Minutes. 1 Welcome by Julia Twomlow (Chair) and round- the table introductions

Transcription

1 Minutes Cornwall Museums Group // Meeting 14 Monday 11 June 2012, 10.30am, Cornwall s Regimental Museum, Bodmin Attended: Julia Twomlow (Chair & The Leach Pottery), Kay Greenstock (Callington Heritage Centre), Hugo White (Cornwall Regimental Museum), Helen Luther (Fowey Museum), Peter Wootton (Grampound Heritage Centre), Kevin Baker (King Edward Mine), Carol Bunbury (Lawrence House Museum), Roger Holmes and Anna Monks (Liskeard & District Museum), Patricia Gregory, Tremar Menendez and Christine Walton (Lostwithiel Museum), Mervyn Mitchell and Chris Shinner (Newquay Old Cornwall Society), Linda Higgins (Perranzabuloe Museum), Libby Buckley (Porthcurno Trust), Phil Hosken (Trevithick Society), Mick Martin & Helen Rawe (Wadebridge & District), Jo Moore (Wheal Martyn), Tamsin Daniel (Cornwall Council), Helena Jaeschke (Conservation Development Officer), Jan Horrell (Freelance), Jo Mattingly (Mid- Cornwall MDO) and Steph Meads (N & SE Cornwall MDO) Apologies: Jo Warburton (CMG Co- ordinator and East Pool Mine NT), Miranda Lawrence- Owen (Callington Heritage Centre), Louise Connell (Falmouth Art Gallery), Paul Holden (Lanhydrock NT), Gordon Kane (Mevagissey Museum), Jonathan Griffin (NMMC), Felicity Baber (NT), George Barnes and John Buckingham (Padstow Museum), Katherine Ashton (Penlee House Gallery & Museum), Karin Easton (Perranzabuloe Museum), Hilary Bracegirdle (Royal Cornwall Museum), Liz Thompson (St Agnes Museum), Lesley Michell (St Hilary Heritage Centre), Brian and Margaret Stevens (St Ives Museum), Colin Vallance (Wheal Martyn), Graham King (Witchcraft Museum), Mary Godwin (ACE), Tamsin Mallet (CRO & CAN), Deborah Tritton (CRO) and Mary Olszewska (World Heritage Site) 1 Welcome by Julia Twomlow (Chair) and round- the table introductions 2 Minutes of the last meeting agreed with p.2 cut CAN the next in Updates MAGNET section. 3 Museum Development Officers MDF projects Marketing Cornwall Museums is continuing with a reissue of the History of Cornwall in 100 objects leaflet alongside the Cornwall Sporting Histories leaflets and website presence including Culture 24, Visit Cornwall and Kernocopia Cornwall s Cultural Olympiad. Currently eight intriguing objects from Restormel Museum collections are on display in the Long Gallery at New County Hall. In September it will be the turn of SE or N Cornwall museums to put on an exhibition of their treasures. The History of Sport project leaflet, produced with Cornwall Record Office funding, features 38 Archives and Museums with events and exhibitions in Museum Development money was used for high quality photographs and to enhance some sports displays with Perspex stands and poster mounts etc. Some of these photographs were also used for the Cornwall Sporting Histories and Mining display panels which were funded by the World Heritage Site and devised by the

