2015 — 2017 final evaluation report · to find new ways to play the long game – caring for...

2015 — 2017 Final Evaluation ReportA Battersea Arts Centre and Gaby Porter Partnership

Foreword 03

Introduction: What is the need? 04

How did we respond to the need? Shaping the Creative Museums process 05

Why Battersea Arts Centre? Scratch & Resilience 07

What did we aim to achieve? Outcomes and objectives of Creative Museums 09

How did it work? The Creative Museums approach 12

Who was involved? Museum profiles 13

What happened? Programme impact 19

What are the key learning points? 23

A look ahead 25

Contributors 26

Contents

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[01] Bethany Haynes (BAC Producer) and Max Dunbar, CEO of Manchester Jewish Museum at a Creative Museums cohort learning day.

Battersea Arts Centre 02

Foreword “ At their best, museums are flexible and wonderfully creative. They use their collections to respond to new ideas and challenges, to what’s going on in the world, to local audiences, and to the inspiration of artists. Creative Museums supports museums in just this sort of flexible and creative ‘scratch’ practice, with Battersea Arts Centre’s producers encouraging and inspiring museum leaders to take creative risks and re-imagine their futures. I believe the programme has been of significant benefit to the museums involved to date, and that its benefits will be even more fully realised in the coming years as more museums use similar creative methodologies.”

— John Orna-Ornstein, Director of Museums, Arts Council England

Museums have never faced greater challenges than today – to define new purpose and roles in an ever faster changing world, to compete for people’s attention and loyalty, and with public funding for culture dwindling. Museums have to find new ways to play the long game – caring for collections and sites – while building new audiences to sustain their existence. Future success for us all depends on finding new ways of making museums and connecting with people.

“ As Chair of Battersea Arts Centre [BAC], I have been able to watch at first hand our ever closer engagement with local heritage. BAC has long pioneered new ways of making theatre through its Scratch process and has been profoundly influential as a consequence. Now, through the Creative Museums programme, BAC’s special collaboration with museum partners from around the country has set about exploring how museums can shape a different, more optimistic future for themselves and their communities. Everyone involved in Creative Museums has learned a great deal. I am convinced of the value of this learning for the whole sector. This report tells the story of what happened and I commend it to everyone who cares about how we make museums in the years to come.”

— Michael Day CVO Chair, Battersea Arts Centre

Battersea Arts Centre 03

What isthe need?

Drastic funding cuts in recent years have made these changes more urgent. Museums are seeking to become more resilient, developing strong leadership to find new sources of revenue, support and engagement.

While much of the discussion about museum resilience focuses on larger museums, small, local museums face particular challenges. These are broadly:

• Responding to audiences with vibrant, rich and engaging experiences:

Audiences are more assertive and active than ever before, expecting organisations to shape high quality experiences around their needs and to offer fresh encounters, even with the past. If museums are to survive and thrive, it is imperative that they find new, creative and imaginative ways to animate their collections and involve their audiences.

• Strengthening relationships and connections with local people: Many local museums are on the outskirts of busy town centres or in deprived areas where footfall is low. They are not on tourist routes and itineraries. Even in urban areas, the profile of people who visit museums, and those who work and volunteer in them, often doesn’t reflect the changing demographics of these growing and increasingly diverse communities. The communities where these museums are located are often not traditional museum audiences and so are less likely to visit. They may see a general value in heritage and museums, but don’t see the value for themselves in their museums. Strengthening these local relationships and demonstrating their relevance to local people is vital for museums.

Museums are seeking inspiration to think and work “outside the box” and to re-imagine their future in a turbulent world. While the 19th Century view of museums was “a spoonful of this will do you good”, in the 21st Century audiences have high expectations and an appetite for compelling and immersive experiences which invite them to participate and get involved.How can museums of all sizes find their own voices in times of immense change?

• Flexible and responsive places and programmes:

Many museums are overcapitalised, with assets and displays which are relatively inflexible and limited resources to refresh or animate them. Where museums seek funding to make changes, the linear and lengthy project management processes required by the funders may dampen creativity and contribute to further inflexibility. The conventional sequence of plan-do-review means that large amounts of time and money are invested in the process which then puts pressure on applicants to achieve the planned outputs, rather than the best outcomes for them and their audiences.

• Mitigating reductions in public funding:

As a result of cuts in local authority funding, 1 in 5 small local museums were reported in 2016 to be closing their doors or facing imminent closure. Others are introducing entry charges, or resorting to selling items from their collections. Relying on diminishing public subsidy is a fundamentally unsustainable strategy for museums in the longer term. Ultimately, a more entrepreneurial mindset is needed to find new revenue streams and ways to share resources with organisations from a diverse range of sectors.

• Finding creative ways of working:

At an organisational level, many museums are tied into slow, traditional governance structures. They may lack the flexibility or expertise to generate strategies to respond to audiences and embrace entrepreneurship.

Museum leaders may not feel that they have a safe space to take risks and try new ways of working to engage with different audiences and partners. They may lead museums with hierarchical staff structures which do not nurture playful experimentation and dialogue about collections and interpretation.

A recent report on the museum workforce reported ‘three key challenges for the museum sector… if it is going to have the workforce needed for the next ten years of change’ [01]:

01. How to recruit a more diverse workforce (both paid and volunteer) into the sector in general, including people with more of the kinds of “personal qualities” that are identified as assets in an environment that will likely increasingly emphasise adaptability, entrepreneurialism and fewer deep specialisms?

02. How to develop the existing workforce, not just in terms of skills, but also in terms of developing their “personal qualities”, particularly given that some of these qualities are difficult to change?

03. How to get organisations themselves to be more flexible, agile and entrepreneurial and supportive of their workforce?

Creative Museums sought to stimulate and inspire museum leaders to face these challenges, to think afresh, generate new ways of working and new relationships.

[01] BOP (2016) Character Matters: Attitudes, behaviours and skills in the UK Museum Workforce Summary Report, Consulting with the Museum Consultancy. Commissioned by Arts Council England, Museums Galleries Scotland, Museums Association, Association of Independent Museums, September 2016.

04Battersea Arts Centre

• How might Creative Museums create an innovative model for museums and cultural organisations to work to together?

• How can Creative Museums upskill staff across the museum to creatively adapt to existing and new challenges?

• How can this programme improve the visitor experience and the enjoyment of small museums and diversify stakeholders?

The primary research questions for Creative Museums were:

The programme also provided an essential learning opportunity for BAC. Over the course of the programme we sought to explore the following questions:

• How can our expertise using Scratch and the learning from this programme be used to improve our practice as an organisation?

• How can BAC take part in making museums more resilient on a wider scale?

In the following report, we take you on the journey these dynamic and diverse small museums took throughout Creative Museums, outlining the structure, methodology, findings and next steps of the programme.

[01] BAC Head of Producing Richard Dufty and Brent Museum and Archives’ Libby Strudwick at a cohort learning day.

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How did we respond to this need?Shaping the Creative Museums programme

All selected museums were relatively small, with less than 10 full time staff from a mixture of trust, independent, local authority and volunteer-run museums. The focus was on small museums because these are often the ones most in need and had the potential to make the most change working closely with their leaders and small teams. The programme sought to stimulate change in participating museums and to use the expertise

gained from the programme to create practical learning programmes and workshops to inspire learning and adaptation in small museums. Through using a more creative, iterative approach towards organisational change and community engagement provided through BAC’s Scratch method, the programme sought to offer a new and innovative approach to building resilience in the museums and heritage sector.

