A gardening and nature club for families with children aged 4-8. Seasonal activities followed by a themed story time.
Parental supervision required
Calling all budding young illustrators! Families are invited to design their own book cover, story board or illustrated text while listening to a story for inspiration!
Aimed at families with children aged 8-12, each session will have a different theme to help spark your creativity.
Please book 1 ticket per family. Parental supervision is required.
Interested in researching your family history but not sure where to start? We are running a workshop to introduce you to the resources available at The Hive to get you started on your family history journey.
No previous experience necessary, but please bring any family history information you already have (names/dates/places) with you on the day, along with a Worcestershire Library card.
Join Archivists behind the scenes for a tour of what is unique, special and treasured about Worcestershire Archives and their wonderful collections. Highlights will include a letter sent from Titanic, Shakespeare’s Marriage bond, documents from the reign of King Charles I and II and the Worcestershire photographic survey.
The UK has signed the UN convention on the Rights of Child, and it should therefore uphold the rights it contains for all children in its territory. But what does this really mean for children? What rights do they have and what can we do if they're not fulfilled? This interactive session gets participants thinking about these questions by taking them through a series of exercises to understand how children's rights are engaged during their day-to-day activities whether that be sleeping or playing games. This session is appropriate for all, including parents and children.
Dr Michael Lane is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Worcester. His research concerns the role of the United Nations in the UK. He is particularly interested in understanding how rights contained in international law are protected in the UK.
This interactive talk will look at the legal dispute between the UK and Mauritius and the mistreatment of the Chagossian islanders. The Chagos Islands were originally administered as part of the then British colony of Mauritius. In 1965 Mauritius (still then a colony) agreed to the UK removing the islands and creating a new colony, the British Indian Ocean Territory. The islanders were removed from their homeland and sent to live in exile. Since the 1990s the Chagossians have been arguing through the British courts for the right to return home. Mauritius has called for the return of the Chagos islands to Mauritian control and is currently negotiating with the United Kingdom. The talk will be interactive and encourage the audience to engage with the themes raised by the Chagos dispute, such as colonialism, racism, exploitation, access to justice and sovereignty.
Dr Chris Monaghan is Director of the Constitutions, Rights and Justice Research Group at the University of Worcester. He has published extensively on the Chagos Islands legal dispute and has been interviewed about Chagos on BBC Scotland and BBC Five Live. His most recent book is Challenges and Prospects for the Chagos Archipelago (Routledge, 2025), which he co-edited with Professor Laura Jeffery and Dr Mairi O'Gorman.
The jury is a highly regarded and celebrated institution which symbolises lay democracy in action. Jurors must reach a verdict on the evidence presented in court and they must not discuss the case with other people or conduct their own research or investigations into the case (including on the internet). Criminal offences of jury misconduct are punishable by imprisonment and some jurors have been sent to prison for breaking the rules. This talk will take the audience on a journey through some of the key cases of juror misconduct and the judicial and legislative responses to this problem. It offers some reflections on whether the courts and Parliament have got it right or whether there is more that we can do to help jurors perform their roles.
Nicola Monaghan is a Principal Lecturer in Law at the University of Worcester. She has been teaching law for over 20 years and she specialises in Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure and Evidence. Nicola's research interests include jury misconduct and the criminal trial, and she has published journal articles and edited collections on the jury. Her work has been cited widely by academics and by the Law Commission. Her most recent publications can be found in Contemporary Challenges in the Jury System: A Comparative Perspective (Routledge, 2024).
In claiming to represent 'history' in any objective sense, museums face a particular, ongoing challenge. For each institution, and each intervention carried out therein, a narrative is constructed which may represent a period, event or movement in history. However, such work is inevitably influenced by the privileges, experiences and knowledge of those responsible for its creation. Colonialism and the violence which underpins much of its legacy is strongly connected to the construction of narratives which ultimately glorify the white, European cultural hegemony. In addition, such stories are frequently told through the display and interpretation of objects which have been taken from originating communities through exploitation and subjugation. In almost all cases, the heritage sector has therefore been complicit in the perpetutation of harmful practices and narratives which further embed colonial attitudes and centre whiteness. This talk asks how museums and heritage sites can facilitate the presence of diverse, indigenous voices within the sector in the pursuit of narrative justice.
