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Present:
Apologies:
Sophie Forgan
Ann Dinsdale
Sue Newby
Ian Wolseley
David Geekie
Captain Cook Memorial Museum, Whitby
Bronte Parsonage
Bronte Parsonage (education officer)
Wilderspin National School
Major Stewart Museum, Burnby Hall Gardens
Jannette Warrener Woolsthorpe Manor
Claire Potter Epworth Old Rectory
Alan Bentley Museum Development Officer
Elinor Camille-Wood Shandy Hall
Ann Summer Bronte Parsonage
1.
Ann D led us on a tour of the museum and exhibitions – it was good to see the redecoration and research behind it, and to make some connections between our properties.
2.
Updates from our sites a.
Bronte Parsonage - the communications officer has recently left quite suddenly and a new person has just started in that role. Refurbishing new admissions area in foyer of shop to make admissions and access easier, all to be done while closed in January 2014. Also to have introduction to the museum particularly for people who cannot get upstairs. Are looking for additional space – possibly acquiring
Sunday school room opposite to add to storage and education space. Working on producing a new guidebook for December 2013, using Scala publishers. About 75000 visitors per year. b.
Captain Cook Memorial Museum – visitor numbers last year were good and this year they have increased again. Won the Visit England award for the best small visitor attraction and Sophie advises it is well worth entering such award competitions. Has greatly improved morale among volunteers and raised profile of the museum. Working on producing a new souvenir guide, using Jigsaw publishers/designers. Recent interest and support from the Australian High Commissioner who is hosting a fundraising event in November 2013 (2 other high commissioners also attending). This is great opportunity to put finances on better footing – though there is a lot of work in preparation. Currently exploring opportunity to acquire more space next to the entrance on the ground floor to turn it into education / meeting / library room. Price has been negotiated, now funds being raised. Are also looking for someone to take over work of former HLF funded activities coordinator. c.
Major Stewart Museum and Burnby Hall Gardens – very good year so far due to good weather – made garden attractive. Visitor number likely to be up to 60,000. Accreditation is now renewed. Have been shortlisted for the White Rose Tourism award. Have the café case at Beverley Treasure House for Oct-Jan for objects that appeared in the ‘Yorkshire world collection’ book. Recent discovery that Major Stewart took a series of photos found at the National Media Museum, Bradford. d.
Wilderspin- ‘All our stories’ HLF grant of £6000 enabled volunteers to do more research on Samuel
Wilderspin, and allowed volunteers to visit another school museum in Hitchin. Also received ‘Our
Heritage’ grant to broaden the story beyond Wilderspin – including reminiscence work about school days. Some funds from Museum Development brought in a freelance consultant to help with group visits and marketing. This funding will also bring in someone to help with collections advice. e.
Woolsthorpe Manor – Jannette was welcomed to her first meeting. Woolsthorpe has average of 33000 visitors which is up to full capacity. Now open every day except Christmas Day – according to NT’s 364 strategy. 150 volunteers. 4 permanent staff (custodian, visitor engagement manager, business support manager, conservator manager). Seasonal staff leave in November so in the winter they are planning to move to guided tours (rather than a volunteer in each room). Site includes science centre, education
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room (including 2 nd hand book sales), coffee shop as well as the Manor itself. Brown signs off the A1 have made all the difference in increasing visitor numbers. 80% of visitors are NT members. Need a new visitor centre, and would like to buy the car park (it is leased from a farmer currently). Also need larger coffee shop that can accommodate the increased visitor numbers. Use performing arts students from
Grantham College for costumed interpretation. “Spirit of Place” – NT initiative which is all about bringing the place to life. New all-year opening has led to plans for themed events such as wreath making workshops. f.
Epworth Old Rectory – External conservation work now complete and has made major difference to the look and stability of the house. Hearth project to explore and restore the historic fireplaces in the entrance hall and fore-kitchen is still continuing and has thrown up some interesting features. Visitor numbers were significantly up last year and are looking good so far this year. Currently working towards accreditation. Some issues about stability of core funding at the moment – soon to be resolved. Major development plan is now in 4 phases. The current work is phase 1. Fundraising plan is ambitious element of a very detailed forward plan.
3.
Communication a.
Social media - has been productive recently from Bronte Parsonage. Facebook has been very useful for
Epworth in communicating information as it has been discovered in hearth project. Agreed to invite an advisor on social media to our next meeting. Claire to ask Alan for advice and suggestions of an advisor. b.
