Museum Development Funding Announced

Today, Arts Council England have announced the recipients of museum development funding contracts.  Nine contracts in all have been awarded.  The contract for the West Midlands region has been awarded to the Marches Network.  The Marches Network have managed the museum development programme in the West Midlands since 2004.  This current round of funding will secure museum development activities in the region until April 2015.

The Network’s current team of Museum Development Officers will be retained.  Over the next few weeks the Marches Network will be working with Isabel Churcher, the Arts Council Relationship Manager  for Museums, to confirm the details of the museum development programme.

There is more information about the funding annoucements on the Museums Association website at http://bit.ly/KoVHqd and Arts Council website http://bit.ly/zk9F42

                     

Guidance on Internships

Internships are becoming increasingly popular in the museums and cultural sector, although recently they have received a lot of attention in the sector press.  Discussions have focussed around whether internships are socially exclusive and at their worst exploitive.  Of course not all internships are like this with many benefitting both interns and the organisation.

In order to support organisations who are thinking of setting up internships, the Museums Association have recently published best practice guidance on internships.  The Museums Association state that internships should:

• Pay reasonable work-related expenses and give interns reasonable access to staff benefits (such as free tickets to exhibitions or events).
• Be planned and structured with a clear brief, specific job content and a named line manager or supervisor.
• Give a clear outline of what is being offered to interns, and what is expected of the intern.
• Offer an agreed training and development plan with the intern, setting out what learning opportunities will be offered.
• Ensure that potential interns are told whether there is a realistic chance of the internship leading on to employment.
• Be of a minimum of eight weeks and a maximum 12 months (if paid) and a maximum of three months (if unpaid).

The Arts Council have also published guidance on internships.  You can view their guidelines at http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/media/uploads/internships_in_the_arts_final.pdf

There is also guidance on internships from the NCVO, see their guidance at http://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/sites/default/files/files/graduate-internship-template.pdf

 

Sustainable Museums: Spring Greens Event

This week the West Midlands Development Officers ran an event at Winterbourne House and Gardens, Birmingham.  The focus of the day was to explore how museums and cultural organisations can become more sustainable.  There was a wonderful array of speakers and case studies.  They demonstrated how a variety of organisations in the West Midlands are working towards more sustainable activities. 

The key part of the day was to highlight that being sustainable does not need to cost money, that it can be done without spending any money.  One venue, Dudston Pottery Museum in Stoke-on-Trent, has saved money on their electricity bill by simply turning off  unnecessary lights in their displays. The displays are in an original bottle kiln with no external windows.  So if they can save electricity so can any building!

Cheddleton Flint Mill and Chedhams Yard, both small volunteer museums, explained how they were exploring more sustainable sources of energy for their sites.  Each site has respective limitations and restrictions. Both organisations are working hard to overcome these difficulties. Chedham’s Yard are overcoming the lack of running water on their site by installing compost toilets.

All the speakers were excellent and feedback from delegates highlights that everyone found the event interesting and stimulating. The West Midlands Museum Development Officers would like to thank everyone who was involved in the event.  You were all fab!

Click here to download an overview of the presentations (kindly collated by Helen Johnson,  Staffordshire MDO)

Click http://museumnetworkwarwickshire.wordpress.com/resources/green-resources-stuff/ for loads more useful information and  powerpoint presentations from the day.

West Midlands MDOs: Group Picture

As you are all aware, us MDOs are busy bees and our whereabouts isn’t always that easy to locate. To our surprise, yesterdays Spring Greens event at Winterbourne House and Garden created the rare moment when we were all in the same room (without it being for an intensely long meeting). This was a photograph opportunity we could not miss; unfortunately, the photos turned out a little blurry.

Can you match the MDO to the area? (Hint: bigger smiles do not necessarily equal lighter work load.) (text by Gemma Dhami Worcestershire MDO).

Starring Role

A historic bus owned by Aston Manor Transport Museum will shortly have a starring role in the BBC1 day time series “Doctors”. 

 The museum was approached by the Doctors production team in January to provide a Routemaster  bus for filming.  The  storyline required that the bus was driven by two of the characters.  This of course involved some pre-filming training for actors Lorna Laidlaw (Mrs Tembe) and guest star Aleksander Mikic.

Martin Fisher, a volunteer at Aston Manor Transport Museum, was responsible for training the actors and taking the Routemaster bus for filming at Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham.

Martin was made to feel very welcome by all the crew and cast.  Despite  two very early starts from the Museum in Alridge, and late finishes Martin says:

“Over the two days, I was invited into various production control vehicles that were being used to mastermind the recording and to discuss technical aspects of the filming; unlike the only similar filming experience I’d had, where you were made to feel a very insignificant part of the set-up, the “Doctors” crew and actors were intent on making me feel part of their team, which made what many feel can be a boring day, interesting and educational”.

