Waving Not Drowning Project 2017 – 18

Evaluation

Rosie Crook Working Heritage December 2018

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Contents Executive Summary 3 Evaluation aims and methodology 6 Impacts and legacies 7 Project summary: Needs Analysis 10 Re-imagining the Museum: Core programme 11 Bespoke support and mentoring 13 External factors 15 Even better if…..lessons and recommendations 16 Legacies and models 17 Appendices: A - List of consultees 19 B - Interview templates 20 C - Useful links 21 Acknowledgements: The Evaluator would like to thank all consultees for their helpful, honest and reflective feedback. Grateful acknowledgements to Arts Council England for the funding that made the project possible and to Lancashire County Council officers for their support. Cover Image: Waving Not Drowning quilt ©by textile artist Louise Donovan http://www.louisedonovan.com/index.html

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Executive Summary

Following the closure of five of Lancashire County Council’s museums in 2016 due to budget reductions, groups of community volunteers and museum supporters expressed an interest in managing three museums (Fleetwood Museum, Judges’ Lodgings in Lancaster and the Museum of Lancashire in Preston) through an open 'call out' process. Waving Not Drowning was an 18-month programme of specialist support, mentoring and training for these groups. It was commissioned by Lancashire County Council Libraries and Museums Service, funded by Arts Council England and delivered by a team of museum sector and business expert consultants led by Project Co-ordinator Sara Hilton. Group members attended a number of seminars on Boards, governance, marketing and business planning as well as working individually with expert consultants on a range of bespoke issues they identified as important to their museum. These included: detailed business planning and clarifying business models; resilient Boards; audience development and consultation; managing museum operations including recruitment; working with freelancers and managing collections. IMPACTS and LEGACIES: Waving Not Drowning has been a major success. It was an initiative that came from the Museums Service staff and underlines the importance of involving them in the budget process.

• It has supported positive and secure outcomes and massively increased resilience for two out of the 3 museums it was funded to support.

• In discussions, all museum groups could identify positive learning, benefits and legacies from the programme. In all groups, individual members could describe personal learning journeys.

• Judges’ Lodgings Trust have described an extraordinary journey of learning and skill-sharing, including: governance, purpose and resilience for the Board, marketing and consultation, business planning and completely re-imagining their museum and its offer. The County Council has reopened the museum under Council management and LCC and the new Museum Manager will work collaboratively with the reinvigorated Trust through a formalised Joint Planning group. The Memorandum of Understanding is currently being agreed.

• This museum is unquestionably more resilient as a result of the project.

• Museum of Lancashire remains closed but is actually more resilient as a result of the process. Although it is still closed, the consortium has been

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through a robust and no holds barred business planning process which has demonstrated that the proposed business model is flawed.

• It is disappointing that regimental collections have to be removed from the museum. Individual members of the MoL consortium however are taking their learning elsewhere to support their collections and their local museums.

• Fleetwood Museum Trust has been supported with operational and strategic processes which will underpin their Accreditation process; with the recruitment of a new Museum Manager, with essential business planning and with practical Learning programmes and collections management. Members of the group highly valued the bespoke support although they did not all feel that they gained benefit from the seminars. In an ideal world, they would have preferred more hands-on help in recognition of the operational pressures on them. This group was the furthest advanced with running its museum and was juggling the everyday needs of the museum with the programme.

External factors

• Fleetwood Museum has obtained substantial support from Fleetwood Town Council which supports its revenue and its future. This gave it a strong advantage in moving forward.

• Fleetwood Museum’s Trust is ten years old and has a solid foundation as a constituted group. It also has long experience in supporting LCC staff in the museum as volunteers. It is both a strength and a challenge for the Trust to move from operational support to the strategic governance required in the future.

• The Museum of Lancashire consortium was working on a site which is subject to discussions about other potential uses which made its task more challenging. During the process the County Council withdrew its original offer of the whole site and set standards for opening which, combined with the withdrawal of AMOT (Army Museums’ Ogilvy Trust) support made the consortium feel that the proposal was unworkable. The work of their Waving Not Drowning consultant David Clark reinforced this view.

