Ripon Museum Trust
Annual General Meeting 2014
Held at the Golden Lion, Allhallowgate, Ripon, 6 March
Minutes (Draft for approval at 2015 AGM)
1. Present : Six of the Board's Trustees/Directors – Anthony Chadwick, Christine
Orsler, Richard Taylor (Chair), David Thelwall, Mandy Whitehead and Jill Wilkinson
together with two staff members – Sue Dalton and Wendy Hunwick-Brown, and
twenty further Trust members or attenders.
The chairman welcomed everyone, in particular our guest speaker Chief Constable
Dave Jones.
Apologies were received from : Julian Smith, Anne Carrick, David McFarlane,
Jean Denton, Wendy Hunter, Frances Carroll, Brian Carroll, Tina Gilchrist,
Christopher Hughes, Mick Stanley, Canon Elizabeth Sewell, Bess Chapman,
Grenville Hargreaves, Kath Beeken, Connie Birkenshaw, Chris Smith, Linda
Blades, Harry Corps.
2. Chairman's Report
Illustrated by a chronological slideshow, Richard Taylor gave us an entertaining look
at the past year. As he explained, his full report was in Musings, the museums'
newsletter and is reprinted here :
Reviewing the Year
This has been another excellent year for the Ripon Museums for which everyone involved can be rightly
proud. There is not space to mention all that is happening but here are some key points:
2013 saw a 20% increase in audience numbers over 2012 which is all the more pleasing since we had a wet
summer in 2012 with a great one in 2013. We usually do less well when the sun shines!
This growth was achieved through a combination of longer opening hours (some extra 800 hours put in by
volunteers over the year) and great publicity from the Downton Abbey and Secrets from the Workhouse TV
programmes plus a very successful Mugshots Exhibition which even made it into a New York fashion
magazine and a visit from Channel One Russia TV!
We undertook a major review of our forward strategy and many of the staff, trustees and volunteers
contributed very substantially to the evidence base for the Plan.
A top-level catalogue of our prison and police artefacts has finally been accomplished during the year. We
now know that we have some 8000 objects and the general composition of them. Congratulations to the team
that has worked tirelessly over the last few years to get us to this point.
The Workhouse kitchen garden has also fared extremely well during 2013. The collaboration with Lockwoods
is growing. As well as taking our produce and featuring it on their menu in season, we had a number of
cookery demonstrations, a fantastic alfresco dinner in the Workhouse Garden and reciprocal marketing of
each other.
2013 recorded the best trading performance in our history and this was some 50% better than any previous
year. As well as growth in our audiences, the focus on Gift Aid gave us a net gain of some £10,000, a
fantastic performance and all down to the diligence and hard work of our volunteers. Cost control was again
very good.
We had a particular push on Revenue Grants with three major bids, valued at some £220,000, submitted
during the year. Two of these have succeeded at a value of £140,000 and the other will be resubmitted.
The Trust would like to pay tribute to Sue Mackay who has gone on to challenging new pastures at Keswick.
The reputation and growth of our schools programme has been achieved through the dedication and passion
of the Learning Team so ably led by Sue. We miss her and wish her well. Sue's successor, Naomi Parsons
from Lancaster, will have much to take forward to meet the challenge of the new National Curriculum.
Looking forward
As well as continuing our growth, we shall be starting in earnest on the implementation of the Strategic Plan
which maps out our direction and targets over the next five years. As ever, we are not standing still.
The Learning and Access post has been funded by HLF since 2009 and this will come to an end in 2014. One
of the successful grants is to redevelop our Learning Offer (in partnership with the Cathedral) so that it is
self-funding by 2016. This will be a key focus during 2014.
Work continues on preparing the Trust for the next round of Accreditation, including continuing cataloguing
of the artefacts and revision of policies and procedures. Thanks are due for support from Mick Stanley our
Museum mentor (formerly Curatorial Adviser).
We will continue to play our part in the life of Ripon and the Harrogate District, contributing to the visitor
economy especially in this year of the Tour de France Grand Depart through Yorkshire.
