WMMD Newsletter April 2017
Contents:- West Midlands Museum Development Update
- West Midlands Museum Development Events
- News
- Other Events
- Opportunities
West Midlands Museum Development Update
Breaking Boundaries
We would like to thank everyone who attended the Breaking Boundaries conference on 16 and 17 March whether as a delegate, speaker, workshop host or exhibitor. It was a resounding success and encouraged delegates to think beyond traditional boundaries in relation to collections, physical space, audiences and the workforce to build resilience. With outstanding speakers including Dr Sharon Redrobe and the British Museum and diverse workshops there was something for everyone. Videos of the speakers and highlights from the workshops will be available to view on the Resources section of the website shortly. "Really good mix of speakers, interesting talks and debates. Great venue and facilitation." "Great useful day, great speakers, well planned. Enjoyable experience here." "Really loved the non-stuffy approach. Gave an idea of how the museum sector could be, engaging, changing, innovative." "Brilliant conference." "Very impressed at the high standard of speakers, venue, food, and conference overall. Can't believe how good it is for no conference fee. Thank
you!" Date for your diary The 2018 conference will be held on 15 and 16 March 2018 Museum MentorsNewly Accredited Winterbourne House and Garden was the host venue for an ‘excellent and motivational’
day’s networking for new and existing Museum Mentors, led by relational coach Wanjiku Nyachae. WMMD EventsWe are launching the next round of Access Audits. If you are interested in taking part you will need to attend the launch workshop on 4 May. Full details are in the WMMD events section. Look out for our programme of events all the way
through to March 2018 which will be announced soon.
Ready to Borrow Capital Grant Scheme 2017Grants of up to £50,000 availableWest Midlands Museum Development has launched the new round of the Ready to Borrow Capital Grants Scheme on behalf of Arts Council England (ACE).Ready to Borrow is a national programme of funding for the museum sector. It is designed to enable Accredited museums to build their long term resilience by improving their capacity to manage significant collection loans from National and Major Partner Museums. Funding is available for capital projects which support Accredited museums to improve their infrastructure in order to meet the collections care standards and security requirements of lenders.* Suitable projects could include improving on-site security, purchasing new display cases or installing new lighting or environmental monitoring and control equipment. The funding will support museums in the West Midlands towards meeting the Government Indemnity Standard (GIS). A total pot of around £180,000 is available for grants of up to £50,000 for projects delivered by March 2019. A bursary will be available to support museums wishing to attend the Touring Exhibitions Group Preparing to Borrow
workshop in Birmingham on 10 May. For more details and an application form contact Helen Johnson. The deadline for applications is Wednesday 14 June 2017. *It is not essential to have a formal loan arrangement with a National or Major Partner Museum before applying, but a sound idea of which items you would like to borrow and what you must do to meet the lender’s conditions will be a definite advantage.
Volunteer PortalThe regional Volunteer Portal will soon go live on
mdwm.org.uk. The portal will offer Accredited museums and those officially Working Towards Accreditation the opportunity to advertise for volunteers. Please complete the Organisation Form below if you would like to register your museum. You don't need to have any current opportunities, we will populate the portal first with the names of museums that will be using it when opportunities arise.
ResourcesAccredited museums and those officially Working Towards are now able to access a wide range of resources drawn from our programme and workshops. See www.mdwm.org.uk/resources If you would like to access these resources please email
wmmd@ironbridge.org.uk for a password.
EasterThe West Midlands Museum Development office will be closed for the Easter bank holidays (Good Friday, 14 April and Easter Monday, 17 April) and will reopen at 9am on Tuesday 18 April.