• Judges’ Lodgings Board is a new group of trustees which, because of the decision by the County Council to take the museum back in-house, now has

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a period of time to re-imagine the museum alongside the Council and create a more sustainable model.

Challenges

• Waving not Drowning, through the Project Co-ordinator and the Steering Group, provided a clear channel of communication between the groups and the County Council during a time when there were difficulties for the groups in communicating with the Council.

• Combining the groups into shared seminars was not always successful; groups expressed a degree of frustration about this slowing the process down and unfortunately did not form the supportive network which had been hoped. However, every group identified real value from their contacts with their individual consultants and with the Project Co-ordinator, and the programme’s flexibility in following their needs as they arose was much appreciated, as was the Arts Council’s willingness to be flexible about where funds were needed.

Legacies and models

• External expertise is extremely helpful in supporting community groups to take on assets, develop skills and create robust governance and resilient Boards. Can sector bodies and funders support this in threatened museums?

• Strong leadership, flexibility and expertise from the Project Co-ordinator has been crucial to the model.

• Local authorities should actively engage with communities well ahead of transferring facilities – typically two to two and a half years in advance

• Local authority processes should be transparent, clear and delivered in partnership.

• Volunteer boards are under stress and the burdens of responsibility and work make them fragile, especially since many of them are retired and volunteering as a second career. What measures can the museum sector take to support their wellbeing and how can boards diversify themselves to include successor trustees?

• Should wellbeing support and training be offered by sector support bodies?

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Evaluation aims and methodology The aim of the evaluation was to establish the impact of the Waving Not

Drowning project and thus the difference made by the ACE grant to the

museum groups, to the resilience of these museums and to sector learning.

Methodology.

I carried out group discussions, face to face and telephone interviews with

26 individuals: the Project Co-ordinator, Steering Group members, Boards

of Fleetwood Museum Trust and Judges’ Lodgings Trust, individuals from

the Museum of Lancashire Consortium, current and former Lancashire

County Council staff and the consultants who delivered the project. The

interviews were based on these questions:

• What are the overall successes, challenges and legacies of the

project, for the groups and museums concerned, Lancashire County

Council and the wider museum sector?

• How did the needs analysis serve the community groups and shape

the programme?

• How did the core programme and the bespoke support from their

mentors assist the groups?

• What was the importance of external factors in the outcome for each

museum?

From the transcripts of these interviews* I pulled out common themes by

frequency of mention and emphasis or weight. In some cases, these themes

came as direct responses to a question; in others they emerged from

general discussion.

The honesty, clarity and willingness of all interviewees to engage with the

evaluation and reflect on the project was heartening and argues strongly

for the project’s significance, in some cases more than 12 months after

people engaged with it.

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I would also like to acknowledge here the sheer passion and commitment

offered to all these community museums by the volunteer groups that

support them.

*Quotes included in this text are anonymised from individual interviews

and group discussions.

Impacts and legacies Resilience and capacity building within the museum groups ` The programme gave people personal engagement and authority. It transmitted skills in business planning and marketing and branding. It moved the groups towards ownership.’ Two of the three museums which took part in the project have increased their resilience and created more secure futures for themselves. Judges’ Lodgings Trust commented that `Waving Not Drowning has been a really useful staging post. It would have been scary if we had been given the responsibility of running the museum at the original time… We have trust and transparency with County staff and we feel that this process has also shown LCC some different ways of doing museums. We can now use the findings of the project on diversity, variety of income, outreach and different types of museums, together’. It is clear that `Waving Not Drowning has created a legacy of transfers that will be sustainable. All three museum groups worked on business plans with expert advisors, building on skills already within the groups with a deep knowledge of the museum sector and comparator museums.

