Andrew Graham
Moving On Up 2009: report
Andrew has worked for West Dunbartonshire Council for three years, firstly as museum supervisor at Clydebank Museum and then as documentation and access officer.
He was previously the project coordinator for Kirkconnell Parish History Society, a small heritage project in an ex-mining village in Upper Nithsdale.
The collections Andrew works with consist mostly of social and industrial history reflecting West Dunbartonshire's history of engineering in shipping and Singer sewing machines.
It is unusual to open a newspaper or the Museums Journal and not to find an article about the recession or spending cuts. With this is mind the MA held their second Moving On Up event, on how to take control of your career and recession-proof it.
The day began with Nick Merriman of the Manchester Museum giving an excellent keynote speech on how his career has grown and what he feels we need to get on in our careers.
This was followed by Charlotte Holmes, who asked us Who Do You Think You Are? an interesting session where we were encouraged to evaluate where we have been, but most importantly, where do we want to go and what can help us get there.
Lunch was followed by Recession Proof Your Career, with Ellen Fenton of Norton Priory, on identifying opportunities and exploring cost-effective ways to get ahead. Let's face it, we all like it when things are cost-effective.
It's nice to see that since the demise of Woolworths, the MA has taken up the Pick 'n' Mix mantle, with an afternoon of talks and workshops from which we could pick 'n' mix, all of which seemed very interesting.
I picked The View From Here with three experts giving their views on the museum sector today and also Managing Up or Sucking Up, both being very interesting. Other delegates tell me that the other strands of Pick 'n' Mix were very informative.
We finished the day with Sustainability, something that we are all familiar with. On the museum and the environment front I was interested when Rachel Madan, of Greener Museums, pointed out that older museums are not cost effective buildings.
They use a great deal of energy, and a large number of modern museums are often built in regeneration projects such as disused docklands and river sites, all liable to flood with changing weather patterns and climate change.
What is to be done? This is something that the whole sector must address and soon.
I have been hearing about the Manchester Museum's hermit, a man locked away from society for forty days and forty nights with only museum objects, which he threatens to destroy, for company.
Wait a minute, a man shut away in a small room, no company and only museum objects which he threatens to destroy if the public doesn't appreciate them? Is he the documentation officer?
The morning was taken up with sustainability.
The Dragons' Den event featured a panel of dragons ripping our sustainability ideas to shreds, with Maurice Davies transformed from the Robert De Niro look-alike of Thursday night's quiz into Duncan Bannatyne (another dour Scotsman from West Dunbartonshire, I should have had this in the bag).
The ideas put forward included having sustainability as a key strand of accreditation, having grass on the roofs of museums (imagine the British Museum with a luscious green wig on top), and growing plants in Museums and then selling them to the public (I think that was the idea?).
The idea I preferred, which I should point out my team came up with, was to take museums out into the towns and villages and give the objects a place in the heart of communities.
It won't have escaped your notice that our high streets are filled with empty shops, all making streets look dreadful and removing civic pride.
We wanted to fill these shops and windows with objects and exhibitions, reducing the number of objects held in store, therefore reducing the amount of energy required in stores. By filling disused shops we would bring back civic pride and increase tourism in the area.
I really think this could work; volunteers can be used to man these guerrilla galleries, increasing employability and giving members of the public a feeling of ownership of the objects, something that is sometimes missing in our sector.
I'm delighted to inform you that our Dragons, Rachel Madan, Maggie Appleton, Javier Pes and Maurice Davies, liked the guerrilla galleries idea: we hope to see such projects in the future! Effective collections for sustainability, not only for museums, but for our communities as a whole.
Friday was finished off with Steph Mastoris and Maggie Appleton answering questions about careers and providing information about what to do. I really feel that this pair could be a double act, they bounced ideas off each other and entertained us for over an hour, only finishing when informed that we really needed to move on.
These two days have been great, a very informative event, it has given me a clear idea of where I see my career progressing and what I need to do to get there.
As a networking opportunity it was excellent. I've met a lot of new people and heard their stories about working in museums and we all shared our experiences. This was a cost effective training opportunity that I'm glad I didn't miss.