West Midlands Museum Development Events
All West Midlands Museum Development events are free
4 May - Access Audit Workshop10am - 4pm, Erasmus Darwin House, Lichfield, WS13 7ADWest Midlands Museum Development is launching another round of Access Audits for 2017.Ann
Johnson, Managing Director of Wave-length CIC will lead a full day workshop, introducing and outlining a broad range of physical and social access considerations, and highlighting relevant legislation. Following the workshop Ann will visit each participating museum site to undertake a full Access Audit, making suggestions for short and long term development. Ann will discuss her findings with a representative from each museum and produce a detailed written report following the visit. Attendance at the launch workshop on 4 May is essential for all museums wishing to take part in the Access Audit programme.
Please note that museum places are limited, a maximum of two representatives from each organisation may attend. Participation in the Access Audit programme directly contributes to Section 3.2.1 of the Arts Council England Accreditation Return. "Ann led a thought provoking and wide ranging access workshop, with useful supporting materials, at Wolverhampton. It was a pleasure to see her again when she came to make an access audit visit to our Museum in March 2016. As well as giving us good advice, she listened sympathetically and constructively to the problems that we have with our building, and the constraints that it imposes upon us. Her report was extremely helpful. It
gave us information on relevant legislation and examples of good practice, as well as giving us a list of recommendations that should keep us busy for years!"
Deborah Jarman, Voluntary Education and Outreach Officer Leominster Museum Click below to book your place on this free event, lunch and refreshments are provided.
Preparing to Borrow Workshops10 May - Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery
26 May - Palace Green Library, Durham University
26 June - People’s History Museum, Manchester
7 July - The Foundling Museum, LondonBook your place on one of Touring Exhibitions Group's (TEG) new workshops, for an in-depth introduction to borrowing objects.
It is an interactive session, based on problem solving and discussion, covering: - The benefits of borrowing
- Researching suitable objects and exhibitions for loan and hire
- Making a case to borrow
- Communicating with lenders
- Loan applications
- Fees and contracts
- Sources of funding
- Scheduling
- Transportation
- Facilities reports
- Government Indemnity and commercial insurance
- Security
- Emergency planning
Each workshop is delivered by a TEG trainer, William Brown, National Security Advisor, and a member of the Art Fund team, who will introduce their forthcoming funding initiative, the Weston Loan Programme. The training encourages networking and provides the opportunity to meet colleagues from other organisations who are looking to borrow and find partners. Book here £25 TEG members, £35 non-members. Ten travel bursaries are available for each workshop, up to the value of £30. If you would like to apply for a bursary, or if you have any questions about the workshop or the Preparing to Borrow programme, email charlotte@teg.org.uk
26 April - MUPI Match West MidlandsA Museum and University Partnership Initiative (MUPI) event 10am - 5pm, Thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum, Millennium Point, B4 7XGWould you like to get involved in a museum and university partnership? Are you based in the West Midlands and keen to meet museums and academics in your region to network and develop new ideas? Then
why not take part in a MUPI Match event... It is well proven that there are mutual benefits to museums and universities working together. Projects can cover a wide range of topics – from improving audience understanding to developing more effective collections knowledge or interpretation; from inspiring museum audiences with cutting edge research to developing new exhibits and exhibitions; the opportunities are endless. The interactive MUPI Match events involve bringing together museum staff, volunteers, and academics from the region to stimulate new connections, ideas, and projects. There is a fund of £5000 for participants to bid into for ‘thinking funding’ at the end of the day. This will enable people to do desk research; have conversations; travel to
partner organisations; test ideas and work together to plan their potential project. For more information and to register please click here. MUPI Match events are delivered through the
Museum University Partnership Initiative, funded by Arts Council England's Museum Resilience Fund and developed in partnership with the Share Academy project and Paddy McNulty Associates.
27 April - West Midlands Emerging Museums Professionals Networking Event6.30pm - 9.30pm, Bacchus, New Street, BirminghamThis is a chance to meet with interesting people working in the heritage sector and become part of the West Midlands Emerging Museums Professionals (WMEMP) network. If you are in the early stages of your heritage career, you are encouraged to come and meet peers working in other museums, art
galleries, libraries, historic sites, archives and elsewhere. To book please click here.