In response to this critical moment for museums in the UK, Battersea Arts Centre (BAC) partnered with independent consultant Gaby Porter to develop Creative Museums. The 18-month programme, funded by Arts Council England through the Museum Resilience Fund, supported six small museums from across the country. The aim was to empower the leaders of the participating museums with a creative risk-taking mindset and process that would enable them to adapt and respond to the challenges of the rapidly changing cultural and economic climate.


“ Traditionally, the Museum and Heritage sector uses RIBA’s Plan of Work to coordinate and implement its project work. The Plan of Work has a start, middle and end, a neat linear, progressive approach where rough ends are smoothed as it pushes forward in its quest for project closure… BAC and the methodologies and approaches that it supports and teaches, provide a different lens… showing how to frame essential creative discussion in a project; ensuring that we cast our audiences in the central role, and reminding us that the Plan of Work’s last stage: In Use, is not necessarily the end of the story but only a new beginning. We are in the business of inspiration and we are going to need to use every tool in the box to create these complex and creative encounters for our 21st century audiences.”

— Ruth Gill, Director of Public Programmes for National Museums Scotland


Why BaTTERSEAARTS CENTRE?Scratch & Resilience

“ BAC’s work has the potential to significantly influence the way heritage organisations approach the challenge of story-telling .”

— Michael Day, CEO of Historic Royal Palaces

Scratch process

Based in Battersea’s former Town Hall, home to London’s first black mayor, the suffragette movement, radical politics and culture, much of BAC’s work over the years has focused on its rich 120 year history. BAC is recognised as an arts innovator and in recent years BAC has built a reputation within the museums and heritage sector for creative approaches to resilience. When the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) commissioned a survey of resilient organisations in 2012, BAC was one of its main case studies. In April 2016, BAC became the guardian of the

BAC’s mission is to inspire people to take creative risks to shape the future. BAC is not only “a powerhouse of 21st-century British theatre”

[01] but also produces local and nationwide programmes that bring together artists with families, young people, third sector professionals, and entrepreneurs.

Wandsworth Collection, allowing us to explore and expand on that heritage under the banner of the BAC Moving Museum.

Over the last 15 years, BAC has built its national reputation for developing resilience both in its own organisation and in others, by using a creative process called Scratch, adopted as far afield as Sydney and New York. Integral to the success of the Scratch method, is the Producer mindset ingrained in the way that BAC operates, both of which are further outlined here.

Scratch involves practically testing ideas, listening to feedback, evolving the ideas and repeating the process:

By placing public engagement at its core, Scratch leads to the playful co-creation of results that are more in line with what people actually want and consequently offers a more resilient model for the development of whatever it is applied to. Scratch is a people-centred, risk-embracing approach, supported by a producer, an iterative process of testing an idea in partnership with people, gathering feedback, and redeveloping it further. Scratch was first conceived as

a process for innovative theatre-making at a “Scratch night” of performance in January 2000 and has since developed into a versatile methodology for change that has become an integral part of everything BAC does.

The flexible, playful process and mindset integral to Scratch has since been applied successfully across BAC, starting in 2006 with our “Scratching” of our organisational structure and a major capital project.

To inspire people

To takecreative risks

To shape the future

IdeaStory/Vision/

Challenge

Planning Plan idea to a point where it can be tested

Test Experiment/ Creative risk

Feedback Listening/

Gathering responses

AnalysisFiltering/

Deciphering feedback

TimeSpace to

think about something else

Scratch

[01] The Guardian (2015) Battersea Arts Centre: The Show Goes On.


Producer mindset

The Producer mindset is integral to the success of the Scratch process. This model of working in the subsidised theatre sector was born at BAC in 1999, with the appointment of David Jubb, now the organisation’s Artistic Director and CEO.

This role brought about a shift from the traditional model that is artistically-led by an Artistic Director or a Curator, towards one that is audience-centred, growing activities, programmes and ideas around the interests, desires and creative contributions of the community.

The Producer combines artistic ambition with strategic vision; they are audience-focussed, foster collaboration and create a supportive environment for experimentation and risk-taking – carefully holding the creative space between the different groups participating in any particular activity:

The Producer’s role is to think about the work of the cultural organisation from the perspective of the audience, integrating that perspective into the creative development of the artist. In 2006, this Producer-led model prompted BAC to break down the barrier

between our “theatre” and “participation” departments, evolving the role across the organisation and fully break down hierarchies in our activity programme.

Scratch and the Producer mindset are now embedded into every aspect of BAC — its programmes, activities, projects and the continued development of the building as a source of rich history and community engagement. This has allowed BAC to:

• Open up all 80 rooms in the building for programming and activities. This encompasses performances and installations, award-winning participatory work, creative social change programmes and commercial events.

• Develop strong local and national partnerships such as Artist-Teacher Exchange in Wandsworth schools, community

partners on young people’s social enterprise programme the Agency, A Nation’s Theatre festival showcasing over 80 artists from across the UK and 8 regional producer partners through our Collaborative Touring Network.

• Become guardian of the Wandsworth Collection and launch a new, prominent strand of heritage activity under the banner of the BAC Moving Museum.

With the integration of museums and arts organisations through using Scratch and the Producer mindset, BAC sought to provide opportunities for genuine collaboration, cross-sector learning, sharing of ideas and discovering new ways of working. That learning, sharing and discovery of new ways of working is now being used to inform future collaborations and programmes at BAC and beyond.

“ At an introductory event, David Jubb described BAC’s journey to embrace Scratch in everything they do. ‘At the heart of it, Scratch is about relationships. Our organisation is more porous, more local, and we put people at the heart of our practice. We used to be so busy ‘getting it right’ that we forgot to look into the eyes of the person in front of us.’ Using Scratch, the learning from evaluation sits in people, not in a report.”

— Gaby Porter

Producer

Artist Audience


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What did we aim to achieve?Outcomes and objectives of Creative Museums

The overarching aim of Creative Museums was to increase the resilience of the participating museums. According to ACE, “resilience is the vision and capacity of organisations to anticipate and adapt to economic, environmental and social change by seizing opportunities, identifying and mitigating risks and deploying resources effectively in order to continue delivering quality work in line with their mission.” [01]

Encouraging more resilient strategies is therefore essential not only so that museums can survive, but so they can thrive in the current economic and social climate:

[01] Robinson, M (2010) Making Adaptive Resilience Real.

[02] Arts Council England (2013) Great art and culture for everyone 2010 – 2020.

“ Resilient behaviour is often a reflection of internal conditions within an organisation — their strength and effectiveness as an enterprise. Making distinctions between a strong organisation and a resilient one is not straightforward. Furthermore, resilience is an ongoing process, one that is affected by particular operating contexts.”[02]

— Mark Robinson

Armed with the toolkit of the Scratch process and the Producer mindset, BAC was able to increase the income and resilience of the organisation. BAC’s annual turnover increased by 84% between 2004 and 2013. In 2012, BAC was presented as a case study for the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) commissioned report on resilient organisations. The report highlighted it as an exemplar for new organisational structures, management and staff interventions, bringing in fresh perspectives and finding new sources of income. [03]

[03] BOP (2012) Heritage Organisations and Resilience Findings across the case studies and recommendations.