He was previously the project coordinator for Kirkconnell Parish History Society, a small heritage project in an ex-mining village in Upper Nithsdale.
The collections Andrew works with consist mostly of social and industrial history reflecting West Dunbartonshire's history of engineering in shipping and Singer sewing machines.
Thursday 2 July
It is unusual to open a newspaper or the Museums Journal and not to find an article about the recession or spending cuts. With this is mind the MA held their second Moving On Up event, on how to take control of your career and recession-proof it.
The day began with Nick Merriman of the Manchester Museum giving an excellent keynote speech on how his career has grown and what he feels we need to get on in our careers.
This was followed by Charlotte Holmes, who asked us Who Do You Think You Are? an interesting session where we were encouraged to evaluate where we have been, but most importantly, where do we want to go and what can help us get there.
Lunch was followed by Recession Proof Your Career, with Ellen Fenton of Norton Priory, on identifying opportunities and exploring cost-effective ways to get ahead. Let's face it, we all like it when things are cost-effective.
It's nice to see that since the demise of Woolworths, the MA has taken up the Pick 'n' Mix mantle, with an afternoon of talks and workshops from which we could pick 'n' mix, all of which seemed very interesting.
I picked The View From Here with three experts giving their views on the museum sector today and also Managing Up or Sucking Up, both being very interesting. Other delegates tell me that the other strands of Pick 'n' Mix were very informative.
We finished the day with Sustainability, something that we are all familiar with. On the museum and the environment front I was interested when Rachel Madan, of Greener Museums, pointed out that older museums are not cost effective buildings.
They use a great deal of energy, and a large number of modern museums are often built in regeneration projects such as disused docklands and river sites, all liable to flood with changing weather patterns and climate change.
What is to be done? This is something that the whole sector must address and soon.
I have been hearing about the Manchester Museum's hermit, a man locked away from society for forty days and forty nights with only museum objects, which he threatens to destroy, for company.
Wait a minute, a man shut away in a small room, no company and only museum objects which he threatens to destroy if the public doesn't appreciate them? Is he the documentation officer?
Friday 3 July
The morning was taken up with sustainability.
The Dragons' Den event featured a panel of dragons ripping our sustainability ideas to shreds, with Maurice Davies transformed from the Robert De Niro look-alike of Thursday night's quiz into Duncan Bannatyne (another dour Scotsman from West Dunbartonshire, I should have had this in the bag).
The ideas put forward included having sustainability as a key strand of accreditation, having grass on the roofs of museums (imagine the British Museum with a luscious green wig on top), and growing plants in Museums and then selling them to the public (I think that was the idea?).
The idea I preferred, which I should point out my team came up with, was to take museums out into the towns and villages and give the objects a place in the heart of communities.
It won't have escaped your notice that our high streets are filled with empty shops, all making streets look dreadful and removing civic pride.
We wanted to fill these shops and windows with objects and exhibitions, reducing the number of objects held in store, therefore reducing the amount of energy required in stores. By filling disused shops we would bring back civic pride and increase tourism in the area.
I really think this could work; volunteers can be used to man these guerrilla galleries, increasing employability and giving members of the public a feeling of ownership of the objects, something that is sometimes missing in our sector.
I'm delighted to inform you that our Dragons, Rachel Madan, Maggie Appleton, Javier Pes and Maurice Davies, liked the guerrilla galleries idea: we hope to see such projects in the future! Effective collections for sustainability, not only for museums, but for our communities as a whole.
Friday was finished off with Steph Mastoris and Maggie Appleton answering questions about careers and providing information about what to do. I really feel that this pair could be a double act, they bounced ideas off each other and entertained us for over an hour, only finishing when informed that we really needed to move on.
These two days have been great, a very informative event, it has given me a clear idea of where I see my career progressing and what I need to do to get there.
As a networking opportunity it was excellent. I've met a lot of new people and heard their stories about working in museums and we all shared our experiences. This was a cost effective training opportunity that I'm glad I didn't miss.