8 May - Heritage Volunteer Conference9.20am - 5pm, National Museum Cardiff, CF10 3NPThe Heritage Volunteering Group and National Museum, Wales are delighted to announce that tickets for this year’s Heritage Volunteer Conference are now on sale.
This year’s conference is all about helping your volunteer programme to flourish. The line-up for the day includes:
Welcome address - Ken Skates AM, Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure
Keynote - Sian David, Head of Participation and Progress,The Wallich
Workshops available: - They're All People, Right?: the role of emotional labour in the management of volunteers - De Montfort University
- Diversifying Volunteering Using Data - Bristol Museum, Galleries and Archives
- The Role of Young Volunteers in a Museum/Heritage Setting - The Egypt Centre
- Where do We Draw a Line? - Amgueddfa Cymru.
- How Investing in Volunteers Enables and Empowers Volunteering within Heritage Organisations - National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO)
- The Power of Audio Description in Supporting Blind and Partially Sighted Visitors - Oxford University Museum Partnership.
- How Can We Make Museums More Dementia Friendly? - Amgueddfa Cymru.
There’ll
also be case studies from Amgueddfa Cymru, Imperial War Museum North and the National Trust and it’ll finish with a Big Conversation - Panel Discussion with speakers from NCVO, Wales Council for Voluntary Action, Science Museum Group and Amgueddfa Cymru. If you have any questions please contact Ffion Davies.
29 June - Facilitation Skills10am - 4.15pm, Mac, BirminghamThis new, practical course will help you develop and deliver engaging and interactive creative sessions for children and young people. You will be introduced to a range of frameworks, and consider elements of delivery including timing, pacing and participant needs. Through exploring different creative
activities, you will leave fully equipped to develop your own robust session plans and engaging materials. The day provides the opportunity to learn how best to encourage the development of the children and young people you work with. Ideal if: You are an arts educator developing and delivering creative sessions and programmes for children and young people, in creative, cultural and educational settings. You will gain: - An understanding of the frameworks you can use to structure a creative session
- Knowledge of new creative activities to use with children and young people
- Tools and techniques to develop the perfect session plan
- Ideas for approaching a range of settings to better share your work
The cost: £130 per person. This fee includes lunch, refreshments and a certificate of attendance for each delegate. Limited bursary places are available. English National Youth Arts Network members receive 10% discount on spaces. Membership is FREE – sign up
here Click below to book your place, or for more information call 02380 332491 or Rachel Hall.
The Association of British Transport and Engineering Museums Guidelines for the care of larger and working objects – Call For Interested PartiesThe Association of British Transport and Engineering Museums (ABTEM) has recently appointed the International Railway Heritage Consultancy (IRHC) to work with them to produce new guidelines for museums and private collectors with larger and working objects. The guidelines will cover stationary engines, industrial machinery, road vehicles, aircraft, railway vehicles, ships, boats and other working items. IHRC is looking for interested parties such as individual curators,
conservators or staff from museums with large or working objects in their collections that would be able to feed into the process by either responding to questionnaire or submitting case studies that illustrate the decision-making process and conservation ethos of a particular treatment. For more information click on the button below.
National Lates ResearchCulture24, is conducting research, funded by Arts Council England and supported by Airbnb, into UK after-hours events (Lates) and extended opening hours in culture and heritage venues in the UK. Over the next few months they will be reaching out to venue staff, visitors and sector organisations to get data and opinions through a variety of methods including surveys, interviews and focus groups.
To kick-off they are asking all venue professionals and volunteers responsible for after-hours events to fill out a short survey to canvas the opinions of the widest possible cross-section of our sector. The survey will take a maximum of ten minutes to fill out and there is an incentive of a big box of chocolates for one lucky contributor. Please use this link https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/LatesResearch
and share it with the people in your organisation who are responsible for programming after-hours events. For any questions about the research or to suggest a way you can get more involved in the consultation process please contact Nick Stockman, 01273 523983.