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Hard outputs: two of the three museums now have business plans, learning programmes, operational advice, completed collections documentation, Board development and governance work and in the case of Judges’ Lodgings, new mission and vision documents. Although Fleetwood Museum Trust did not feel that the strategic work was timely for them because of other pressures, it will prove very important to underpin their Accreditation planning and future resilience. New staff: Fleetwood Museum Trust has been supported through Waving Not Drowning to recruit a new Museum Manager and this gives a major boost to the museum’s development in the future. Judges’ Lodgings also has a completely new staffing structure and full team including a Museum Manager who is key to future collaboration with the Trust. New programmes: Fleetwood Museum Trust has a proposed new Learning programme that will train volunteers, create new family activities for holidays and deliver a very positive new offer for the Museum. Business planning at Judges’ Lodgings has looked at catering, retail and consultation with audiences and all these reports are resources available to be used in the management of the museum over the next few years and to support the general running of the museum in the future. New strategic and business plans are currently being produced through the JL Joint Planning Group which comprises LCC officers and JL Trustees.

Knowledge transfer and skill sharing: Personal Learning `There was not a day when I didn’t leave having learnt something’ A number of people across all three Trusts describe definite personal learning journeys. People with careers and skills in other sectors already have a huge amount to contribute to museum boards: Waving Not Drowning enabled them to acquire museum specific knowledge at a fast pace and from sector experts. ``People got PERSONAL engagement and authority. The consultants transmitted skills..it upskilled the members of the groups to be able to really understand the issues behind running their museum and making positive decisions which will lead to future resilience for the museum’

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Board skills Judges’ Lodgings Trust now has a Board that is newly skilled, trained and aware of

the range of issues involved in running a museum, including collections care,

audience development, consultation (both online and in person), business

planning, marketing and working with freelancers. Trust members have

undertaken an extraordinary journey into knowledge and enthusiasm about the

museum sector and their museum in particular which makes them very robust

and potentially successful partners of the museum in its current situation, and

potentially excellent future managers of the museum.

Fleetwood Museum Trust has carried out board and governance work which will

be of great value in the future. Most importantly for this group, its business

planning is sound, realistic and will support this already established museum to

thrive.

Museum of Lancashire remains closed but ironically this is because of sound

business and financial investigations which demonstrated the gap in the business

case for the revised site proposal, preventing the consortium from going ahead

with an ultimately unsustainable proposal. Members of the consortium felt that

the decision to withdraw was determined by three things: a change in strategy by

Lancashire County Council which meant that the offer of potential occupation of

the whole site was withdrawn; late clarification by the County Council of their

requirements eg 365 day opening; a change of heart by AMOT ( Army Museums

Ogilvy Trust) about their support and a feeling that the Museum was less

significant to the Council than others being externalised which made the

consortium lose heart. This decision was underpinned by David Clark’s forensic

and expert work on the business planning. It is a disappointing side effect of this

that regimental collections will be relocated although one of these will

consolidate another regimental museum in Hampshire and the ambition for the

other is for it to remain in the region with some areas of the collection on display.

In all the museums robust, fact based, expert business planning has been one of the main outputs.

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Other museum skills mentioned by group members: Consultation – in person, creative consultation, and online, using Surveymonkey and email Understanding how museums have changed – `that we need to engage people with our artefacts in new ways’ Audience development principles – being more focused in targeting audiences Working with freelancers – including recruitment, briefing and challenging reports Collections management Collections documentation – in partnership with LCCMS staff

The project

Needs Analysis The needs analysis was key to the success of the subsequent programme and the bespoke mentoring. It was based on a detailed process involving briefing and meetings with groups by

LCCMS staff on eg issues like collections management; briefing of Sara Hilton the

Project Co-ordinator, detailed meetings between Sara and all the consultants with

the groups; SWOT analyses; skills audits; self- assessments – all informed the

programme to make it as useful as possible.

Two groups could see a connection between some if not all elements of the

programme and their specific needs as identified in the Needs Analysis. People

were mixed about skills audits: most people remembered these but one group

didn’t see a connection between those and the content of the programme or

didn’t feel the results had been fed back and directly linked with the programme,

although the bespoke support was seen to be what they wanted and needed.