Dr Isabel Gilbert is Deputy Course Leader in undergraduate Criminology at the University of Worcester. She obtained her PhD on interpretation of colonial history and racism in heritage at the University of Sheffield. She has a background in the heritage sector and has specialised in the relationship between interpretations of history and racism in contemporary society. She enjoys researching cultural conflict, social justice movements, reactionary politics and legacies of colonialism.
There is a significant population of women in society who experience overlapping complex disadvantage connected to trauma, subsequently or concurrently experiencing other disadvantages such as homelessness, addiction, criminalisation or mental health conditions. The combination of these factors can create a life limiting and confusing array of issues that are interconnected and difficult to address, both for the woman and for her children or wider family. Agencies and organisations can be confusing, single issue or difficult to reach for these women, creating systemic failure to meet the expressed needs of women in society.
This presentation discusses research framed within feminist qualitative research. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to consider the findings from data collected from 24 in depth interviews with organisational decision makers, peer mentors and mentees from women's community organisations in England (Braun and Clarke, 2022). The findings from this study identify that one-to-one peer mentoring is a complex form of community level support that provides a distinctly different approach from the more formal, statutory, community provision many women with multiple and complex disadvantage experience. A model of voluntary one-to-one peer mentoring has been created as a result of women's voices and experience with this study, incorporating three core elements of practice: Strength, meeting expressed needs and ethical foundations (Gilbert, 2023).
Dr Beverley Gilbert is a Senior Lecturer in domestic/sexual abuse and criminology at the University of Worcester and course leader for the online postgraduate modules in Understanding Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence. Prior to her academic role, she had over 30 years of experience working within the criminal justice system. She was a Police Officer in the West Midlands deployed in various uniform and plain clothes roles, including as a Detective Family Protection Officer. Then, as a Probation Officer, Beverley worked with individuals who posed a high risk of causing harm, including perpetrators of domestic and sexual violence. She was a semi specialist officer working with custodial cases, including those serving Life and Indeterminate Sentence prisoners. Beverley has been a sessional Expert Domestic Violence Risk Assessor for London based organisation DViP in the Family Courts.
There are currently 2092 inmates on death row in the USA awaiting the execution of their death sentences. The average time between imposition of a death sentence and execution in the USA is 12 years. Other national, regional and international courts have decided that such executions are unconstitutional, contrary to international human rights standards, and inhumane. There have been calls for moratoriums and commutation of these sentences on this account, though several factors have been cited as being responsible for this delay. In this session, we will briefly explore an inmate who has been on Florida's death row for 49 years to ascertain the causes of delay and highlight the human rights violations that could arise from such inordinate delay.
Dr Nkem Adeleye is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Worcester. She has experience in teaching a wide range of law subjects including Tort Law, Equity and Trusts, International Human Rights, and Public Law among others. Her research interests are on the death penalty, particularly the death row phenomenon, prisoners' rights and modern slavery. Nkem has presented papers on her research interests in national and international conferences including the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva.
The UK summer 2024 riots, triggered by the Stockport stabbings, saw a surge in targeted violence and inflammatory rhetoric against Muslim and ethnic minority communities. This talk critically examines these events' socio-political and criminological dimensions, exploring the factors that fuelled the backlash, including the role of media, political discourse, and historical prejudices. It assesses the aftermath, considering legal, policy and societal responses, and reflects on the broader global context of rising extremism and reactionary violence. Finally, this discussion offers pathways toward fostering resilience, inclusion, and collective action to challenge bias, prejudice and discrimination, ensuring such unrest does not become a recurring pattern in an increasingly polarised world.
Dr Mikahil Azad is a Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Worcester, leading several undergraduate and postgraduate modules. His primary research area is Islamophobia and understanding the experiences of British Muslim communities using a multi-disciplinary approach. His other research interests include honour-based abuse, structural inequalities and experiences in higher education. Mikahil's doctoral thesis centred on understanding mosque safety which involved applying ethnographic methodologies. Outside of the classroom, he works closely with the community, stakeholders, and wider academic spaces informing them of prominent criminological issues and recommending strategies/safeguards.
