One of the things that strikes you talking to Liz Weston about her work at Mansfield Museum is the number of small pots of Renaissance in the Regions money she has accessed, something that is true for many small local authority museums in England.
The Renaissance grants her museum has received are not particularly large, often a few thousand pounds, but have allowed the museum to greatly expand what it offers the public. The grants fund everything from digitisation and online activity to outreach and staffing.
This is why Weston, who has been the curator at Mansfield for 24 years, is keen to find out how the new Renaissance arrangements will affect the funding her museum is able to access. These changes to the Renaissance structure combined with forthcoming cuts in local authority spending are making it an unsettling time.
“We all know that councils have to make cuts,” says Weston. “We don’t live in a little protected land where we can all be alright; we are going to have to take a hit.
“But what worries me is that when they close places they will never reopen them. Even in the years of plenty that might be to come they are not going to say ‘let’s open a museum’.”
Weston says she has been having a few depressing conversations with some of her colleagues in the Group of Small Local Authority Museums (Goslam), which was originally set up by organisations wanting a bigger say in the development of the Renaissance programme.
As well as Mansfield, Goslam members comprise museums in Erewash, Chesterfield, Northampton, Newark, Bassetlaw, Kettering and Buxton as well as the DH Lawrence Birthplace Museum in Eastwood, Ayscoughfee Hall Museum in Spalding and Rutland County Museum.
It’s a mixed picture for Goslam members: some are fighting closure, others are not doing too badly. Weston says Mansfield is not threatened with being closed down and the council is supportive.
“We have been asked to look for savings, as has every service within the council. All we know is that they are very positive about cultural services in Mansfield. There will be cuts, but hopefully not too drastic.”
So how has Weston been preparing for the forthcoming cuts? One way is to charge for services rather than axe them, which is what is happening with the education sessions, which will cost £30 a class from the summer.
There has also been some capacity created by Renaissance money, such as a grant for web training. This allows staff to do work themselves, rather than pay consultants.
As well as the training, Renaissance money for digital work has been used to create a film that documents the closure of a local factory that makes metal boxes and tins.
The manufacturer has relocated elsewhere in the town rather than closing down altogether and the film, which can be seen on YouTube, will form part of an exhibition on the history of the factory that will open later this year.
The museum has also used Renaissance cash to create a community website, Our Mansfield and Area, which features images from the collection and allows members of the public to upload information.
Renaissance money has funded outreach work that has led to displays in the museum, such as the recent Museums of the Mind exhibition. The project is one of five in the East Midlands exploring the benefits that cultural spaces offer adults experiencing mental health challenges.
One way to deal with the cuts is to try pooling resources with other organisations. Weston has had conversations about sharing staff, but nothing has happened yet. Generic activities such as marketing could also be shared, although Mansfield already has a number of low-cost ways of creating publicity material.
The region’s network of museum development officers (MDOs) are already an important source of help and advice and Weston is keen for the existing structure to continue. At present, each county in the East Midlands has an MDO, which she says works well.
“The MDOs have been brilliant,” Weston says. “They have a good knowledge of what’s happening on the ground. If a grant comes up they will know who will benefit from it, who could do it and they will chase it up.”
Mansfield Museum is also supported by a small number of volunteers, although Weston is sceptical whether the organisation could take on many more. “All this idea of having loads of volunteers is great, but you need to manage them and it takes a lot of time and space,” she says.
She would like to do more, but limited resources mean it is difficult to offer volunteers something meaningful to do. “I know it’s not quite the vision of the big society that we are all meant to be working towards, but I’m not sure David Cameron has ever had a load of volunteers to manage, then he’d know wouldn’t he?”
Weston is not overly pessimistic about the forthcoming budget cuts, and it’s not all doom and gloom. She says temporary exhibitions, large and small, are an important way to attract people into the museum and these will continue. The big summer exhibition will be based around food, while a bought-in dinosaur exhibition opens on 12 February.
The last big capital project was the XplorActive gallery in 2004, which received a £211,500 grant from Heritage Lottery Fund. Weston says the scheme, which aimed to make the museum more child-friendly, had a significant impact but this is beginning to wear off. So she has started thinking about redeveloping another area of the museum, the arcade space, which is what visitors see on arrival.
