Agenda item

South West Museums Partnership - 2019/20 review and plans for 2020/21

Minutes:

The Forum received a presentation from Victoria Harding, Programme Manager on the South West Museum Development Programme.  It was noted that there were around 217 museums in the region, which represented 16.9% of England.  They engaged nearly 9 million visitors a year and there was a significant variation in audience and size of museums across the region.  The majority of museums in the South West were small, independent charities (65%), which was quite unique to many other English regions.  The average number of museum visitors in Devon was 33,000.  There was a huge disparity between the levels of funding for urban areas compared to rural communities.  There were many resources ‘on the ground’ but these required support.

 

The key strength of museums was the volunteer workforce.  34% of all accredited museums were led and operated by volunteers.  The average number of volunteers in Devon was high, at 64 per museum, averaging 109 volunteer hours.  There were four volunteer museums operating in East Devon:

·        Allhallows

·        Fairlynch

·        Axminister

·        Sidmouth

These had 249 volunteers contributing over 19,430 hours.  The economic impact of local and day museum visitors to the area was £681,759 from 35,197 visits.  The economic impact of volunteering was £129,540 million.  There were many other ‘value added’ things that were hard to measure and therefore quantify.

 

Victoria went on to explain the background to the museum development programme.  It was established during 2004-2006an was funded by the Arts Council.  It was currently funded 2018-22 and the next bidding would begin in 2020.  Each year South West Museum Development received 16.9%, £530,444, which was a little over £2400 per accredited museum.  This was quite a small level of investment and did not include the broader cohort of unaccredited museums.  There was a team of approximately 20 officers, including local museum development officers, a regional thematic team and a central team.

 

The vision of the museum development programme was ‘to work with museums and partners to drive ambition, excellence and resilience to support a thriving sector to deliver valued and inspirational engagement with audiences and communities’.  Its mission was ‘to effectively deliver the regional museum development programme and maximise the impact of this funding for museums across the region’.  There were a number of aims which ranged across the diversity of the museums themselves and included the following themes:

·        Care of and access to collections.

·        Participation.

·        Improve the quality of experience.

·        Sustainability and financial resilience.

·        Skilled and diverse workforce.

·        Effective governance.

·        Social and economic value.

·        Work with national providers.

The Forum noted a support map which outlined how South West Museum Development could help organisations.  It was for accredited museums as well as being designed to give confidence to other museums to move into accreditation.

 

The impact of the South West Museums Partnership (SWMP) in 2018-19 was reported.  It had an incredible reach and £114,616 funding went specifically to Devon, with £31,766 in East Devon.  A 21 times return was generated on investment for EDDC.  It was noted that SWMP had retained 22 out of the 24 memorandums of funding from the local councils in Devon, which was encouraging considering the economic pressures on local authorities.  There was a dedicated museums development officer for southern Devon which was extremely valuable.

 

Investment from rural proofing resilience was required.  The majority of museums were small rural coastal museums, which were predominately seasonal.  Online learning, workshops and webinars would be provided, as well as bespoke business audit process, skills and capacity building, site meeting with some SME business experts and a plan of action and budget for implementation.

 

On behalf of the Forum the Chairman thanked Victoria Harding for her presentation.

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