Museums discuss Scots sports heritage body - Museums Association

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Museums discuss Scots sports heritage body

Body to cover football, cricket, rugby, curling, shinty and golf
Patrick Steel
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Plans to create a Scottish sports heritage body, provisionally entitled Sports Heritage Scotland (SHG), were discussed at a meeting of the nation's sporting bodies and museums at the Scottish Football Museum last week.

The heritage body would represent football, cricket, rugby, curling, shinty and golf.

According to Richard McBrearty, curator of the Scottish Football Museum, a “basic draft constitution” for SHG was discussed and “the hope is that over the next two or three meetings this will be formalised”.

Of the group’s members only football and golf currently have physical museums with recognised collections in Scotland, although Museums Journal understands that the other sports are exploring options for storing and displaying collections, some of which are currently in private individuals’ lofts and garages.

The group is planning to apply to a new Museums Galleries Scotland (MGS) partnership fund, details of which are to be announced in February, to create a post to carry out a scoping project for the various collections. Joanne Orr, the chief executive of MGS, is working with the group on a visioning document.

The ambition is to have a national centre for SHG to record collections out there and support the member bodies, added McBrearty, but the Scottish Football Museum is considering offering some of its store to SHG in the meantime. It will take two to three years to get the group up and running, he said. Depending on funding, the group then plans to establish a more permanent venue.

The group first came together at the end of last year to discuss rolling out the Scottish Football Museum’s reminiscence project, Football Memories, a partnership between the museum and Alzheimer Scotland, which uses football images and memorabilia to stimulate recall in people with dementia, boosting self-confidence and self-esteem and encouraging a return to community involvement and participation.

The aim is now to roll out that project to other communities, said McBrearty, for instance to isolated people, as well as sharing expertise and advice across the group’s organisations.

The different bodies involved in the group are at different stages of development as some have museums and some do not, said Laurie Rae, the senior curator at the British Golf Museum in St Andrews, and so the members have different aims.

“From our point of view, increasing outreach and the reminiscence project is the key thing. For others it is more a scoping project at this stage. For us the key is getting our collections out there.

“We want to do more intergenerational and outreach work, so it’s a fantastic opportunity to work with other sports bodies and institutions to maximise the potential outcomes from this, using the football museum’s experience as a template for moving forward.”

The British Golf Museum, which closed last year for renovations to the museum building, is to reopen in May.

The Scottish Football Museum’s reminiscence project is the subject of a Museums Change Lives case study.

Update
27.01.2015

The body will also cover cricket, and Cricket Scotland attended early meetings.



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