Whether it’s funding, training or outreach work, Weston gets lots of support and advice from local and regional sources. Despite this, she is keen for larger national bodies to acknowledge the work that goes on in smaller local authority museums.
“It’s important that people from organisations in London see what is happening in normal museums,” she says. “They might know what is happening in Tyne and Wear and Manchester but there is a heck of a lot of us who are slogging our guts out in small museums and doing some bloody good work, and it is equally important.”
Some of this good work could be threatened by the new arrangements for Renaissance, under which the core museums will receive funding but will have no responsibility to the rest of their region. For museums such as Mansfield’s, this will mean applying to the new Challenge Fund for resources after 2011-12, which is a transitional year as the hub system is phased out.
A new structure for Renaissance combined with council cuts are going to make the next few years challenging for Weston and many like her working in small local authority museums. But after nearly 25 years in her job she has seen many changes and this is just the latest challenge that has come her way.
Mansfield Museum opened in 1904, a year after William Edward Baily, a local collector and natural historian, offered his collection and a building to the Nottinghamshire town.
Other collections were later donated by naturalist Joseph Whitaker and artist Albert Sorby Buxton. This meant the museum needed more space, so in 1938 it moved to the building it occupies today. A fourth gallery was added in the mid-1960s.
The arcade extension opened after Liz Weston joined the museum in 1987. The last major capital project was the XplorActive environmental gallery in 2004, which received a £211,500 Heritage Lottery Fund grant.
The museum is now focused on working with groups across the community, from local schools to cub troops, as well as reminiscence groups, artists’ societies, archaeological associations and others.
The museum is funded by Mansfield District Council and employs nine staff (6.3 full-time equivalents). The current budget for 2011-12 from the council is £250,690, without capital financing and support services costs. This is likely to be reduced by about 10%.
Liz Weston’s first job was as an aquarium keeper at the Horniman Museum in south London. She moved to the Science Museum, London, in 1985 as a curator.
After two years at the Science Museum, Weston became the curator of Mansfield Museum. At Mansfield she has developed the arcade extension, new stores, education room and, most recently, the XplorActive gallery in 2004.
She is secretary of the Group of Small Local Authority Museums.
Weston was born in 1962 in Bromley, Kent.
The Renaissance grants her museum has received are not particularly large, often a few thousand pounds, but have allowed the museum to greatly expand what it offers the public. The grants fund everything from digitisation and online activity to outreach and staffing.
This is why Weston, who has been the curator at Mansfield for 24 years, is keen to find out how the new Renaissance arrangements will affect the funding her museum is able to access. These changes to the Renaissance structure combined with forthcoming cuts in local authority spending are making it an unsettling time.
“We all know that councils have to make cuts,” says Weston. “We don’t live in a little protected land where we can all be alright; we are going to have to take a hit.
“But what worries me is that when they close places they will never reopen them. Even in the years of plenty that might be to come they are not going to say ‘let’s open a museum’.”
Weston says she has been having a few depressing conversations with some of her colleagues in the Group of Small Local Authority Museums (Goslam), which was originally set up by organisations wanting a bigger say in the development of the Renaissance programme.
As well as Mansfield, Goslam members comprise museums in Erewash, Chesterfield, Northampton, Newark, Bassetlaw, Kettering and Buxton as well as the DH Lawrence Birthplace Museum in Eastwood, Ayscoughfee Hall Museum in Spalding and Rutland County Museum.
It’s a mixed picture for Goslam members: some are fighting closure, others are not doing too badly. Weston says Mansfield is not threatened with being closed down and the council is supportive.
“We have been asked to look for savings, as has every service within the council. All we know is that they are very positive about cultural services in Mansfield. There will be cuts, but hopefully not too drastic.”
So how has Weston been preparing for the forthcoming cuts? One way is to charge for services rather than axe them, which is what is happening with the education sessions, which will cost £30 a class from the summer.
There has also been some capacity created by Renaissance money, such as a grant for web training. This allows staff to do work themselves, rather than pay consultants.
As well as the training, Renaissance money for digital work has been used to create a film that documents the closure of a local factory that makes metal boxes and tins.
The manufacturer has relocated elsewhere in the town rather than closing down altogether and the film, which can be seen on YouTube, will form part of an exhibition on the history of the factory that will open later this year.