Mentoring for AllMuseums Association has launched Mentoring for All, a pilot mentoring scheme that will run across England and Scotland from June to November 2017.
The aim of the scheme is to make mentoring as accessible as possible, to as many people as possible. The scheme will also ensure that mentoring is not solely aligned to a formal training and development programme, but is available to all, beyond particular groups or grades. Mentoring for All is open to anyone within the sector - there is no requirement that you are a member of the Museums Association.
Whether you are a mentor or mentee, this project will help you develop personally and professionally. The pilot is looking for both mentors and mentees to participate. Development and support is part of the programme from training to supervision. For more information and to apply visit the Museum Association
website. If you have any further questions or if you need any help writing your application then please contact
Tamsin Russell, Professional Development Officer. The closing date is 10am, 24 April 2017.
Heritage Open DaysHeritage Open Days 2017 is 7-10 September. Click here
to register to your Heritage Open Day (HOD) event. Register by 1 May to receive full promotional support and no later than 1 August for events requiring HODs insurance. Remember the sooner you register your event the more support that can be offered to you. The event directory will go live on the website in mid-July.
The Textile Society Museum, Archive and Conservation Award 2017The Textile Society offers an annual bursary award of up to £5,000 for a textile related project within the museum, archive or conservation sector in the UK. The Award is designed to support textile related projects within a museum, archive, or conservation studio for exhibition, publication or conservation that will help achieve greater awareness and access for the public. Deadline for applications 1 June 2017.
To apply or for more information visit: The Textile Society Museum, Archive and Conservation Award 2017
WW1 Army Heritage Award A new funding award will provide grants of up to £10,000 for UK-based military heritage institutions to digitise their World War One collections and make them accessible online. The fund will be open to applications from regimental and corps museums, archives, and other organisations preserving army heritage collections focussed around WW1. More information about the funding on offer can be found at:
https://www.townswebarchiving.com/ww1-heritage-digitisation-funding-interest/ Application deadline 28 April 2017.
Click Cases AvailableBlack Country Living Museum (BCLM) has some click cases in their stores that are no longer needed. They are free of charge (although a donation is always welcome) but would need collecting from BCLM. - Tall glass display case with wooden back. On a wooden stand pained red. W 49.6cm L 120.5cm H 199cm
- Tall glass display case
with wooden back. On a wooden stand painted cream. 2 glass shelves inside. W 45.2cm L 123cm H 213cm
- Large corner standing case in cream painted wooden frame. Case: W c.40cm L 91cm H 190cm Including frame W 64cm L 105cm H 260cm
If you are interested please contact Jessica Lambert. Photos are available or you are welcome to go to the museum and inspect the cases. Available on a first come first served basis.
Alexandra Reinhart Memorial Award 2018 - Call for VenuesApplications are now open for venues wishing to host the Alexandra Reinhardt Memorial Award, Artist Commission in 2018. Galleries, museums and visual arts venues throughout the United Kingdom are invited to submit proposals to host the 2018 Alexandra Reinhardt Memorial Award (ARMA), Artist Commission, worth £15,000. The Award funds an artist or artists to undertake work with children and young people over approximately 10 weeks, and for the experience to inform an art commission accessible to the public. A further
£2,250 will be made available to the host venue to cover expenses. For more information click here. Deadline for applications: 5 pm, Tuesday 2 May
Prosper Programme 2017Creative United's programme is open for applications from fully Accredited museums in England to get support with all aspects of business planning and development. Successful museums will receive '12 credits' to spend as they choose on a range of support options, including 1-1 business advice and workshops. Making an application
Museums must complete both the application form and a diagnostic report. Key dates:
Deadline for applications 31 May 2017
Applications are assessed June 2017
Support delivered to museums by March 2018 If you have any questions, or would like to talk to Creative United about the programme, please contact genevieve.pace@creativeunited.org.uk.
