Association of Independent Museums
National Conference 2014
Upcycle Your Museum – Make more of what you’ve got
Black Country Living Museum
19th-21st June 2014
Synopsis of Key Sessions
Thursday 19 June 2014 – 1.30pm to 4.45pm
The Entrepreneurial Museum
Matthew Tanner, Chairman of AIM
Keynote case study: Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
Making Access & Conservation Your Business
Diana Owen, Director
The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust (SBT) relies on visitors for 86% of its income and
has grown that income by 60% in the last 5 years to over £7million. In parallel the SBT
has increased its reach, resilience and ambition – Diana Owen will share lessons learnt
and her biggest challenges.
Diana has over 25 years’ experience in the independent Museums sector having
worked in the National Trust for 20 years and as Chief Executive of the Shakespeare
Birthplace Trust since November 2007.
Keynote case study: The Garden Museum
Christopher Woodward, Director
The Garden Museum is an independent Museum without public funding, property
assets or Endowment, but has a role unique in Britain. Christopher will explore how
cash income from day to day activities has increased from under £250,000 to over
£600,000 in five years through incremental change as opposed to a major capital
project.
Christopher Woodward is Director of The Garden Museum, London; he was formerly a
Trustee of the Heritage Lottery Fund, and Director of the Holburne Museum of Art,
Bath.
Get Set, Ask
Judy Niner, Development Partners
Explore how to get your organisation ready for fundraising with Judy Niner from
Development Partners, drawing on the experiences some museums have had with
Catalyst funding.
Visitor Verdict case studies: the power of knowledge
Steve Mills, BDRC-Continental
Discover how Visitor Verdict can help your museum understand its visitors, and find
out how other museums have used Visitor Verdict to create positive changes in their
museums.
Legal update: Gift Aid, VAT, SORP and more
Julian Smith and Laetitia Ransley, Farrer & Co
In this session charity law specialists Farrer & Co will review a range of legal issues
which are likely to be of particular interest to museums, including recent cases (notably
The Lightbox, Woking VAT case) and developments relating to Gift Aid, conflicts of
interest, Charitable Incorporated Organisations (CIOs), and the new charity SORP.
Friday 20th June 2014 – 9.15am to 4.00pm
Adapting, Changing, Thriving: Case studies from three open air museums Black Country Living Museum, Avoncroft and Beamish
Black Country Living Museum
Andrew Lovett, Director
Details to follow
Avoncroft Museum
Simon Carter, Director
Avoncroft Museum was founded in 1963 and opened in 1967 as the first open-air
museum of buildings in England. Over more the last fifty years it has rescued and
restored over 30 historic buildings facing demolition or collapse, most of which have
been re-located on a 19-acre site in Worcestershire. The Museum went through a
period of decline but with a ‘make-do and mend’ attitude and some relatively-small but
judiciously-used grants Avoncroft is moving into a period of further
development. Simon will outline some of the measures the Museum has used to grow
audiences, increase earned income and transform the Museum’s site.
Simon Carter joined Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings as Director in 2007 and
was formerly Deputy Curator at the Palace of Westminster
Beamish
Richard Evans, Director
Beamish is the largest open air museum in England with nearly 600,000 visitors per
year, 300+ staff, 350 active volunteers and a growing turnover of £8m. Over the past
five years visitor numbers have nearly doubled and £4m has been re-invested from
annual surpluses and private giving to create a range of new exhibits and attractions.
Richard will consider the key factors underpinning this sustained growth, explaining
how Beamish will be developed over the coming decade by focusing on its core
purpose, involving people in communities and creating innovative new ways for people
to experience heritage.
Keynote Speech
Sir Peter Bazalgette, Chairman Arts Council England
Sir Peter Bazalgette will be this year’s keynote speaker. He is Chairman of Arts Council
England and President of AIM member, Crossness Engines Trust.
Q&A with ACE and AIM
John Orna-Ornstein, Director of Museums, ACE
Clare Titley, Director of Philanthropy, ACE
Matthew Tanner, Chairman, AIM
Your opportunity to ask Arts Council England and AIM about the issues that matter
most to you.