[04] Students from a local school ‘scratch’ the footprint for a new building extension at Manchester Jewish Museum.

In BAC’s experience, resilience is increased not just by adding new programmes and diversifying revenue streams, but first and foremost by questioning limiting assumptions and challenging learned habits. By putting our community at the heart of what we do, by asking questions and testing ideas early, embracing risks, and having a flexible, collaborative mindset, we can begin to enact change in our organisations and in our communities.


Outcomes and Objectives

The primary aims of Creative Museums were: to create an innovative model for museums and cultural organisations to work together; upskill staff across the museums to creatively adapt to existing and new challenges; and to improve the visitor experience and enjoyment of small museums and diversify stakeholders.

Throughout the programme, museums used Scratch to become more outward facing, responsive, strategically nimble and more collaborative, both internally in their organisational management and externally in their approach to engaging with their local community.

Using the ACE and BOP frameworks for understanding resilience, the following desired outcomes for museum leaders were identified:

• A more positive and confident approach towards risk-taking and experimentation

• Re-imagining organisational structures and exploring collaborative alternatives to hierarchical management structures

• Exploring new ways of engaging the community with physical assets such as collections or buildings

• Increased network connections and exposure to different ways of doing things

• Building internal advocateswith the board, staff and community stakeholders

• Increased value on reflection and evaluation to help question habits and assumptions

Data Collection

In order to identify changes in the leadership and resilience of participating museums, qualitative data from interviews and questionnaires was captured at various points throughout the process. Attitudinal, behavioural and observational data was collected from the following key stakeholders: Museum leaders, Museum staff, Museum visitors, BAC Producer partners and BAC Creative Museums project team.

The starting point to developing a methodology to encourage and inspire change was to integrate Scratch into all aspects of programme delivery. The approach from the beginning was that the process of using Scratch hosted by a BAC producer- taking small risks and incorporating playful experimentation into new ideas as they develop- was a way to encourage the mindset shift required to develop more resilient organisations. Aligning with the definitions of resilience from ACE and BOP, some of the key catalysts of this shift include:

• Testing ideas – ‘Innovation and experimentation are embedded in reflective practice’

• Flexibility – ‘Change is seen as natural and actively prepared for.’

• Encouraging vulnerability –going beyond the ‘management of key vulnerabilities’ which are ‘integrated into planning and preparation for disruption’ and removing the stigma of needing to be perfect and fixed in the outcome.

Connecting Scratch with Resilience in Museums

• Gathering feedback — ‘situation awareness of environment and performance, with good gathering, sharing and consideration of intelligence and information to inform decision.’

The programme built upon BAC’s expertise around Scratch and ACE’s definitions of resilience to find a new way to measure a growth in resilience with a focus on leadership and organisational change. The aim was for all museums to demonstrate change, through attitudinal shifts, changing everyday behaviour, and/or more sustained changes.

Scratchmindset

Risktaking

Growthmindset

Bravery

Sharedownership

Vulnerability

Valuingthe process

Playfulapproach

Flexibility


Additionally, each museum identified individual objectives in order to be more resilient:

Brent Museums and Archives — to bring more people into their building and engage with more diverse audiences.

Leominster Museum — to strengthen their relationship with younger audiences and other community groups and clarify their organisational structure and volunteer role descriptions.

Manchester Jewish Museum — to engage new, diverse audiences, find ways to take advantage of period of museum closure for capital works in an innovative way, and explore possibilities for organisational development and governance.

Nuneaton Museum and Art Gallery — to create a sense of ownership from local people and stakeholders, identify what the stories are that the museum can tell and to explore creative ways of telling them.

[05] Local artist working with a visitor to a Scratch project in Swindon

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Scarborough Museums Trust — to enliven the Geology collection and give local people a sense of ownership over it.

Swindon Museum and Art Gallery — to explore what the stories of Swindon are, foster pride in local people by creating work that is immediate, hands -on, engaging and empowering to audiences.

Battersea Arts Centre — to better understand how the museums and heritage sector operates, taking the learning to develop a model of resilience based on Scratch to apply more widely.

Testing how Scratch works for leading change and resilience was an essential element – how BAC can apply that model of resiliency internally to improve the way it works and externally in the cultural sector and more widely.

“ At one of our cohort days, the artist leading an improvisation session with us asked us to embrace two things: childish glee; and ‘front footedness’ — everything is possible until proved otherwise. We loved working in this way, and it generated huge energy and creativity.”

— Gaby Porter


To introduce the programme and recruit Creative Museum partners, four introductory outreach days were held in Manchester, Bristol, London and Gateshead, attended by 52 museums professionals from a range of independent, local authority and university museums. Each event involved presentations from artists who have worked with BAC using Scratch and a museum expert who has used an iterative process to reshape and rejuvenate their organisation.

02. Develop ideas to meet these objectives and skills for creative risk-taking (January – March 2016)

Working closely with their producers, each museum developed a proposal for a Scratch Project, for which they received seed funding, support and feedback from the Creative Museums team.

03. Scratch their ideas towards a resilient model in a supportive environment (April – September 2016)

The museums carried out their Scratch Projects while also attending cohort days, coaching and receiving bespoke support for the continued growth of their organisation. The Scratch Projects included: inviting a local community group to decide the form and content of a participatory exhibition; experimenting with new job descriptions and alternative organisational structures; an all-day festival enabled by new partnerships with local organisations and community events leading

to a radical re-thinking of the museum’s mission and approach to the stories it tells.

04. Shape an organisational change plan on the basis of their discoveries (October – December 2016)

This phase supported the museums to translate their learning through the first year of the programme into longer term organisational change, in particular through meetings with board, community stakeholders and local cultural organisations across sectors.

05. Share their learning with the rest of the sector (January – April 2017)

At the culmination of the programme and our evaluation collecting data to show how using Scratch affects resilience in museums, this learning was shared in an online and print publication and at a conference for small museums, National and Major Partner Museums and arts organisations in April 2017.

The museums selected included independent, local authority and volunteer-run museums and were selected based on their size and desire to integrate the learning from the programme into their organisations. All museums needed to have sign-off from their boards to initiate internal buy-in from the outset.

The programme had 5 key stages:

01. Set objectives for improving their museum’s resilience (October – December 2015)

Museums were partnered with a BAC producer, visited BAC for a 3-day residency, and set out their own individual objectives for the programme in collaboration with BAC during their visits to each museum.

How did it work? The Creative Museums approach

Creative Museums was made up of 6 main strands of activity:

01. Producer pairing

Each museum leader was paired with a BAC producer, who worked closely with them throughout the programme to support them and offer constructive challenge in shaping their Scratch project, achieving the project and building on their learning for the future. The producers also brought in artists to enable the museums to achieve their Scratch projects.

02. Scratch Projects

Each museum was given seed funding to use for a Scratch Project - designed to allowthem to explore how Scratch could work through doing, with the aim that this small experiment would give them a practical understanding of Scratch which could feed into the wider ambitions for their organisation. This involved working closely with their BAC producer and a lead artist to realise their Scratch.