Other aims this year must be to recruit more volunteers to make our front of house operation more secure
and to seek additional trustees to bolster our governance particularly in the key area of collections.
We still await the decision of North Yorkshire County Council on the future of the Sharow View site.
Meanwhile we are carrying out a grant-aided feasibility study to see how the Trust might successfully use
more of the workhouse site if this were to be offered to us. Our consultants are canvassing views widely both
within the museums and outside and will be reporting back in May.
My thanks go to fellow members of the Board and to staff (especially Sue Dalton, Sue Mackay and Wendy
Hunwick Brown) and volunteers for all their hard work over the last year. Ripon Museums have established
a record of success over thirty years and I am determined that we will continue to flourish
Richard Taylor
Chairman
Richard also reminded us that the last twelve months had seen the sad deaths of
two of our valued volunteers – Alf Jones and Chris Hewitt.
3. Treasurer's report
David Thelwall thanked everyone for their contributions towards what has been our
best trading year ever with a trading surplus of £26,000.
Ten years ago our footfall was 10,000 and 2013 saw this rise to 30,000, showing a
growth of 20% over the previous year.
The emphasis on securing Gift Aid on tickets, from last July onwards, brought in an
extra £8,000 proving how worthwhile this has been.
The preparation of the Strategic Plan which will be going before the Board later in
March has involved a great deal of time and effort from Board members, Staff and
Volunteers.
It deals with six main strands :- Audience Development,;Collections & Interpretation;
Education & Learning; External Funding; Operations and Volunteers.
In all of this, our 'magic ingredient' is our volunteers and we need to ensure that we
have sufficient numbers and the right blend of expertise to enable us to carry out
our plans.
External revenue funding is needed for three main areas :a) Expert help in developing the Sharow View Business Plan – we applied for and
received a COMA grant of £87,000
b) A new one-year education post, in partnership with the cathedral – we applied for
and received a grant of £50,000 from the Arts Council
c) 'Growing Pains' – our bid for HLF transition funding was initially turned down but
we are optimistic that a rebid will be successful.
5. Curator's Report
Anthony Chadwick described the striking improvement to The Courthouse following
the implementation of our architect John Witherick's proposals for upgrading the
lighting.
As well as lots of time-consuming, behind the scenes research and work, there are
also teams working specifically on the history of police stations in Yorkshire and on
the digital photography of Workhouse records.
6. Appointment of independent Financial Examiners
It was proposed by Christine Orsler and seconded by David Thelwall that we should
appoint Abacus 155 as our financial examiners. This proposal was carried
unanimously.
7. Election of Board
A third of Directors/Trustees (i.e. 3) are required to stand down each year. With
Paul Bisson's resignation the other two standing down were David Thelwall and
John Witherick.
Both were prepared to stand again and with Ralph Lindley proposing and Mandy
Whitehead seconding this proposal was carried unanimously.
Other members of the Board remain unchanged.
8. Chairman's Forum - Any other business
There were no questions from the floor
…...........................................
Guest Speaker
Our guest speaker, Chief Constable Dave Jones was warmly welcomed by the
Chairman.
He gave us a fascinating and entertaining account of his career, starting as a young
graduate in Salford and including his subsequent work as head of CID in Greater
Manchester, time spent in Los Angeles learning how the police there dealt with
multigenerational gangs and a stint with the RUC in Northern Ireland where the
Police Board which appointed him included two convicted Sinn Fein terrorists!
It sounded as though his grey hairs were mostly acquired during a three-day visit
made by the Queen during his time there which he described as the longest three
days of his life, especially when Her Majesty processed around the Stormont Estate
in an open-topped car.
When appointed Chief Constable of North Yorkshire last year, he was out on the
beat at one minute past midnight on his very first day and within hours had chased
and arrested a suspect – indicative of his whole attitude to policing. In his present
post he makes sure to see every single officer who leaves, very few of whom have
negative comments.
Pat Waterfall
RMT Board Secretary
10 March 2014