2 MDO team. Five sets of panels are now touring and Leisure centres, sports clubs and some heritage venues during 2012 as follows: Approx. dates May 1 (Tues) -31 (Friday) June 1 (Friday) -30 (Sat) July 1 (Sun) -31 (Tues) Aug 1 (Wed) -31 (Friday) Sept 1 (Sat) -30 (Sun) Oct 1 (Mon) -31 (Wed) Set 1 centres Set 2 centres Set 3 centres St Ives Saltash Newquay Centre Carn Brea Bude Splash Wadebridge (will take panels to RCS and Set 4 World Heritage Sites* etc Wheal Martyn* Lanhydrock Hotel and Golf Club back) Helston Launceston Bodmin Liskeard Museum* Ships & Castles (Falmouth) Wadebridge Newquay Water World Royal Cornwall Museum* Truro Saltash Newquay SC Cotehele House* Falmouth Pavilions Lux Park St Austell Tavistock Museum* Set 5 WHS* etc Penzance Pirates Rugby club Penlee House Gallery & Museum King Edward Mine* (6 July +) Geevor* Cornish Studies Library* Redruth Rugby Club The panels also appeared at the Royal Cornwall Show as part of the Cornwall Record Office stand, many thanks to them for accommodating us. Special features on the history of sport project including Top Ten Items (from Cornwall s Museums) have now appeared in My Cornwall, Cornwall Life and Cornwall Today. Sport stories have also appeared on the Kernocopia website with additional information about museum events. Five Cornish Museums Penlee House, Perranzabuloe, Fowey, Wheal Martyn and Saltash are currently working with Kernocopia to produce sport handling boxes. Funding and Training Opportunities Ideas welcome. So far there is a demand for Security training and a more practical second training day on Social Media. Tamsin Daniel offered to organize one/two training days on Project management. She also flagged up an 80 training day on Understanding Audiences. A Recruiting Volunteers day costing 35 is being run by Volunteer Cornwall on 6 July 2012 in Truro. Cornwall Council Small Grant Scheme Update on 2011/12 projects In the N and SE of Cornwall, Padstow have conserved their coastline defence map, Looe upgraded their displays with a new showcase with integrated storage, Saltash

3 created an additional display area and Liskeard produced a booklet from their glass negative photographic collection which had not been seen by the public to date. Lanhydrock and Cornwall s Regimental Museum are digitizing photographs and objects. Bude has also had funding for a new showcase to expand its display themes. In Mid- Cornwall Wheal Martyn has conducted their collections audit, Mevagissey commissioned a report on conserving a Sunday School banner which is now at the heart of a proposed banners project, Lostwithiel acquired a new purpose- built made to measure show case to museum specifications. This was supplied by Matthew Keech of Indian Queens who also made two cases for Fowey. Contact details: formdesignbuild@btconnect.com and telephone NMMC worked with Mevagissey, Bude and Polperro to put on a fishing play in each museum. Mevagissey s play was very well received by a local school group and by a group of adults. Projects were also completed on time and on budget in the W of Cornwall. The small grant scheme will continue but details have not been finalized yet. MDO Team recruitment - MDO team will soon be back to full strength of four part- timers with two new appointments. The posts are a one day a week manager and a 2.5 day a week MDO for West Cornwall (replacing Jo Warburton s two roles). Interviews have taken place and references are awaited. CMG will be circulated when confirmed. 5 CDO Report back Labelling and Marking kits can be purchased for 35 via Helena, payment on receipt. Order requests will be sent to museums. A Fairy Godmother wish list is attached to the minutes, please fill in and return to Helena. Arts Council England has made some funding available for specialist conservation help along the lines of the Primrose photographic project. Funds could be available for photographic support/painting conservator etc. Banner project also flagged up. Helena has spent 550 on a light, temperature and RH meter to be shared by CMG group. Bude, Wheal Martyn, Porthcurno and Liskeard interested. 6 Updates Cornwall Record Office and CAN From 38 potential Archives sites to a short list of 3: Viaduct Yard, Hayle, Brewery Site, Redruth and Carlyon Road, St Austell. Site will be location for the CRO and the Cornish Studies Library collections but not community archives unless communities wish to house their archives there. The next CAN meeting is Monday 16 July at 1.30 pm and the venue is Wheal Martyn. The key theme will be archives websites. SW Fed - membership only 12 pa. Companies who supply museums can become corporate members and can then advertise in the trade directory with two museum references re their work. Web revamped with training day info. Taunton conference next Monday with panel discussion with Arts Council. Emmie Kell is Cornwall rep but has asked for assistance from Jo Moore. Proposed by Steph Meads and seconded by Libby Buckley and agreed.

