WMMD Newsletter May 2018Contents:
West Midlands Museum Development UpdateStaying in TouchWe’d like to stay in touch with you to tell you about the West Midland Museum Development (WMMD) programme, grants, events and other sector news. The General Data Protection Regulations come into effect on 25 May 2018 and we will need your consent to send you information. Please look out for direct emails from us titled ‘GDPR - Stay in touch’. The first has already been sent, your second and final chance to opt in to our mailing list will follow shortly. Banish the BacklogSeven museums are now working with Sarah Brown, Collections Trust to tackle their documentation backlog. Sarah is providing training and one to one support to deal with existing backlogs and create working practices that avoid future backlog issues. There will be an opportunity to join the next cohort so please contact Rachel Lambert-Jones if this would be of interest to your organisation. Volunteer AwardsOur annual celebration of the remarkable contribution made by the region's volunteers will take place on Thursday 6 September at Birmingham Hippodrome. Full details including categories and nomination forms will be available later this month. Small GrantsOur Small Grants scheme will provide funding of up to £3,000 for audience development projects with an equality, diversity and inclusion focus. Full details and application forms will be available in June. WMMD Resourceswww.mdwm.org.uk/resources has over 50 presentations, handouts and guides covering Audiences, Collections, Resilience, Workforce and Young People drawn from our programme and workshops. The resources are available to Accredited museums and those officially Working Towards Accreditation. If you would like to access these resources please email wmmd@ironbridge.org.uk for a password. Remember to check back regularly for new content. West Midlands Museum Development EventsAll WMMD events are free15 May - Collections Knowledge Café: Marking and Labelling10.30am – 4pm, Cider Museum, Hereford HR4 0EFThis event, in partnership with the Collections Trust, will introduce the different equipment, materials and techniques used for marking objects. It will include hands-on activities to put knowledge into practice. This event is fully booked.Please email wmmd@ironbridge.org.uk if you would like to be added to the waiting list. 5 July - Collections Knowledge Café: Getting to Know Your Ceramic Collection10am - 3.30pm, Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke on Trent ST1 3DWJoin Miranda Goodby, Senior Curator of Ceramics, and Ben Miller, Assistant Curator of Ceramics at the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery (PMAG) to find out more about the ceramics in your collection. This course is aimed at staff with no previous specialist knowledge of British factory-made ceramics. It will help you identify and date pots in your collection - or those that members of the public bring in for identification. This hands-on day will use the collections at PMAG to examine what pottery is made from (earthenware, stoneware, porcelain, etc), how it is made and decorated, and how to date it. Concentrating on British ceramics from the late 18th - mid 20th century we will look at what the pieces themselves tell us about how, and when, they were made. We will also look at how to identify which factories made them, what marks and backstamps can tell us, and what sources to turn to for more information. Please note that places are very limited for this event and that we have to give priority to one booking per museum. Refreshments will be provided. Delegates can purchase lunch from the museum café. Other Events16 and 17 May - Museums + Heritage ShowOlympia, London W14 8UXThis show is the perfect place to discover new ideas and opportunities and to explore new ways of working, all designed to make your organisation bigger, better and stronger! It is completely free to attend and offers two jam-packed days featuring more than 50 free talks, 150 suppliers and consultants and a raft of special features. 18 May - Changing the Narrative: Older Women and the Cultural Sector9.45am – 4.15pm, Ellen Wilkinson Building, Devas Street, Manchester M13 9PTDrawing on academic and empirical research in gerontology, sociology and business and the personal experiences of older women working in the cultural sector, this event brings together current thinking and research. What are the opportunities and barriers that exist for women who wish to continue to contribute to the sector that they spent their working lives in? Does creativity develop with age? How are the expectations of the way we live in our 60s and beyond changing? This event is supported by ArtsMethods@Manchester and MICRA: the Manchester Institute for Collaborative Research on Ageing. 