Touch screens and interactives: i.
Part of the Bronte planned development in exhibition and foyer. Visitor surveys have suggested these are needed. Keen to make them non-intrusive. There is not a lot of space so screens can expand on the story. (no space for audio guides – storage and charging). Difficult if interactives are too interesting – problems for visitor flow. ii.
Woolsthorpe use interactives with powerpoint so can be managed without expert technical support iii.
Burnby Hall – interactives allow expansion of information and means can have less written information. iv.
Wilderspin have one touch screen – Ian agreed that whatever technology is introduced needs to be manageable by existing staff.
4.
Joint project idea a.
Idea is to make connections between our places and historical figures. We had a debate about why we need to make connections and whether they are just for us as museum curators/managers or whether it makes sense to help the public to see the connections. Decided that it does make sense for us and ‘the public’. We are linked because these personalities changed history and our museums focus on the personality and stories. b.
Virtual and paper publication. Include others in research. We’d like to create a blog possibly using
‘wordpress’. Social media advisor at next meeting could help. Idea of an online presence so that others can be invited to add to our research on these personalities, their influence and their connections to each other. Claire also to investigate setting up a facebook page for PMN so that we can start sharing ideas. To ask Elinor for advice. c.
Sophie agreed to work on a diagram showing the connections – all sites / personalities do not have to connect with all others – one connection is enough. d.
Ideas: ‘Spirit of place’. ‘Period, place, personality’. ‘Small properties, big personalities’. ‘Places that changed history’. e.
Once online presence is established we could apply for funds (Arts Council grant?) to create a joint publication with photographs of the more ‘quirky’ parts of our museums. Need to think about who will make funding application and which organisation funds would be channelled through. Claire to see Alan for help with this.
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5.
Guided tours – some sites do these all the time, others as special events. a.
Bronte Parsonage – difficult to do guided tours due to space and numbers of visitors but have started offering private tours for two people at £25 per person, and these extended with chance to see items from collection at £40 per person. People like to have something special. Some volunteers are now doing tours. Also volunteers doing talks on their favourite object. Need separate space for talks and drama.
Planning a 40 minute powerpoint as orientation. b.
Captain Cook - a house guide booklet for people to use to guide themselves. Also charge more for tours out of season (£7.50) c.
Woolsthorpe – house guide booklet for self-guiding. Charge £10 per head for out of hours tour. Offering guided tours this winter for first time so Jannette will report back. Currently offer a 5 minute meet/greet by volunteers to orient people before go round the house. When busy, the volunteers have to change the direction of visitor flow. d.
Epworth – everyone has a guided tour so that the stories can be explained. Not enough visitors or volunteers to have a volunteer in every room. Period rooms mean we do not want lots of panels explaining the stories in each room. Yet guided tours are problematic when some people want to linger longer in a room. e.
Burnby Hall – most are self-guided but they do offer free guided tours of garden and museum. f.
Wilderspin – guided groups with 25-30 people per group
6.
Off-site talks/lecture – most of us give these at times to variety of groups. Some charge a fee, most do not if it is for a small charitable group. All hope to encourage return visit to the museum by the group. Always these are arranged in response to a request – not proactively sought by the museum. Also outreach to schools – Captain
Cook, Epworth and others offer this – but it can be difficult to get schools back to the museum (give vouchers for reduced admission price etc as incentive).
7.
Accreditation – all our museums have been or are currently going through this and all are finding it heavily bureaucratic and disproportionate for small museums with limited resources. Questions about ‘non-users’ we felt were inaccurate – because these are in fact all ‘potential visitors’. The forward planning process is public sector dominated and difficult for small organisations such as our museums. The process takes a huge amount of time that would be better spent on other things. Some of us know of several museums which have decided not to apply for accreditation. We feel it should be every 5 years not every 3, or even only have a full review every 10 years and indicate any major changes every 5 years. Bronte Parsonage will be working towards designation status. We did agree that the collection development element of accreditation is good. Agreed that since, by our next meeting, we will all have been through the process, we would then write a joint letter to the Arts Council expressing our concerns.
8.
Other potential members of the network – Shibden Hall and St. John Moore Foundation. Claire to contact both.
9.
Next meeting – towards the end of April 2014 at Woolsthorpe Manor. Date will be circulated as soon as possible.
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