On 4 July 1776, "Independence Day", the Thirteen Colonies declared their independence from the British Crown. Independence required more than just a Declaration, however, and it had to be literally fought for in the Revolutionary War. "No More Kings" was an essential aim, but how would the new republic be created? How would rights and justice be secured? With hindsight, the "great experiment" of the United States of America was a success, and ultimately established the fundamental rights enjoyed by Americans today. This talk considers the challenges and opportunities of inventing a self-governing nation, particularly one that idealized liberty.
Dr Wendy Toon is a historian of the United States of America. Her research focusses on modern American History, especially World War II, Propaganda, Sports History, highlighting sports' inherent Americanness, and Women's History concentrating on women and war. Her most recent publication is "Probably the Most Perfect Symbol of Our Democracy": The Army, Sports, and the Re-education of German Youth during the Early American Occupation of Germany, 1945-1946.
Having switched to law from philosophy and politics, Daniel joined Middle Temple in 1971, winning a Blackstone Scholarship. His varied common law practice for 30 years led to the circuit bench on the Midland Circuit, doing serious crime, civil and family work in Worcester and Birmingham. He was appointed an Assistant Recorder in 1995, a Recorder in 1999, a Member of the Mental Health Review Tribunal in 2000, and a Circuit Judge in 2004. He was appointed a Designated Civil Judge for Hereford and Worcester in 2009 before he retired as a judge.
Daniel will speak about sentencing from a judge's perspective, and open the floor for questions from the audience.
This session will be in an interactive lecture format and will give an overview of general rights in family law cases. Common social myths about family law will be explored and the true legal position will be explained. The session is suitable for anyone who wishes to learn about general rights in family law.
Jenny Watkins is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Worcester. Jenny qualified as a Solicitor specialising in family law, particularly divorce and financial relief. After leaving legal practice, Jenny became a lecturer in 2020. Jenny has taught at the University of Worcester since September 2022.
Social rights are often an afterthought within society, with economic, political and civil rights often taking priority. Often, they are the first rights to be removed in societies at times of uncertainty, especially economic uncertainty. This is particularly the case in the criminal justice system, where the focus is typically on punishment and crime control. This session outlines why social rights are important to improving the outcomes of the criminal justice system, and highlighting how effective rights can both prevent crime and improve rehabilitation far more effectively than the punishment and crime strategies of the criminal justice system.
Dr Clive Sealey is Senior Lecturer of Social Policy and Theory in the School of Health and Wellbeing, University of Worcester. His interests are in social policy-related issues linked to poverty, policy and theory. He obtained his PhD in social policy from the University of Birmingham in 2009. His previous book publications are Social Policy Simplified (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), Social Policy, Service Users and Carers (Springer, 2021) and Applying Social Policy to Criminal Justice Practice (Policy Press, 2023).
Participants will get a brief overview of juries in England and Wales and how they are supported to reach a verdict. Then, in groups, you will deliberate on a real (anonymised) criminal case. You will hear the evidence and then deliberate until you reach a unanimous decision. Each group will receive an 'evidence pack' with various statements, forensic evidence, and photographic exhibits, in order to help you make the decision. You may use notes, and will be given a routes to verdict document to help you interpret the law. At the end of the workshop, you can fill in a brief questionnaire about their decision-making and how you reached the verdict, as well as any influences from the group itself. Sarah will then give a brief summary of the factors that actually influence jury decision-making as well as the real verdict decision in the case to show why it is important we look at juries as a collective decision-making group.
Sarah Lloyd is a Lecturer in Forensic Psychology at the University of Worcester. She obtained her MSc in Forensic Psychology at Birmingham City University and worked as an Assistant Lecturer predominantly on the MSc Forensic Psychology Programme. She is in the final year of her PhD, which explores the collective decision-making processes of juries. She is interested in jury decision-making as there is little research into how juries collectively come to a decision. Additionally, research is prohibited with real jurors which means that their decision-making is shrouded in secrecy. She hopes to help increase understanding and knowledge of jury decision-making processes by replicating a real jury as closely as possible and hopes that this will lead to a fairer, more informed and transparent criminal justice system.