The museum has also used Renaissance cash to create a community website, Our Mansfield and Area, which features images from the collection and allows members of the public to upload information.
Renaissance money has funded outreach work that has led to displays in the museum, such as the recent Museums of the Mind exhibition. The project is one of five in the East Midlands exploring the benefits that cultural spaces offer adults experiencing mental health challenges.
One way to deal with the cuts is to try pooling resources with other organisations. Weston has had conversations about sharing staff, but nothing has happened yet. Generic activities such as marketing could also be shared, although Mansfield already has a number of low-cost ways of creating publicity material.
The region’s network of museum development officers (MDOs) are already an important source of help and advice and Weston is keen for the existing structure to continue. At present, each county in the East Midlands has an MDO, which she says works well.
“The MDOs have been brilliant,” Weston says. “They have a good knowledge of what’s happening on the ground. If a grant comes up they will know who will benefit from it, who could do it and they will chase it up.”
Mansfield Museum is also supported by a small number of volunteers, although Weston is sceptical whether the organisation could take on many more. “All this idea of having loads of volunteers is great, but you need to manage them and it takes a lot of time and space,” she says.
She would like to do more, but limited resources mean it is difficult to offer volunteers something meaningful to do. “I know it’s not quite the vision of the big society that we are all meant to be working towards, but I’m not sure David Cameron has ever had a load of volunteers to manage, then he’d know wouldn’t he?”
Weston is not overly pessimistic about the forthcoming budget cuts, and it’s not all doom and gloom. She says temporary exhibitions, large and small, are an important way to attract people into the museum and these will continue. The big summer exhibition will be based around food, while a bought-in dinosaur exhibition opens on 12 February.
The last big capital project was the XplorActive gallery in 2004, which received a £211,500 grant from Heritage Lottery Fund. Weston says the scheme, which aimed to make the museum more child-friendly, had a significant impact but this is beginning to wear off. So she has started thinking about redeveloping another area of the museum, the arcade space, which is what visitors see on arrival.
Whether it’s funding, training or outreach work, Weston gets lots of support and advice from local and regional sources. Despite this, she is keen for larger national bodies to acknowledge the work that goes on in smaller local authority museums.
“It’s important that people from organisations in London see what is happening in normal museums,” she says. “They might know what is happening in Tyne and Wear and Manchester but there is a heck of a lot of us who are slogging our guts out in small museums and doing some bloody good work, and it is equally important.”
Some of this good work could be threatened by the new arrangements for Renaissance, under which the core museums will receive funding but will have no responsibility to the rest of their region. For museums such as Mansfield’s, this will mean applying to the new Challenge Fund for resources after 2011-12, which is a transitional year as the hub system is phased out.
A new structure for Renaissance combined with council cuts are going to make the next few years challenging for Weston and many like her working in small local authority museums. But after nearly 25 years in her job she has seen many changes and this is just the latest challenge that has come her way.
Mansfield Museum at a glance
Mansfield Museum opened in 1904, a year after William Edward Baily, a local collector and natural historian, offered his collection and a building to the Nottinghamshire town.
Other collections were later donated by naturalist Joseph Whitaker and artist Albert Sorby Buxton. This meant the museum needed more space, so in 1938 it moved to the building it occupies today. A fourth gallery was added in the mid-1960s.
The arcade extension opened after Liz Weston joined the museum in 1987. The last major capital project was the XplorActive environmental gallery in 2004, which received a £211,500 Heritage Lottery Fund grant.
The museum is now focused on working with groups across the community, from local schools to cub troops, as well as reminiscence groups, artists’ societies, archaeological associations and others.
The museum is funded by Mansfield District Council and employs nine staff (6.3 full-time equivalents). The current budget for 2011-12 from the council is £250,690, without capital financing and support services costs. This is likely to be reduced by about 10%.
Liz Weston at a glance
Liz Weston’s first job was as an aquarium keeper at the Horniman Museum in south London. She moved to the Science Museum, London, in 1985 as a curator.
After two years at the Science Museum, Weston became the curator of Mansfield Museum. At Mansfield she has developed the arcade extension, new stores, education room and, most recently, the XplorActive gallery in 2004.
She is secretary of the Group of Small Local Authority Museums.
Weston was born in 1962 in Bromley, Kent.