The Aston Manor Routemaster bus starring role will be broadcast on the 1st June (we think). We know that the episode is about the Jubilee celebrations but the rest of the storyline is a secret!

To read more about Martin’s experiences, and to see some lovely photos from the filming Please click here (and scroll through to page 4). Or see Flickr site http://www.flickr.com/photos/preselector/ and open the set Filming for BBC Doctors.

You can also see photos on  the Keep Aston Manor Transport Museum Open facebook page.

Museum on the Move

In the West Midlands we have two fantastic mobile museums.  The museums are based on large vehicles (similar in size to mobile libraries).  Each Museum on the Move vehicle contains an interactive and family friendly museum exhibition.  The current exhibitions are:  Luxuries and Essentials all about our need to shop, and Just Art exploring art through objects, images and hands on activities.

The exhibitions are totally mobile and travel to all sorts of venues, events and places.  Museum on Move offers the opportunity for everyone to experience museum exhibitions and collections in their own communities. 

The Museum on the Move project has received funding from Birmingham Museums Trust through the Arts Council Major Grant Programme.  The project is managed by the Marches Network.

You can find out more about the Luxuries and Essentials exhibition at http://www.museumonthemove.org/

To book a Museum on the Move vehicle check http://www.museumonthemove.org/bookings for the Luxuries and Essentials exhibition which is travelling around Herefordshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire and the Black Country.

For the Just Art exhibition check http://www.whub.org.uk/cms/museums-worcestershire/hartlebury-museum/learning/museum-on-the-move.aspx which is travelling around Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Birmingham and the Black Country.

You can follow the Museum on the Move on twitter at @museumonthemove or on their Facebook book page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Museum-on-the-Move/108969492514274

Why Use Social Media?

Why should we use social media is a question I get asked lots of times.  I can understand that museums may see engaging in social media as another task to be added to an already stretched timetable.  As resources are diminishing another “thing to do” may not be attractive.

A volunteer museum in Dartmouth has addressed these questions head on. They have even published on their website why they are using social media. For those museums wondering why they should use social media, I urge them to look at the reasons from Dartmouth Museum. Below is a short snap shot of those reasons:

• Dartmouth Museum things, like opening times, news items, exhibitions, events
• Dartmouth things, like local events, charities, personalities, TV programmes about the area, historical things
• Local area things, like what’s going in in local National Trust and English Heritage places, travel news, local news
• Devon things, like what’s happening on Dartmoor, and not just pony news, either
• Museum things. We support loads of other museums with our tweets and they support us
• Off the wall things that are somehow relevant right now
• We answer folk who ask us things and we ask folk things, too. Twitter’s like sitting in a busy coffee shop and enjoying chatting to your friends, their friends and to passing strangers, so don’t be a stranger!

There is lots more information about how Dartmouth Museum uses social media on their website at http://dartmouthmuseum.org/things/social-media.html  Do have a look at what this volunteer museum is achieving.

Top Tips for Working with Schools

Want to work closer with schools? Here are some top tips from Howard Auckland, Deputy Headteacher at Albrighton School:

1) Find the “face” of your museum, a passionate advocate who can sell your work.

2) Refine your sales pitch and consider how your collections could be used to explore different, cross-curricular themes.

3) Liaise with teachers to ensure that your activities are meeting their needs.

4) Develop learning programmes that offer partnerships with schools.

5) Consider the potential of quality assurance schemes and badges.

6) Delegate delivery where possible by becoming a “community link”. Work with local delivery agencies i.e.the Childrens University http://www.childrensuniversity.co.uk/about-us/

7) Consider working with external groups to forge connections with secondary schools. These could include Business Education Partnerships.

These wonderful tips have come from the excellent Staffordshire Museums Network Newsletter, www.staffordshire.gov.uk/museums

GEM State of Museum Education Survey

GEM (Group for Education in Museums) want your help in establishing the current state of museum education.  They have set up a survey and need accurate data to present to government and keyholders. The data will particularly help them respond to the recently published Henley Review on Cultural Education.

The survey is really short and can be completed at http://surveymonkey.com/s/Z237G6P

Arts Council Delay Funding Applications

The Arts Council have delayed the opening of applications for the Catalyst fundraising capacity building grants scheme. Applications were due to open on the 1st April, but now the scheme will open in Autumn 2012. The delay will enable them to explore further how the sector can improve it’s fundraising capacity. See the Arts Council website for more details  http://bit.ly/xTRJqB