This talk draws upon the 2024 complaints filed in the United Nations of behalf of death row inmates in Alabama. It will reveal the curious British origin of the idea for nitrogen gas executions and details how some US states have now endorsed this method of execution. Alabama has implemented a nitrogen execution protocol, and has done so through imbedding inaccurate scientific opinions. The history of the death penalty reveals a certain resilience against rational arguments reflecting humanity and a humane world, and the story of how nitrogen has been used to kill death row inmates is no exception. Therefore, in this talk, a new methodology will be proposed for assessing how scientists contribute to the role of the state in developing capital punishment. Important illuminative methods and information are provided by scientists, but the dangers are recognised when there is a perceived omnicompetence over punishment processes which are then used to prevent transparency and thwart explanatory accurary. We can best guard against erroneous scientific opinion being used to harm people through inter-disciplinary dialogue, but for a meaningful conversation there needs to be a fair consideration of the viewpoints of the various stakeholders. The torture imposed upon death row inmates through lethal injection has now been replaced by the option of torture through being forced to breathe in nitrogen gas. This has emerged from the great pressure and the resultant errors that the death penalty creates within the criminal justice system. Nitrogen executions have revealed a further example of how states kill through implementing bias and negligence and helps to demonstrate why the death penalty should be abolished not just in the United States, but worldwide.
Jon Yorke is Professor of Human Rights and the Director of the BCU Centre for Human Rights at Birmingham City University. He is an expert on the death penalty and international law, with a focus on the UN's universal periodic review. He is a member of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office's Pro-Bono Lawyers Panel, in which he advises the British government on death penalty matters. He has advised the United Nations, the European Union, and the Council of Europe, on death penalty issues. On behalf of death row inmates in different jurisdictions he has filed amicus curiae briefs and authored complaints to various UN special procedure mechanisms. He is a founding member of the International Academic Network for the Abolition of Capital Punishment, a research fellow at the Death Penalty Research Unit, Oxford University, and he has published widely on death penalty and human rights issues.
If artefacts could talk, what stories would they tell? Join us for a storytelling promenade to New Farm Nature Reserve exploring characters and themes suggested by a recent community excavation. Imagination, ritual, music and story unearth the human thread that binds us all when we Go Deeper.
For adults and accompanied young people aged 11-12+. Round trip is approx. 2.5 miles along footpaths and former farm tracks.
Please note: This is a ticketed open-air event that will go ahead whatever the weather conditions, so please come suitably dressed with sturdy footwear. Meeting point will be at The Valley (full details will be sent out by email).
About the storyteller
Ian Craigan is a Midlands based storyteller and performance artist who works in schools, nurseries and community settings. His credits include Wildgoose Festival, Starry Skies Festival, Fort Royal Solstice, SluainFest & Hereford Mystery Cycle. He’s also done his fair share of ‘scraping back to natural’ on archaeological digs!
Before Reese Witherspoon and Zoella’s Book Clubs, there was Oprah Winfrey and Richard and Judy. And before them, there was Hugh Walpole and the Book Society (1929-68). For nearly forty years, the Book Society sent out one book a month to their members, sharing many now-famous titles that would go on to become bestsellers (Rebecca, Brideshead Revisited, The Kon-Tiki Expedition, To Kill a Mocking Bird...) This author talk will examine the little-known story behind Britain’s first celebrity book club and the judges who changed how we read.
Dr Nicola Wilson is Associate Professor of Book and Publishing Studies at the University of Reading, co-director of the Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing, and a founding director of the Modernist Archives Publishing Project. She lives in Pershore, and this is her second book.
Reading Ann Rule: Landmarks in true crime is the first critical accompaniment for the work of legendary true crime writer, Ann Rule. At this special event, Charlotte Barnes will be launching her new monograph with several readings from the work, accompanied by an informal lecture about Rule’s writing, and the influence it holds over contemporary true crime writers. Following this, Charlotte will welcome questions from the audience about Rule, true crime, and everything in between. This is a perfect event for true crime enthusiasts, whether you pursue the topic academically or whether you are an everyday consumer of the genre.
Worcestershire Archive & Archaeology Service holds a wide range of maps and plans that give a fascinating insight into the development of the landscape, settlements and of land use. In this session, we will explore different types of maps and plans, suggesting how they can be interpreted and ways that they can be used to aid research.