03. Cohort Learning Days

Regular learning days for all the participating museums included: presentations from leading practitioners in leadership and heritage; artist-led workshops exploring Scratch and creativity; mentorship sessions with BAC Producers, Board members and members of BAC’s senior management team; and research trips to other venues, conferences and events to share best practice.

04. Coaching

A project coach was appointed to work with each museum leader on a confidential basis, to support them in embracing the risk and vulnerability that comes with the Scratch process. There were a total of six coaching sessions for each leader with about half of the support focusing on their individual growth and the other half focusing on the growth of their organisation.

05. Bespoke support

Each museum received bespoke support from BAC and externally, depending on their needs: Facilitated sessions with board on governance and purpose, in-depth interviews and mentoring from the Head of Enterprise at BAC on diversifying income, the Chief Operating Officer on staff and board roles and relationships and the Communications Manager on communicating Scratch.

06. Scratch groups

Every museum leader and producer pairing was encouraged to establish a Scratch group in their region, partly to test their emerging plans with other organisations; partly to build a larger community of interest and potentially to collaborate with other creative organisations which may be better resourced; and partly to share Scratch as a methodology for creative work.

Two museums (Swindon and Scarborough) were unable to achieve their originally planned Scratch Projects or to participate in the cohort days and bespoke support because of major changes at leadership level (both museums) and in governance (Swindon). When the new leaders came into post however, they were both keen to experience and apply Scratch to different areas of their work. The project therefore worked with them on smaller Scratch projects in the spring of 2017.


Museum profiles

Brent Museum and Archives

Location:Brent, Greater London, population 324,000

Type of museum:Local Authority run museum

About Brent Museum and Archives:Since June 2015, Brent Museum and Archives have been located in a new purpose-built library and museum building on Willesden High Street. The museum has a permanent exhibition on the history of Brent, and a temporary exhibition space, along with access to workshop and performance spaces in the new building. Its collection of over 10,000 objects charts Brent’s history from thousands of years ago up to the present day, representing the communities past and present.

The museum has a schools offer including object handling workshops on or offsite, and loan boxes that can be used by teachers to bring the curriculum to life.

Visitor demographics:Brent has a newly opened service so is still in the process of building up their numbers and regular visitors. The museum mainly engages with families from the local area and local schools. The local area is very diverse; 71% of the local population are from ethnic groups other than White British.

Museum leader:Libby Strudwick, Heritage Collections Manager

Number of staff:5 staff members within heritage service

Scratch project:Brazil to Brent

Brazil to Brent started with a series of workshops engaging with the rich culture of the many Brazilian people in the area. The workshops culminated in an exhibition which was an explosion of colour and nature

reflective of the environment many participants miss in their new home. A rattan tree rose up through the exhibition space, its branches bearing leaves for visitors to write on, sharing their experiences of living in Brent.

[01] Artist Kirsty Harris with visitors to the “Brazil to Brent” exhibition.

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“ We have never ever done anything like this before; it’s completely and utterly different. We would never have painted the walls! That’s never been done before, and I’m so glad we did it because it transforms the space and shows commitment to the topic and representing the community. We used Scratch as a ‘get out of jail free card’ — a way to get away with experimenting and taking a risk.”

— Libby Strudwick, Heritage Collections Manager


Museum profiles

Leominster Museum

Location:Leominster, Herefordshire, population 10,000

Type of museum:Volunteer-run, charitable incorporated organisation (CIO) with a board of trustees

About Leominster Museum:Founded in the early 1970s, the museum was set up to preserve the history, and tell the story, of Leominster and surrounding villages in Herefordshire. It offers a permanent collection of objects; an archive of books, historic photos and documents; changing temporary exhibitions on subjects of local interest, a bespoke education service, a website, and other ad hoc events. These are funded by

Friends subscriptions, visitor donations, fundraising, profits from merchandise sold, and occasional grants from charitable trusts.

Visitor demographics:Leominster Museum has about 2700 visitors annually. Most visitors are local people attracted by a specific event, temporary exhibitions, school visits or people with specific research enquiries, either about family history or items in the collection.

Museum leader:Deborah Jarman, Voluntary Education and Outreach Officer

Number of staff:A team of 20 volunteers

Scratch project: Trails of the Unexpected

[01] A participant on the “Trails of the Unexpected” exploring Leominster with artist Tom Bowtell.

“ The reaction to the event was really positive. We took the opportunity to not only ask people what they thought of the event, but also what they feel about the town’s history and how we should be representing it. We got some really interesting and useful answers and we’re looking into the possibility of doing another event this summer.”

— Deborah Jarman, Voluntary Education and Outreach Officer

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Trails of the Unexpected was an interactive trail around Leominster to commemorate the 100th birthday of one of the museum’s most evocative

artefacts, a Chelsea bun baked in Leominster that travelled to the front line of World War 1 and back.


Museum profiles

ManchesterJewish Museum

Location:North Manchester

Type of museum:Independent museum

About Manchester Jewish Museum:Manchester Jewish Museum (MJM) brings people of all faiths and backgrounds together to explore Jewish faith, culture and heritage using their collections, volunteer-led tours, a learning programme and regular events including talks, comedy nights, concerts and plays. Manchester Jewish Museum is the only Jewish Museum in the UK outside London and is housed in the oldest surviving synagogue building in Manchester, completed in 1874. During the course of Creative Museums, MJM was supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund with

a development grant to test and develop its plans for an extension, new exhibitions and visitor facilities and an expanded public programme.

Visitor demographics:Currently attracts 10,000 visitors a year including school groups who visit for a session about Judaism. Other visitors include older adults, couples and older families interested in arts and heritage, students or recent graduates, and family groups.

Museum leader:Max Dunbar, CEO

Number of staff:4 staff members, 15 volunteer tour guides, and other volunteers for front of house and shop.

The Scratching Stories project explored three different methods of bringing people together and creating an environment in which they feel comfortable to share stories: Food (focusing on the key museum theme of community); Storytelling (focusing on stories related to

the theme of journeys); and Music (exploring the theme of identity). The project culminated with an all-day event as part of the Cheetham Hill Festival, where participants from all three strands came together with visitors and members of the public to share their work and ideas.

[01] Storyteller Robin Simpson “Scratching Stories” with visitors at the Manchester Jewish Museum during Cheetham Hill Community Festival.

“ Since being in this role, I’ve wanted to see the museum begin to feel more like the kind of space I could bring my children to, knowing they could be themselves and have fun. During the summer, it feels as though MJM has really transformed into this.”

— Gareth Redston, Learning Manager

“ Learning about the Scratch process and working with BAC Producers has made us re-assess the way we work. We are now a more confident organization, willing to take creative risks with artists, producers and new and existing audiences… It’s still early days, but learning about Scratch from BAC has empowered us to take bolder, creative steps, helping us take the museum forwards — something I think many other museums could benefit from.”