4 Robin Barker asking for museum applications for SW tourism awards but deadline is 21 June 7 SPEAKER: Tamsin Daniel Update on the strategy for Museums in Cornwall Museum Strategy and Policy went through Full Council. This strategy will be implemented from 1 April 2013 and be more open and transparent. 0.5 million pounds is currently spent by Cornwall Council on museums per annum. The CC Culture team is 2.6 staff Julie Seyler, Tamsin and Victoria Reece- Romain who is the part time administrator. The team has now been joined in Economic Development by Cornish Language Partnership and Archives. Working with the Culture Investment Board, HLF, ACE and Portfolio officers at the Council, their next meeting is 6 July Tate St Ives has had Stage 1 approvals from ACE and HLF which, with the council s 2.5 million commitment has enabled the project to progress to development phase; anticipated completion Autumn The Council is also negotiating two Capital Asset Transfers 99 year leases for Leach Pottery and Mary Newman s cottage at Saltash. Helston Folk Museum is the only museum run directly by the Council but we are hopeful that a community group will take over operation next year. Janet Spargo is retiring imminently after over 30 years service. Other Current projects include: King Edward Mine acquired in early days of Unitary authority but without an allocated budget for repairs. It has 17 Grade II* buildings and 3 heritage building on EH s Heritage At Risk register; an HLF Stage 1 bid will be submitted in August and potentially also an ERDF in January. KEM Ltd Directors in the meantime have successfully bid for Your Heritage HLF funding which will focus on managing the landscape (22 acres), an archaeological survey, volunteer recruitment and training and developing more for families. Porthmeor Studios in St Ives is thought to be the oldest studios in continuous use in the world. The 4m project is nearing completion (November) and will open three areas to the public in the Spring: interpretation gallery, learning space and fishermen s cellar with pilchard tanks and installation by the internationally acclaimed artist Mark Dion. The learning space can be hired and has seating for 60 people. A cobbled floor has been found in the largest cellar, under the sand, as predicted by Brian Stephens. St Endellion Feasibility study re a music retreat with accommodation and dance floors in the barns. Launceston Charles Causley House acquired by the Trust nearly 10 years ago with a loan which is falling due now. Writer s residency planned. Porthcurno HLF bids (see AOB) Krowji looking to do new build subject to European money being agreed Zennor Wayside Museum Bob and Sarah Priddle are retiring and site for sale for 1.2 million. NT and CC not in position to buy but if a consortium came forward both organisations could be part of this with NT as operator. Premises include two self- catering cottages and working mill.

5 Fisheries Local Action Group St Ives Archive are looking for a fishery archives post with an emphasis on services to fishing communities from September 2012 until December Trevarno no news Rate reliefs for all charitable bodies still being advocated. 8 General group discussion around future venues, activities & speakers for CMG Future venues sorted for rest of year Tate St Ives in September (when St Ives Festival on) and NMMC in December. Suggestions welcomed from members for venues in ACTION: Members to suggest venues to Julia or MDOs Celebrating Centenaries: Suffragists Pilgrimage and China Clay Strike in 2013 Six ordinary women took part from Cornwall. Play commissioned. Wheal Martyn planning major exhibition on China Clay Strike. Start of Great War in Bodmin is putting in HLF bid and information from other MDOs suggest that HLF is interested in individual not county bids. Interest expressed by Fowey, Grampound, NMMC, North Cornwall Museum, Wheal Martyn. Fowey have commissioned a play. How to work more effectively with students would be a good subject for a speaker or speakers at a forthcoming CMG meeting and it was suggested that speakers might be invited from Tremough (Falmouth University College and Exeter University) and Plymouth. Bodmin, Lawrence House at Launceston, Liskeard, Lostwithiel and Wheal Martyn all shared their mixed experiences. One of the most effective collaborations was at Bodmin where Falmouth Art Students created the jurors in the jury box for the Charlotte Diamond experience. Two photography students from University College Falmouth are currently working very effectively at Wheal Martyn. Julia also told the group about 30 day placements for archaeology students within undergraduate courses based at Truro. Other experiences less good e.g. museums having to do a lot of looking after while tutors were perceived as not being supportive enough. End result could also be disappointing e.g. poor standard social history recordings or exhibits. Museums were overall positive about the potential for partnership and felt that some larger museums might be able to offer Museum Masters students three month placements. There is clearly a need to find out what works and focus on that may be some scalability according to size and resources of museums and distance from centres of learning. At present demand and provision is very patchy. ACTION: Julia to contact Universities for potential future speakers Communications with CMG and social media question raised about whether to pursue blog or website (other counties in SW having invested a great deal in new websites). No one at CMG meeting apart from Libby had used the Blog which is free and can create a discussion. However, unlike a website, there is no possibility of putting documents up. Two or three people had looked at the Twitter site which is part of the brief for the new MDO for W Cornwall. Three or four people had checked CMG Facebook page, but others need to sign up. Most museums use the SW Fed page and all receive the CMG newsletter though not all print out copies for volunteers. Porthcurno keeps a copy in the kitchen. Culture 24 disadvantage that wipes information about past events when updated. Callington Heritage Centre got

