres Trust. Through cataloguing the project aimed to make sure the documents could be more easily accessed by theatre owners, researchers and people interested in theatre history. I also produced blog post as a part of the project which can be viewed here http://www.theatrestrust.org.uk/news/show/7690-summer-archive-project-lon-done.

At the London Borough of Waltham Forest, I was given a lot of responsibility to pull together and produce significant events, service reviews, and policy documents. I project managed the final stages of the preparation for the May 2014 local elections. I dealt with complaints from residents about electoral registration and voting, and assisted with data entry on voter registration following the implementation of IER. Following on from my role in the Governance department I worked on drafting the borough's education improvement action plan from 2014/15 and produced a discussion document on the strategic plan for the Families Directorate. As part of the Performance and Improvement team I led a service review of the Disabled Facilities Grant function that led to greater partnership working and improved the service given to applicants in the borough.

London, United Kingdom

I gained valuable experience working at a social enterprise start up through my role as Executive Assistant Intern at London Football Journeys, a UK charity that brings young people from different areas together through football to share new experiences, forge common ground and break postcode prejudices. My task included providing administrative support to the Founder and Director and assisting in the organisation and delivery of events including our inaugural celebration event at Wembley Stadium. I was also involved in investigating funding options and applying for funding. I coordinated and assisted at Football Exchanges and video screenings involving youth clubs across London, giving me exposure to the power that sport can have to unite communities. I developed the first social media strategy for LFJ and helped to implement its initial phase, before handing this task over to a specialised social media volunteer.

The main aspect of my role involved contacting individuals from across the business, in stores, depots, and at head office, to draft responses to MP letters regarding their constituents’ customer queries. I also provided briefing to the Head of Government Affairs for MP meetings, planned the diaries of the Government Affairs Team for the three major party conferences and assisted in the running of the Taste of Northern Ireland festival in Belfast, which was attended by the First Minister.

Home Office, London

My key achievement in this role was drafting a submission to the Home Secretary and the Minister for Crime and Policing advising them on police funding issues. I also worked on month-end payroll forecasts, compiled the ministerial briefing document for the Police Funding Policy team, drafted ministerial correspondence and helped to set up a social enterprise pilot involving sports clubs and police forces.

London, United Kingdom

This role involved engaging Diaspora and youth groups all over the Commonwealth and getting them to upload their stories to the Jubilee Time Capsule - an online history archive. I regularly had to contact high profile musicians, sportsmen and academics from around the Commonwealth to participate. I also built partnerships with cultural groups, archives, museums and artists to collect content and assisted at the event in which Her Majesty the Queen was presented with the Jubilee Time Capsule.

Bedfont Lakes

The most important part of my role consisted of building and updating the competitive dashboard using complex Excel functions. On a weekly basis I created wins presentations for senior leadership reviews and team meetings, created a database of wins on our Lotus Notes to be used by the communications team to create external press releases, and arranged calls and meetings with internal clients and recorded funding requests on behalf of the Director of Competitive Sales.

Doctor Of Philosophy (Ph.D.), History

I recently passed my viva with my thesis entitled 'Picturing the West India Regiments: Race, Empire and Photography’. My research focused.

Doctor Of Philosophy - Phd, History/Art History

I spent three months at Yale between March and June 2016 as part of the AHRC's International Placement Scheme. I was based in the Yale.

Master Of Arts (Ma), World History And Cultures, Distinction

Bachelor Of Arts (Ba), History And Politics, (1St Class)

Activities and Societies: President of the Gymnastics Club, Academic Affairs Officer for the History Society, Secretary of the Racial.