— Max Dunbar, CEO, Manchester Jewish Museum

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Scratch project: Scratching Stories


Museum profiles

Nuneaton Museum and Art Gallery

Location:Nuneaton, Nuneaton and Bedworth, population 120,000

Type of museum:Local Authority run museum

About Nuneaton Museum:Nuneaton Museum & Art Gallery is a living museum which aims to use and develop its collections to strengthen local communities, explore life in the past and present, expand horizons and offer inspiration, learning and enjoyment. It does this through a varied, free programme of temporary and touring

exhibitions, and events including school holiday activities, Hands-on-History sessions, storytelling for Under 5s, and lunchtime talks.

Visitor demographics:Around 73,000 visits each year, regular visitors are young families and adults aged 50 and over.

Museum leader:Catherine Nisbet, Museum & Arts Officer

Number of staff:6 members of staff

Scratch project: The [B]lab

Nuneaton staff worked with BAC producers and artists to create an interactive exhibition-installation telling the story of Nuneaton running over the course of 6 weeks in the summer. Each week, each of the museum’s staff team selected a new story

of Nuneaton to display in the gallery. Visitors were then invited to vote for their favourite story, and the most popular stories grew into a collection that remained on display for the duration of the exhibition.

[01] Scratch project at Nuneaton Museum and Art Gallery.

“ It was very scary for us to begin with a half-empty exhibition space. A big risk! It challenged the team’s assumptions about what people already know about their town’s history, and what they find interesting and changed the way the staff worked as a team, allowed all staff to have creative input and a chance to talk to visitors. We would like to find ways to keep doing this.”

— Catherine Nisbet, Museum & Arts Officer

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Museum profiles

ScarboroughMuseums Trust

Location:Scarborough, Yorkshire, population of just over 61,000.

Type of museum:Run by Scarborough Museums Trust with a board of Trustees.

About Scarborough Museums Trust:A local history museum with a large arts collection within its art gallery, and spread over two venues, the art gallery and the Rotunda on the seafront. The Trust seeks to care for, develop and interpret its collections, information and assets for current constituents and for legacy for future generations.

Visitor demographics:The museum welcomes about 28,500 people annually. The Art Gallery is predominantly visited by older, local people while the Rotunda is visited by families with children because it is near the seafront which is popular with tourists.

Museum leader:Heather Lane, CEO

Number of staff:12 full-time and part-time staff.

Scratch project:

Scarborough went through considerable organisational changes during the Creative Museums programme, including changes of CEO. This meant that their participation on the programme was paused for some of 2016, before engaging with new joint CEO Heather Lane and her Community Curator Emily Nelson.

Given timeframe, the team wanted to apply Scratch to their existing projects: to engage with more and diverse young people. In February, artists kicked off brand new engagement workshop days with the local Prevention Service and Virtual School – scratching this first step of a partnership.

[01 & 02] Scratch project at Scarborough Museums Trust.

“ Creative Museums and Scratch was a really good way of starting this new work with a bang.”

— Emily Nelson, Community Curator, Scarborough

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Museum profiles

Swindon Museum and Art Gallery

Location:Swindon, Wiltshire, population of 185,609.

Type of museum:In the course of the Creative Museums programme, it transferred from local authority control to a new organisation, Swindon Museums Trust, with a board of Trustees

About Swindon Museum:A local history museum with a large, world-focus arts collection within its art gallery, located in the Old Town area of Swindon. In 1930, Apsley House, which until then had always been a family house, was adapted to house the museum collection.

Visitor demographics:Most visitors come from the immediate area of Old Town as opposed to Swindon Town centre. They are mostly young families and traditional culture vultures attracted by changing exhibitions, free self-directed activities for children, events and talks. There are plans for the museum to move into a new cultural venue in 2019, where the aim for this cultural quarter is to increase current visiting figures to 90,000 per annum.

Museum leader:Hadrian Ellory-van Dekker, CEO

Number of staff:5 full-time staff, 3 museum assistants.

The Swindon team paired up with an artist to create an open-house event, creating new activities to engage families and adults with aspects of the collection that are not often explored, such as their ceramics collection.

[01] Scratch project at Swindon Museum and Art Gallery.

“ I keep thinking about what the BAC producers keep asking: “What do I want people to feel as they leave the museum? Do I want them to feel joy, excitement, curiosity, feel welcome?” I keep coming back to that and that has affected how our new programmes are being shaped.”

— Sophie Cummings, Curator at Swindon

Scratch project:


What happened?Overall programme impact Outcomes for Museum leaders

In the long term, we expect that the benefits of improved leadership and organisational structures will in turn lead to increased entrepreneurial skills and community engagement by creating new income streams by exploring new ways of using their assets (e.g. collections or buildings) and broadening the appeal of the museum with more diverse user groups.These outcomes are further discussed in the next section.

The key outcome for BAC was to establish a tried and tested framework for small museums to test out new ideas and lead change which will be shared throughout the sector through live and digital discussions,further outlined in the next section.

This section looks at the impact of the programme on the participating museums through the lens of the expected outcomes for the organisations’ leaders: A more positive and confident approach towards risk-taking and experimentation; re-imagining organisational structures and exploring collaborative alternatives to hierarchical management structures; exploring new ways of engaging the community with physical assets such as collections or buildings; increased network connections and exposure to different ways of doing things; building internal advocates with the board, staff and community stakeholders; and increased value on reflection and evaluation to help question habits and assumptions.

01. A more positive and confident approach towards risk-taking and experimentation

Manchester Jewish Museum scratched several ways to engage diverse communities from food, music and storytelling sessions, events in the synagogue ranging from Bollywood concerts to hip hop mash ups called #SynaGigs, rotating #SynaGags- Jewish joke boards outside the museum and a public, staged Jewish wedding that tested ways of bringing the synagogue and its stories to life.

“ For Max, the process has been transformational. He was already an energetic and committed leader. He has become more able to share and more open, having more fun with the process. He used the opportunities of the programme to talk with senior leaders at BAC and engage with new networks of people and organisations” — Gaby Porter

At the start of the programme, strong leadership and shared understanding of the value of experimentation weren’t clear at Leominster Museum.Particularly since the Scratch event, the team is working with greater confidence and energy.

“ Since the event we have agreed that particularly if we are going to apply for serious amounts of funding for building works, we need better internal governance and a clearer consensus of what we need to do. There are people who are working hard for the museum but they are pulling in slightly different directions and we need to all be on the same page.”— Deborah Jarman


Nuneaton Museum and Art Gallery used their Scratch project to give more agency to other staff in the planning, delivery and evaluation of their [B]lab exhibition.

“ Catherine has become a more inclusive leader. She came in with a strong sense of needing things to remain safe, but that’s really shifting. She is exploring new ways of leading her team.” — Gaby Porter

“ We have enjoyed being creative so much, even though it’s a lot of work, it’s worth it. [Colleagues] embraced it in ways that I didn’t think were possible. They felt they got a lot out of it in terms of conversations with people, being creative, teamworking and being trusted.” — Catherine Nisbet

“ It has been really inspiring to witness Catherine’s remarkable transformation on this programme. She has been open minded and hearted throughout and always willing to give new experiences a go. Even if that has meant feeling vulnerable at moments. Catherine seems much more connected to her team than she did at the start of the programme.” — Jessie Wyld, BAC Producer Partner

Leominster Museum’s volunteers have, through the Creative Museums process, created more defined roles that encourage collaborative working. They have defined them to work more strategically where they can work more towards a shared purpose rather than in departmental silos.