6 one visitor via Culture 24 site. Kernocopia website used by some museums but will be a closed site at end of September and left some CMG members a little confused about its purpose. It was felt that are two forms of communication which needed to be served: communicating within the group and the group communicating with the outside world. The newsletter is a good advocacy document but is very time and resource- consuming therefore it was suggested that it could be reduced from quarterly to less (possibly yearly) as a roundup of events, especially as news posted in the newsletter tends to be retrospective and not flagging upcoming events. Twitter is good for communicating with people outside of the group and has over 1000 followers though few from within CMG membership. Facebook has the potential for communicating both within and outside of the group. It was agreed that this discussion should continue and Julia requested that members could either send her their thoughts or bring them to the next meeting in September for further discussion in order to decide which communication mediums to concentrate on. ACTION: Members to look at current communications and pass comments on to Julia or MDOs 9 Welcome and introduction to Cornwall s Regimental Museum - Hugo White spoke on the history of the Keep, built in 1859 (like the Palmerston forts around Plymouth) for the Militia when Napoleon III was expected to invade. In 1919 every regimental depot got German equipment from World War One but most of this was melted down at the beginning of World War Two. Museum began c.1923 and very amateurish. It tells the history of the 32nd Cornwall and 46 th South Devon regiments founded in 1703 and 1757 which amalgamated in 1881 as Devon and Cornwall Light Infantry. Two years ago amalgamated with six or seven other light infantry regiments and displays about these are on second floor. Can t accommodate final amalgamation with rifles and hoped that that material will stay in Winchester. 10 SPEAKER: Charlotte Holmes Museums Association AMA programme There are three schemes Associate of the Museums Association or AMA, Continuing Professional Development (networking and moving career on) and the Fellowship of the Museums Association (awarded for a significant contribution to the sector). Currently there are four AMA mentors in Cornwall (Julia Twomlow, Tamsin Daniel, Alison Bevan and Jane Marley) and six people doing the AMA over a 2-3 year period with two more considering it. A support group is in existence. Fees are 250 for year 1, 120 each for years 2 and 3 and 240 for exams. The AMA is an award rather than a qualification but may be more relevant to people in mid or late career. Applicants are no longer required to have a post- graduate qualification before undertaking the course. Ethics, different areas of practice and how museums have evolved over time are among the 12 key things needed to complete this course. Unlike Museum Studies courses the AMA is based firmly in the workplace and on good practice which includes such things as shadowing museum professionals, skills sharing, curating an exhibition from scratch etc. Questions were raised about whether an AMA would be enough of a qualification for Accreditation purposes (i.e. avoiding the need for an outside Museum Mentor). It was agreed that the MDOs should look into this and find out. ACTION: MDOs to find out whether AMA is sufficient for accreditation purposes

7 11 AOB Leach Pottery 44K site enhancement including education space for a dozen people, more exhibition space and library. Accommodation for potters and researchers. Total project cost 100K. Bill s kiln moving Bill Marshall s kiln from Lelant and re- erecting it at NT site at Treveal near Zennor, with studios for potters. First firing will be last lot of pots that Bill made. Porthcurno Development project underway with old building demolished and new one being built. Some problems with HLF Capital Grants which led to two months delay and changes made to deeds warning to other museums that need to check deeds in advance. Two staff HLF funded contact officer and learning and communication officer. Also new volunteers. Cable stitchers going strong with a focus on World War Two bikinis and balaclavas. Also Castaways - remote cable stitchers! Liskeard Museum Royal Souvenir Tat of the Year show see town council website. Star item two bayonet light bulbs with ER and light up crowns. Church Treasures exhibition at Bishop s Palace, Wells, 25 May to 25 November 2012 but ring ahead ( ) as room is also used for functions. Next meetings: 12 September 2012 Tate St Ives (note possible parking in churchyard opposite Leach Pottery, but a long walk into town). Jo Mattingly June 2012