19 June - Skills, Sustainability and the Future of Cultural Provision in Herefordshire10.30am - 5pm, The Left Bank, Hereford HF4 9DGThis free one-day conference, generously supported by the Elmley Foundation and organised by the HLF and ACE funded Herefordshire’s a Great Place project, will explore the ways different organisations involved in arts, heritage, cultural and community provision can build resilient futures together. 8-10 November - Dissent: Inspiring Hope - Embracing ChangeMuseums Association Conference, Belfast WaterfrontBook here. NewsAIM Launches New Guidance To Support Museum Trustees and BoardsThe Association of Independent Museums (AIM) has launched a new series of free online guides to support Trustees and Boards of UK museums and heritage sites. Created as part of the AIM Hallmarks Programme funded by Arts Council England, this new suite of downloadable PDF guides offers practical advice and top tips covering key aspects of good governance. The new guides have been written for AIM by museum sector experts to ensure the most up to date and comprehensive information in each area. The guides are:
The guides and other beneficial guides can be downloaded here. Early Bird Booking for Museums Association Conference 2018Early bird booking is available for the Museums Association (MA) Conference with tickets 20% cheaper than the standard price. The MA is also offering subsidised places at £129 for staff from smaller museums that are members of the MA – these are limited to 50 places so early booking is advised. The conference with the theme Dissent: Inspiring Hope - Embracing Change takes place in Belfast from 8 - 10 November. Click here to book at the reduced rate before the deadline of 20 August. Brampton MuseumBrampton Museum launched its new exhibition 'Philip Astley His Life and Legacy' on 5 May. The museum was successful in gaining a grant from the Art Fund to help with the costs of borrowing works from a National Museum – as this is a new funding stream, Weston Loan Fund are keen that the museum team shares their experience. Several museums regionally have benefited from the ACE Ready to Borrow awards through WMMD and the Art Fund grants were established to further extend the capacity for museums to borrow from National collections. If you are visiting the exhibition Museum Managers Teresa Mason and Delyth Copp are happy to talk about their experiences and the process of borrowing. Alternatively you can email them. Weston Loan Programme with Art Fund 2018 and Preparing to Borrow TrainingArt Fund is excited to announce that the next round of funding from the Weston Loan Programme with Art Fund will open for applications in June 2018. The Programme is designed to directly fund and empower UK museums/galleries which are regional and/or run by local authorities, universities, or have independent Trust status to borrow major works or collections from the UK’s national museums and galleries. Generously supported by the Garfield Weston Foundation, the programme will distribute a further £200,000 to museums and galleries across the UK for projects that enable loans of works of art and artefacts to go on display. Grants will range from £5,000 to £25,000 and can be used to cover a range of costs, including transport, insurance, conservation, installation, and activities relating to advocacy, marketing and audience development. The application process will open in June, and the Art Fund would encourage interested UK museums to participate in one of the Preparing to Borrow workshops. These will be taking place around the country from May to July, and will be run by Touring Exhibitions Group (TEG). This training supports participants to acquire the knowledge and confidence to make an application to borrow an object or exhibition, and will be an opportunity to find out more about the Weston Loan Programme. Trainers will include Government Indemnity Manager Carol Warner and National Security Advisor William Brown. The dates and locations are as follows:
Please visit www.tegevents.eventbrite.com for more details and to book. If you have any questions about the workshops please contact Charlotte Dew. For further details of the Weston Loan Programme with Art Fund please visit here and to discuss a potential project please contact Penny Bull. Museum Accreditation ReviewHeadlines from the review can be found here. Guidance from the Information Commissioner's OfficeDon't forget the Information Commisioner's Office has issued a helpful 12 step plan for preparing for the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) which come into force on 25 May. Click here to download the guidance. Take Part in Research on Museum Work and Social ClassThis Birkbeck PhD research project (from the Department of Organizational Psychology (OP)) is looking at how social class matters to getting in and on in museum careers/work. Class has been overlooked in OP research as a form of inequality, as have museums, and yet data suggests social mobility is declining. Further information about this can be found here. The research is also supported by the Museums Association. Researcher Sam Evans is looking for people who have some experience of working or volunteering in museums, to take part in focus groups or interviews. In the focus groups, which will be a mixture of between 5 to 10 people from different roles, she will be asking:
See website for dates including 18 May (2.30pm to 4pm) at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. Please contact Sam directly or via the website. Research on Small Urban Museums as a Driver for RegenerationBPO Consulting are interested in whether you have an example or evidence of how the development of a small museum has achieved an economic impact (jobs, tourism, growth, inward investment) in its surrounding area? If you do and would like to contribute to this research please email Rebekah Polding. New Resource from Kids in MuseumsKids in Museums has launched a new resource created in collaboration with Maths on Toast with support from MathWorks. Subject Specialist NetworksThe new Subject Specialist Networks website can be found at https://subjectspecialistnetworks.org.uk/. OpportunitiesDepartment for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund 2018-20The DCMS/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund 2018-20 is now accepting applications for capital projects from eligible organisations. The bid pro-forma and guidance can be found here. For informal enquiries, please contact dcmswolfsonfund@culture.gov.uk. All applications must be submitted to dcmswolfsonfund@culture.gov.uk by 31 August 2018. Career Development CoursesArt Fund is pleased to be partnering once again with Whitechapel Gallery to offer a series of professional development courses for curators and museum professionals this summer. This series is targeted at both early-career and more experienced curators, whether new to the topic or wishing to refresh and expand their existing knowledge. These hands-on courses will draw on the expertise of staff from across Whitechapel Gallery, as well as other industry leaders. Each course will focus on practical training and use current projects as case studies, allowing attendees to gain valuable guidance and insight from behind the scenes. Taking place in June and July, the courses include:
Places normally cost £195, but curators and museum professionals are invited to apply for one of 50 funded places offered by the Art Fund. More details and information on how to apply can be found here. The deadline for applications is Friday 25 May. Call for Papers – Museums Computer Group Museums+Tech 2018 ConferenceThe annual Museums Computer Group Conference ‘Museums+Tech 2018’ will be held on Friday 19 October 2018 at the National Gallery, London. This year’s theme: ‘The collaborative museum’. This will be a great opportunity to catch up on the latest developments and activities in the sector, as well as network with colleagues. The call for papers for the conference is open and they’re keen to hear from practitioners, researchers, funders and those from related cultural heritage and technology sectors. The 2018 conference is asking whether digital in museums can open up our institutions to collaboration and democratisation. How can a collaborative and participatory approach to projects invite new audiences, bring higher quality content, and provide museums with important learning experiences? Can museums and technology help to create a progressively universalised museum with better access and broader audiences? Can it be the catalyst for active as opposed to passive participants? The MCG’s Museums+Tech 2018 conference seeks proposals for presentations addressing these issues. It’s time to celebrate good work, and share ideas for helping museums do better. The call for papers closes on 21 May. If you have any questions, please email contact@museumscomputergroup.org.uk. Kids in Museums Family Friendly Museum Award 2018Nominations are open for the Family Friendly Museum Award. Any member of staff or volunteer can nominate their museum for the annual award. You can also invite your visitors to send in their own nominations. It doesn’t matter whether you're a giant National museum or a tiny two-room local gallery. You can be volunteer-run or boast a team of curators. You can be best known for your outstanding coin collection or be alive with high-tech interactives (or even better - both!) What matters most is that your museum goes that extra mile to provide an excellent family friendly experience. For more information and how to make a nomination click here. Vacancy - Assessor, Museums Accreditation x 2Arts Council England, BirminghamJob ref: For more information about the roles and to apply click here. Closing date:Midnight, 10 May
Gallery InternshipsThe Barber Institute of Fine Arts, BirminghamCollections Internship x 2 |