“ I do know that particularly latterly, since the event, a larger number of people in the volunteer community realise what is possible. I do think that it has increased the level of vision… a number of people realise what needs to be done. Volunteers don’t know whether or not they are able to do it. It’s a daunting process but I do think definitely that scepticism has given way in some heads because these people from BAC have shown us what we could and should be doing.” — Deborah Jarman

02. Re-imagining organisational structures and exploring collaborative alternatives to hierarchical management structures

03. Exploring new ways of engaging the community with physical assets such as collections or buildings

Swindon Museum and Art Gallery took artefacts out of their traditional casings to re-envision their collection and bring new groups into the building.

Leominster Museum created a whole event and trail around their historic bun, encouraging community groups to get involved with the museum.

“ Trails of the Unexpected was excellent today — more like this! Real stories.” — Visitor feedback

“ It was a brilliant event, well thought out, perfect timing, engaging to all, and great to see people from the town involved too.” — Visitor feedback

“ Keep stretching the boundaries. The trail was both entertaining and moving.” — Visitor feedback

“ This is the opposite of what I would normally do! But wanting to start with the ideas and then move onto the practicalities. Trying to loosen up a bit and feel good about being more flexible and creative.” — Stephanie Vincent, Collections Project Manager

04. Increased network connections and exposure to different ways of doing things

Manchester Jewish Museum has built new networks and work with a diverse variety of stakeholders including artists, producers and other community groups. Through these new connections, they are now exploring various entrepreneurial opportunities like a bagel bakery and mobile café.

Brent Museum and Archives has explored working with new audiences and groups of people in the local area, specifically the large population of Brazilian people in the local area.

“ Our exhibition space will be programmed using Scratch for regular heritage events where we get feedback. That is a bit of a Scratch. This process has also helped me to get out of my ‘museum head’. The exhibition space will feel a lot freer now and we can do a lot more exciting things in the space.” — Libby Strudwick

“ It’s changed how I manage budgets, so that we have small, low cost ‘test’ events before we invest bigger sums of money. We were paying a company £500 an evening for our events and often not breaking even. Then we decided why not just build our own bar? And we did it for £150.” — Max Dunbar


Leominster Museum had a workshop with the whole board around leadership, shared purpose and priorities. They now have two task and finish groups to review governance, and to make a forward plan.

“ Several of the trustees have already said to me how very useful they thought the Mission Day workshop was. You have given us a great deal to think about, and also the motivation to get going and really put some of the thoughts into action. The Trustees have now agreed to set up two “task and finish” groups; one to consider the Governance of the museum and roles of Trustees and the other to consider defining our mission for the 21st century.” — Deborah Jarman

Brent Museum & Archives is developing more in-depth relationships connecting the museum with their local community and other areas within the Council like Public Health.

05. Building internal advocates with the board, staff and community stakeholders

“ We have adjusted the way we think about ourselves as a ‘Museum and Archives’. As a community Heritage organisation, really our only drive is to engage our community. However, we recognise that we have a duty to respond to the needs of this community. Our duty is also to respond, not just prescribe. We want to support the needs of our residents through working with adult and child social care services, helping people improve their skills and providing opportunities to meet people.” — Libby Strudwick

06. Increased value on reflection and evaluation to help question habits and assumptions

Max from Manchester Jewish Museum has found renewed value in reflection through connecting with mentors outside of the cultural sector.

“ Learning about the Scratch process and working with BAC Producers has made us re-assess the way we work. Through the Scratch process we have grown in confidence. We are now prepared to take risks and are concerned less about the final product, focusing more on the process we follow and the people we work with to get there. For us, this iterative, reflective, interactive and (often) cost effective process, works well as more people become involved in our work.” — Max Dunbar

Catherine from Nuneaton Museum and Art Gallery has realised the importance of evaluating throughout a project or exhibition in an iterative way through using Scratch.

“ Before Creative Museums, evaluation was often something I thought about at the beginning and the end of a project. But once you embark on working in an iterative way, you find that evaluating is part of the doing and it’s as important as the delivery.” — Catherine Nisbet

“ Now Catherine can see that her involvement on the Creative Museums programme has been much deeper and richer than originally anticipated. It hasn’t just been about finding ways of telling a good story (though it has been that too!) — it’s become a process of reflecting on her own leadership style, about learning to be playful in the workplace and about feeling empowered to inspire her team and enable them to bring their own creative ideas to fruition.” — Jessie Wyld, BAC Producer Partner


Although Brent did bring in new and diverse audiences, the most beneficial thing they felt they gained out of the programme was taking a leap into new ways of working. The way they developed the Brazil exhibition was new to them but they had such a great output that they want to Scratch their exhibitions as much as possible in the future.

Brent Museum: To bring more people into their building and engage with more diverse audiences.

A series of food, music and storytelling activities were scratched with new and diverse audiences, which have helped inform a 4 year HLF Activity Plan. This Plan sets out further scratches with diverse communities whilst the museum is closed for the capital works. Displays around Israel and Zionism were scratched with visitors, trustees and volunteers, providing valuable feedback which has helped shape the Interpretation Plan for the museum’s new gallery. A new manifesto and visioning document has also been scratched with staff and trustees, helping resolve issues around opening on Sabbath, selling kosher food and the museum’s position on Israel.

Manchester Jewish Museum: To engage new, diverse audiences, find ways to take advantage of period of museum closure for capital works in an innovative way and explore possibilities for organisational development and governance.

Their Scratch Project created an exciting community event and trail which engaged younger audiences and families, involved community groups, and invited local people to join a conversation and contribute their thoughts for the museum’s future. With BAC’s support, the Museum’s Board and volunteers have also clarified their responsibilities and begun to determine their priorities going forward.

Leominster Museum: To strengthen their relationship with younger audiences and other community groups and clarify their organisational structure and volunteer role descriptions.

Individual Museum impact

Through their [B]lab exhibition for their Scratch project, staff and local people were given more agency to engage with the artefacts in the museum, allowing them to add their own interpretations of what they mean to themand their personal histories.

Nuneaton Museum: To create a sense of ownership from local people and stakeholders and identify what the stories are that the Museum can tell and to explore creative ways of telling them.

Despite the fact that leadership has shifted throughout the programme, Scarborough Museums Trust has started to work with local youth organisations to test how their might use and interpret the collection for a partnership in the future.

Scarborough Museums Trust: To enliven the Geology collection and give local people a sense of ownership over it.

Swindon Museum also had a change in leadership throughout the programme but is beginning to use Scratch to be creative with the building and the collection, experiment to try out new ways to approach outreach, and engage with people around the new museum.

Swindon Museum: To explore what the stories of Swindon are to foster pride in local people by creating work that is immediate, hands-on, engaging and empowering to audiences.


01. Using Scratch in new ways has helped BAC have a better understanding of how to use Scratch and how to articulate the benefits of this process.