LUNCH
Delegates are invited to attend two seminar sessions, one after lunch and one after
tea. In each slot there are four sessions to choose from; information from each session
is outlined below.
Seminars A: Delegates choose one of the following four sessions:
1.Shared Leadership: personal
experiences from the Museums &
Resilient Leadership Programme
Stephen Feber and Dr Nick
Winterbotham,
This session will be your opportunity to
hear first-hand the experiences of five
aspiring museum leaders, who recently
completed a twelve month programme,
funding by Arts Council England,
designed to strengthen their leadership
as well as personal resilience skills, to
put them firmly on course to be the
museum leaders of the future.
2. Augmented Reality – introducing
apps to your museum
Marilyn Scott, The Lightbox
Helen Treharne, University of Surrey
This session will be an opportunity to see
how mobile technology can improve the
visitor experience. The University of
Surrey and Pervasive Intelligence Ltd are
developing a mobile application which
can open collections and archives
through additional layers of
interpretation, such as textual and audio
descriptions, archive images and video.
They are working in partnership with AIM
member, The Lightbox. We’ll share with
you what we’ve learned through the user
trials. We’ll also talk about issues such
as affordability for smaller museums and
top tips to think about when considering
whether to adopt such technology in an
exhibition or museum.
3. Reducing energy usage and saving
money
Kenneth Shaw, AIM Energy Action
Group
This session will explain about getting
the best possible prices for energy
through joining the AIM Energy Action
Group and the case for smart metering of
energy supplies. It will include a practical
example of work in progress at the
Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.
Speaker Ken Shaw – Energy Consultant
and Head of Enterprise at DTA Wales.
Ken formerly managed and developed
the Centre for Efficient and Renewable
Energy (CEREB) at the London South
Bank University.
4. Developing your digital offering and
building it in to your marketing
strategy
Emma Halford-Forbes, Black Watch
Museum and Nick Poole, Collections
Trust
Emma Halford-Forbes, Manager and
Curator at The Black Watch Castle &
Museum, will talk about her experiences
of developing thriving digital and social
media offering for the Museum to
complement an effective marketing
strategy. She will be joined by Nick Poole
of Collections Trust to talk about their
Digital Benchmarks tool for the cultural
sector, which looks at how you can take
a holistic view of technology in your
organisation.
TEA
Seminars B: Delegates choose one of the following four sessions:
1.Who's in charge of your brand?
2. Diversifying your trustees
Sarah Codrington, Brand Manager
and Victoria Wallace, CEO, Leeds
Castle
Brands are not just for the fashion
conscious. How you and your customers
think of your organisation matters – and
that understanding of your identity can
really help you and your trustees define
your strategy, and articulate what your
values are. And it doesn’t need to cost a
fortune. Sarah Codrington and Victoria
Wallace have just led Leeds Castle
through a re-branding exercise. They’ll
tell you how they did it; what they
learned; and how it has helped them.
Hilary McGowan and museum trustee,
Simon Wilkinson
Find out what motivates people to be
trustees and what might put them off.
How can you appeal to younger and/or
different types of people to become
trustees? What can they bring to the
Museum? What skills and knowledge do
you need on your Board? What skills
and knowledge would different sorts of
trustees bring with them? Learn how not
to be scared of those under 30!
Hilary McGowan is a leading consultant
who specialises in helping museums to
stand on their own two feet, be strong
and survive into the future. With over 30
years’ experience of the sector, she has
worked with over 60 organisations since
setting up her own business in 1996.
3. Supporting industrial Heritage
Ian Bapty, Industrial Heritage Support
Officer
Sustaining, developing and presenting
industrial heritage museums is a major
challenge. At a time when key resources
such as visitors, grant aid and volunteers
seem ever harder to attract, particular
issues for managers of industrial heritage
attractions include looking after extensive
sites, maintaining big and complex
historic buildings and caring for and
operating working machinery. While
there are no magic wands to wave, this
session will look at the potential to
develop self-help approaches including
forming local support networks,
establishing innovative new partnerships,
and collaborating on marketing, funding,
volunteer support and technical
assistance.