Jonathan Ruffer Curatorial Grants ProgrammeSince the programme launched in 2012 they have helped 247 curators, scholars and researchers with 225 projects; they now have £75,000 to offer annually.
The scheme is open to curators and other professionals working with public collections. Applications under £1,500 are accepted throughout the year, while applications above this level are considered at committee meetings three times a year. Full details on the programme can be found on their website.
Part-time Gallery AssistantRBSAThe RBSA Gallery is seeking to appoint a Part-time Gallery Assistant to work Sundays. Details can be viewed and downloaded from the
‘Working for Us’ section of the RBSA Gallery website. Application deadline: 4pm, Monday 22 May Potential applicants are welcome to contact Natalie Osborne, Learning and Engagement Manager for more information.
Assistant CuratorBarber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham
£18,793 - £20,147 per annumBarber Institute of Fine Arts is looking for an enthusiastic and adaptable Assistant Curator to join the busy Collections and Exhibitions team. In a wide-ranging role, you will assist with the day-to-day practical management of the Barber Institute’s prestigious fine art collections and picture library, including object handling and research, and fielding collection-related enquiries and reproduction requests. A degree with a strong History of Art component and experience of working in a museum or art gallery are essential, as are excellent organisational, communication
and interpersonal skills. This post is particularly suitable for someone seeking to start or develop a career as a curator or collections manager. Application forms and details from Human Resources, The University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT. Tel: 0121 415 9000 Please quote post number 30708. Apply online here. Closing date: Thursday 27 April
Senior Visual Arts Officer
Rugby Art Gallery and Museum£27,668 – £31,601Rugby Art Gallery and Museum (RAGM) has an exciting opportunity to welcome a person with visual art curatorial experience to the friendly team. As the cultural hub of Rugby it is a vibrant, well used service. It has a reputation for high quality contemporary art exhibitions with strong national partnerships and creative
commissioning. RAGM is looking for an experienced individual to move this work forward through the art gallery exhibition programme. It also has a nationally significant British Art Collection, which this post holder would be responsible for. You will also work with the team to create complementary interpretation programmes that engage wide audiences and improve the wellbeing of residents and visitors. The service has had a recent refurbishment including a new Archaeology Gallery and café. They are developing plans with their communities for a new Social History Gallery which will include contemporary art interventions. For an informal discussion about this role please contact Nikki Grange or Victoria Gabbitas, Arts, Heritage and Visitor Services
Manager (jobshare) on 01788 533208. You can view full details of this job via their website, where you can also apply
online. Alternatively, postal application packs can be obtained by calling 01788 533564, or by email. Closing Date: Sunday 23 April
Interviews: Monday 8 May
Senior Project Manager (Accreditation Review)
Arts Council England, Birmingham or London£40,881 per annum with excellent benefits Contract: Fixed-term contract/Secondment (10 months), working 35 hours per week Accreditation for Museums and Galleries in the UK has been supporting the development of museums since 1988. Over the last 30 years it has been reviewed at regular intervals. During 2017 and early 2018 the UK Accreditation Partners – led by Arts Council England (ACE) will be reviewing the Accreditation Scheme to ensure it continues to provide essential support and advocacy for UK museums. ACE is seeking an experienced and skilful project
manager to drive and co-ordinate the review project within a demanding timeframe. You will have significant experience of managing complex projects with multiple stakeholders. You will be highly organised with excellent communication skills. You will have a good understanding of museums and the UK context
and won’t be afraid of juggling multiple tasks with a changing and demanding workload to meet tight deadlines. This is a great opportunity to have a leading role within a vibrant project and organisation, based either at our Birmingham or London office but with regular travel. This fixed term role will make an important and lasting contribution to the museum sector and help shape Accreditation for some years to come. For more information and to apply
click here. Closing Date: 9am Monday 24 April
Interviews: Friday 5 May
Keep up to date with the Leicester University Museum Studies jobs desk site here.
Images © Lee Allen Photography and Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust
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