BAC Producers learned more about how Scratch begins to show what is possible and how it is much richer and more engaging than a normal consultation process. It has been eye-opening for museums to see the proactive, flexible approach that BAC has in everything they do and for Producers to understand their craft better. Producers are solution-focused problem solvers who find the courage to take risks and try out new ideas, giving licence for the museums to do the same. It was pivotal for the museum leaders to have an exemplar organisation to learn from and the close working relationship with producers to guide them through the process of how to embrace uncertainty, open up ideas to audiences, colleagues and stakeholders at an early stage, and take slow

Through Creative Museums, BAC was able to explore how using Scratch with the support of a Producer can be adapted and articulated in order to translate its benefits across sectors,in order to increase the resilience of the participating museums. The following outlines BAC’s main learning points from Creative Museums:

steps to develop these ideas in dialogue, learning at every stage. It helped the museum leaders to be less attached to the final product and instead more playful and inclusive in the process of experimentation: to say, “Let’s have a go and do it”.

02. Scratch does lead to a more open, flexible mindset which can lead to greater leadership and resilience.

The person-centred approach offered through Scratch was hugely positive and rewarding for museum partners, with all of them reporting how Scratch has been integral in shifting how they work with their staff and their communities. BAC learned that doing things locally with a sense of gentle and safe immediacy is an extremely effective approach for museums to take ‘safe risks’ and try new things. Scratch provides a framework for this to happen. However, for Scratch to be successful within a museum context, the approach not only

needs to be embraced and adopted by each leader, with a Producer mindset to hold and steer the creative process among different interests and participants, but these leaders also need to secure staff and board buy-in early on. Otherwise, resistance may arise around unsettling established structures and habits.

03. While the programme originally aimed to improve entrepreneurial thinking and foster new community partnerships, these are much longer term areas of development connected directly to leadership development in the first instance.

It was a longer process than anticipated for museum leaders and their teams to adopt Scratch in their work with communities and within their organisations. As a result, community engagement leading to longer term partnerships and ideas for

entrepreneurial projects for each museum is just beginning to happen as the programme comes to an end. Building relationships takes a long time and some museums were cautious about working differently and more directly with communities. Overall, museums were not as confident initially to build new relationships and Scratch helped them to take smaller steps in that process which felt less pressured, but many insist this is just the beginning when it comes to solidifying new partnerships.

When developing entrepreneurial opportunities, BAC found that it’s important to strengthen relationships both within and outside each organisation before solidifying new revenue streams. The aim for the Scratch Groups formed is that they will continue to stimulate new ideas and cement relationships which may lead to new collaborations and sources of support.

04. While Scratch and the Producer mindset offer huge benefits, they also call on leaders to take risks, embrace uncertainty and share their vulnerability.

Each of the museum leaders expressed their vulnerability in working in this way – leading their team with questions, not answers; delegating to others; widening the range of choices and opportunities; being open to learning through experimentation rather than avoiding failure; facing complex and potentially contested decisions. It was enormously helpful and reassuring for the cohort to hear David Jubb, Artistic Director at CEO at BAC, talk openly about his own feelings of vulnerability and defensiveness when early iterations of work that he had presented received negative responses; but recognising how much richer, more robust and more rewarding the new iterations became through the Scratch process.

05. Many museums, especially small ones, are facing greater pressures than we originally realised.

Aware of the uncertain financial position for many small museums, we asked applicants to the Creative Museums programme to commit to an 18-month programme, and sought confirmation of this from their governing bodies. Yet two of the museums selected for the cohort – in Swindon and Scarborough- then went through rapid and major changes in leadership and governance which unsettled the organisations and their ability to initiate or respond to change. In both organisations, the leaders who came into the programme are no longer in post. In Swindon, the Museum and Art Gallery was transferred from the local authority to a new trust in 2015, and a new Director and CEO was appointed in 2016, to take forward proposals for a new museum.

What are the key learning points?


In Scarborough, the Trust appointed joint interim CEOs in 2016 and is now exploring a partnership or merger with a local creative industries centre. For the independent museums participating in the programme – Manchester Jewish Museum, and Leominster Museum – future funding and support is uncertain. MJM is seeking support from the Heritage Lottery Fund and others to achieve major expansion and development, as well as ongoing revenue funding. Leominster Museum is exploring how to secure resources to improve the visitor experience and secure the museum’s future. The local authority museums are being asked to demonstrate greater value and benefit to local residents and to align with the priorities of their funders.

06. BAC now has a greater understanding of the museum sector and how to work within it.

Through working closely with museum leaders, staff and their communities, BAC staff, and its producers in particular, have gained many insights into working in the museum sector. They now have a better understanding of current practice of working with collections, objects and historic buildings, especially in small regional museums, through scratching ideas with each museum and its audiences. During the 18-month programme, producers have had to apply Scratch in new contexts and have grown in confidence in speaking about BAC, articulating and applying Scratch and sharing what they do with others outside the organisation. They have gained perspective on their own work and workplace by working closely with a very different style of organisation.

07. There is growing interest from museums and other heritage organisations to work with BAC in this way in the future.

Through Creative Museums, BAC discovered a need throughout the sector for this way of working. Many organisations want change and to move beyond familiar practices and models, but they are not sure how or where to start. Scratch offers a way in, mitigating many of the initial risks and challenges museums face.

BAC has already been able to share learning with the following organisations:

• Harris Museum: Scratch workshop for staff team, March 2016

• UCL: seminar day lecture, Theatrically Reimagining Collections, April 2016

• Bristol Museum and Art Gallery: lecture, Waving goodbye to Victorian Dad Conference, June 2016

• Horniman Museum: Panel presentation on Museums, Artists, Audiences. New Expressions working meeting event, October 2016

• MA conference: Presentation for The Scratch Museum designed by Tassos Stevens (Coney), November 2016

• National Trust: Workshop for Innovation Groups, November 2016

• Hampshire Cultural Trust: Consultancy on commissioning artists, January 2017

• Hampshire Cultural Trust: presentation for 6 shortlisted artists and Spring partners, February 2017

• National Trust: Lecture for their annual conference, February 2017

• AIM national conference, June 2017

08. Because of the impact and proven necessity for this type of work, BAC has already begunto consider how to further share and implement this knowledge and way of working in another form. These are the considerations as we develop our thinking and planning to take this work forward:

• Keep it small. It is important not to dilute the impact in order to reach greater numbers directly. It is more important to have a small number of people who are deeply immersed in the process and passionate about its benefits and impact to cascade to peers, partners and others.

• Work with small museums. These museums have an appetite for change: they have the potential to build strong roots and relationships in their localities; they are less bound by hierarchical ways of working; and they have had few opportunities to participate in national programmes of this kind before.

• Continue to include a coach as part of the programme. The role of the coach was valued highly by the museum leaders, in supporting them as they experienced profound personal and professional changes in their leadership and working relationships.

• Build in more Scratch iterations. Any future programme should allow for additional phases of Scratch to put this iterative process fully into practice.

• Incorporate more reciprocal staff development. Creative Museums was a development programme for BAC as well as for the participating museums. In any future programme, it would be useful to have more opportunities for peer learning, sharing and exchange between the organisations.

“ Working on the Creative Museums programme has been fascinating. I’ve been really impressed with the partner museums and their commitment to understanding and exploring what Scratch is. It’s been very rewarding to see the partners gradually take in that Scratch is a mindset; it’s a way of approaching your work. When you’re making a decision — test it, scratch it, model it. Use audiences and participants to respond at an early stage. Work the magic of an artist into the mix. And be confident in your vision and leadership to marry these ideas and frame your decisions going forward. In our last cohort meeting day one of the partners said ‘I realise now, that I’ve been on a programme about how I lead.’ It was a brilliant way to conclude.”