Ian Bapty is the English Heritage funded
Industrial Heritage Support Officer
(IHSO) for England based with the
Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. He has
over 20 years’ experience delivering and
facilitating community based heritage
and environmental projects.
4. Adapting learning offers to the new
National Curriculum, science and
numeracy
Suzanne Carter, Development Officer
Birmingham Conservation Trust and
Sue Pope, Freelance Interpretative
Learning Professional
Newman Brothers, a former coffin fitting
factory in the Jewellery Quarter,
Birmingham will open as a museum in
September. Last July we employed a
freelance learning professional to create
site-based resources for us, funded
through AIM Biffa. This was at a time
when changes in the National Curriculum
were afoot. Not knowing where we might
best fit within delivery of the new
curriculum, and having to spend a timelimited grant, we decided to create
numeracy skills-based learning
resources so we could compete and be
relevant whatever happens to teaching
history. We will be sharing our 'Travelling
Salesman' resource with you, but you
may want to swot up on your pounds,
shillings and pence before you come!
Saturday 21st June - Morning Study Tour
Successful upcycling in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter museums.
The Study Tour will take delegates on a trip to three museums in Birmingham’s
Jewellery Quarter: Newnham Brothers Coffin Works, Pen Museum and the Museum of
the Jewellery Quarter. The Tour will spend an hour each museum, the walk between
one is around 15 minutes long. Lunch will be provided in the Museum of the Jewellery
Quarter at 1pm.
9.30 Newnham Brothers Coffin Works
With only a few weeks to go until the completion of the capital repair works of the grade
II* listed factory, the Coffin Works team are gearing up to bring back the collection and
create a new industrial and social history museum in Birmingham. Simon Buteux,
Director of Birmingham Conservation Trust, will introduce the Coffin Works project and
the vision for the building and heritage attraction. Sarah Hayes, the Collections and
Exhibitions Manager, will lead delegates through the museum and explain the plans for
a multi-sensory visitor experience. Over the last 12 months Suzanne Carter,
Development Officer, has been busy spending a £45k AIM Biffa grant award and will
showcase all the wonderful new on-site resources. These include; four alternative
factory tours on iPad, costumes, a Travelling Salesman school resource, family
activities, and a film about multi-faith funerary traditions made working with young
people.
H&S Info: please wear sensible shoes (no open toes or heels). Hard hats and high vis
jackets will be issued as this will still be a building site. Steep staircases and no lift
access at this time.
10.45 Pen Museum
During the 19th Century, 75% of everything written in the world was done so with a
‘Birmingham’ pen. Birmingham was at the forefront of this trade until it declined in the
1950’s with the invention of the biro and fountain pen. At one time, there were around
100 factories in the Jewellery Quarter area. The development of the steel pen reduced
the cost of writing and enabled the spread of literacy throughout the world.
Set in the atmosphere of a former Victorian pen factory, The Pen Museum is dedicated
to preserving and promoting the legacy of this trade. There is on-going research into
the social, historical and technical aspects of the trade and also the Jewellery Quarter
itself. The museum has assisted people tracing their genealogy and is keen to hear
from anybody who has had connections with the trade.
The Pen Museum is more than just a passive museum with objects on display. It is a
hands-on collection! Visitors can try writing with a variety of different implements
including quills and typewriters; you can also try writing in Braille or make your own pen
nib using original machinery.
12.00 Museum of the Jewellery Quarter
The Museum of the Jewellery Quarter is built around a perfectly preserved jewellery
workshop offering a unique glimpse of working life in Birmingham’s famous Jewellery
Quarter. When the proprietors of the Smith & Pepper jewellery manufacturing firm
retired in 1981 they simply ceased trading and locked the door, unaware they would be
leaving a time capsule for future generations…
Today the factory is a remarkable museum, which tells the story of the Jewellery
Quarter and Birmingham’s renowned jewellery and metalworking heritage.
1.0
Lunch
2.00
End of Study Tour