— Sarah Golding, Associate Artistic Director, BAC


Our museum adventure began in 2009 when a member of my team discovered and researched a humble plaque found behind a curtain in our building. It honoured the life of a local hero who died in 1909 called George Neighbour. Five years later, we created a building wide adventure for families called The Good Neighbour. This was part of a wider initiative to explore the history of our building supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. By 2016 we had become a museum taking responsibility for the Wandsworth collection and over the last two years, the Creative Museums programme has given us a great opportunity to learn from 6 marvellous museums around the country. And so our adventure continues.

If there is an overarching theme in this report it is CHANGE. It is not straightforward to capture something that is so personal to people’s own lived experience. I think the Creative Museums

If you have read this far then I hope you have found something inspiring in the report. Unless I have caught you skipping to the back of the book to look for the answers!

team have done a great job in assembling and making sense of the learning in the report. I would like to thank them for their hard work and thank all the museums and their terrific teams for participating so openly in this experiment. It has been a journey of discovery for all of us. I have been reflecting on two points of learning that are implicit in the report but I would like to bring out more strongly. The first is about our offer to the public as museums. The second is about the strength of our emotions during a process of change.

• What is our offer to the public?

Scratch and the role of the producer have helped reshape the UK’s theatre landscape over the last 15 years. I think they also have a major contribution to make to museums and the offer we make to the public. They have the potential to open up our organisations and make our offer

more multi-disciplinary, playful and engaging. In recent years I have begun to think how strange it is that we spend so much energy defining ourselves as “theatres” or “galleries” or “museums” and restrict our activities to limiting definitions of these institutions. With the swipe of a screen, people can sit on their sofa at home and move effortlessly around the globe, from one idea to another. So why should we expect the same people to walk in to our buildings in search of a singular experience? Why would they not want to have a multi-faceted, multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural experience? Cultural organisations of all kinds must face this challenge. Not just as a matter of relevance but as a matter of survival. It has been an honour to witness the work of the Creative Museums, beginning to think differently about their core offer and their purpose.

• The emotional process of change

An iterative, people-centred approach, like Scratch, along with a Producer’s Mindset, are useful aspects of any toolkit for managing change. The Creative Museums programme has helped me reflect on something that has always been true in Battersea — that we should expect change to be an emotional journey as well as an intellectual one.

It is emotional because it is personal and it is affecting. Arguably, it is not real change if it does not stir strong feelings along the way. But emotion is something that we tend to shun inside our organisations. We think it is not part of being professional. My final thought is that far from shunning the emotions we encounter, we should use them as a way of driving the process towards positive and progressive change. We should be ready to encounter our emotions, and those of others involved in the process. And enjoy them. Because they are part of how we transform and make positive change happen.

One last thanks, and that is to all the inspiring speakers and contributors to Creative Museums over the last two years. We have learnt so much from you. We are looking forward to continuing to work with museums around the country in the coming years. Our website will include details of different ways in which we plan to do this but we are just as interested to hear from you, if you have an idea or an approach that you want to share.

— David Jubb, CEO & Artistic Director, Battersea Arts Centre

For more information about BAC’s methodology and working with Scratch please visit bac.org.uk/content/39534/create_with_us/scratch/what_is_scratch For more information about Creative Museums contact [email protected]

“ I’ve found working with the museum partners really enriching to my own work. I’ve appreciated the chance to analyse our practice, and through its communication understand better the nature of our process here at BAC. I’ve also learnt much from the museum partners who have helped us as we have shaped our own emerging BAC Moving Museum strand of work. Sound advice and shared understanding at this stage has been very valuable for us.”

— Sarah Golding, Associate Artistic Director, BAC

A look ahead


ContributorsJune 2015 — April 2017

Project team:

David Jubb CEO and Artistic Director

Gaby Porter Gaby Porter + Associates

Sarah Golding Associate Artistic Director

Joanne Irvine Project Coach

Michelle Welbourn Project Manager

Meghan Peterson Evaluator

Miriam Sherwood Evaluation Co-ordinator

Sarah Snook Project Assistant

Micah Gordon-Bravette Photographer/Videographer

ContributingBAC team:

Andrew Bishop Director of Commercial Operations

Richard Dufty Head of Producing

Sophie Drury-Bradey Senior Producer

Layla El-Deeb Senior Marketing and Communications Manager

Roisin Feeny Agency Producer

Bethany Haynes Senior Producer

Shelley Hastings Senior Producer

Rebecca Holt Chief Operating Officer

Olivia Ivens Press and Communications Manager

Thea Jones Producer

Tobi Kyeremateng Junior Producer

Scott MacColl Capital Project Manager

Liz Moreton Senior Producer

Lara Taylor Producer

Ralph Thompson Producing Coordinator

Rosie Scudder Senior Producer

Clare Sutton Volunteer and Heritage Coordinator

Anne Wareing Development Manager

Maddie Wilson Project Coordinator, Artistic Director’s Office

Jessie Wyld Heritage Producer

Contributing speakers, artists and practitioners:

Niall Ashdown

Matthew Blake

Sarah Blowers

Tom Bowtell

Nick Cassenbaum

Michael Day CVO

Kirsty Harris

Hannah Fox

Jo Hunter

Evie Manning

Fran Moulds

Nikki and Luke

Manchester Museum

Amy Pennington

Becky Peters

Robin Simpson

Tassos Stevens

Susie Thornberry

Steve Tompkins

Jess Turtle

Matt Turtle

Partner venues: Creative Museums report:

Creative Museums would also like to thank:

Brent Museums and

Archives

Libby StrudwickHeritage Collections Manager

Antonia Harland-LangHeritage Officer

Research and

contributions from

Gaby Porter

Sarah Golding

Miriam Sherwood

Michelle Welbourn

Michael Day CVO

John Orna-Ornstein (ACE)

Sue Barnard (ACE)

Anne Murch

Hannah Fox

Manchester HOME

Sage Gateshead

Bristol Watershed

Authored by Meghan Peterson

Illustrations Meghan Peterson

Additional photography Miriam Sherwood

Leominster Museum Deborah JarmanVoluntary Education and Outreach Officer Geoffrey CroftsVoluntary Chair Chris JarmanVoluntary Treasurer

Manchester Jewish

Museum

Max DunbarCEO Gareth RedstonLearning Manager Alex CropperOperations Manager

Nuneaton Museum

and Art Gallery

Catherine NisbetMuseum and Arts Officer Matthew JohnsonMuseum Outreach Officer Becky HarveyAssistant Museum Officer Lindsay Searle Exhibition Officer

Scarborough

Museums Trust

Heather LaneJoint CEO Emily NelsonCommunity Curator Katie StrangGeologist

Swindon Museum Hadrian Ellory-van DekkerDirector

Nicki WesternPremises, Marketing and Events Manager Sophie CummingsCurator Stefanie VincentCollections Project Manager

Tracy WhiteManagement Support/Duty Manager


2015 — 2017 final evaluation report · to find new ways to play the long game – caring for...

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