Another group commented very positively about how their prior expertise in

professions other than museums had been recognised and they had been seen as

individuals with transferable skills.

` It was heartening. We were taken completely seriously; it was not a humouring

exercise, it was a proper discussion.’

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Most importantly, the Needs Analysis was also an ongoing process: one of the

successes of the project was the responsiveness of the Project Co-ordinator and

the consultant team to needs as they arose – from expert boat surveys to

contacts in marketing and human resources to public consultation.

`Sara was always responding to what was coming back from the groups’ `A skills audit was done. Sara was always open to suggestions for the sessions and what was wanted. It was a pre-designed programme but within that they were always open to new ideas and Sara was very good at keeping it on track.’ All the consultants describe starting out with a strategic brief which became far more specific and immediate once they had also done further needs analysis with the groups. This was actually one of the strengths of the project because it established a proper dialogue and made sure that consultant expertise was used to the best advantage for each group. ` I started off intending to be strategic…. but became much more tactical because it was clear that the big priority was the Business Plan submission and that the group needed some practical tools to support that.’

Re-Imagining the Museum: Core Programme All groups took part in three core sessions: Session 1: Core purpose, Mission and Governance Session 2: Clarifying purpose, marketing and collections management systems Session 3: The entrepreneurial museum: diversifying income, museums in their communities, developing audiences The quality of the programme, the expertise of the consultants delivering and the

invited speakers and carefully chosen locations were, in museum sector terms,

second to none. This kind of content is frequently specially commissioned or

organised by individual museums or sector bodies. The situation was different in

this phase of Waving Not drowning because the groups had not commissioned

the programme or asked to do it.

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One group struggled to see the relevance of the content to the immediate

demands they were facing.

` We were miles ahead of the others and ready to go but we got put in with the

others…the meetings and residentials didn't fit in with the programme of running

the museum. We felt we were being held back and they should have recognised

Fleetwood as a different, skilled entity. We had already done the museum skills

workshops with MDNW.’

Others found the content both interesting and relevant.

`It would have seemed foolish not to do it because you don’t know what you don’t

know. Standard stuff was personalised and the content couldn’t be improved. It

was common sense from a business and management perspective’.

`The programme was interesting and useful, giving us other experiences and the chance to meet other groups.’ `I found that the most exciting part. Inspiring’ For others, the timing issue was the main challenge `It was a bit of an ask in time investment’ `It was a very valuable exercise but the timing was a challenge, trying to do that alongside the bid [Business Plan?]’ On balance, the positive reactions to the training content outweigh the negative by two to one – and it is difficult to design a training event that pleases everyone. One person suggested that focus is the key; smaller groups, less explanation of each other’s museums and groups and a shorter content which makes volunteers feel it is a good use of their time. One comment was that ideally LCC would have done an options appraisal for the whole process rather than a simple closure list. This would have identified potentially interested groups and supported them individually in advance with this kind of learning. The lack of influence over the budget reductions process from the Museum Service staff was unhelpful here.

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The Waving Not Drowning training content wil have a legacy as the underpinning of Accreditation work and good Board practice in the future. It built capacity within groups for the subsequent detailed business planning.

Bespoke support and mentoring Support delivered Group Consultant/s Focus Outcomes

Fleetwood Museum Trust

Peter Middleton, Sara Hilton Rachel Mulhearn Gaby Porter Heritage Learning Team LCCMS staff and external advisors on boat surveys

Business planning Contracts Recruitment Operational management Governance and Board resilience Family holiday activities Boat surveys Collections documentation

Business Plan Rejection of unsatisfactory contract Recruitment of Museum Manager Advice and suggestions to support operations manuals etc Documentation More outcomes pending

Judges’ Lodgings Trust

Peter Middleton Sara Hilton Emma Parsons

Business Planning Market Appraisal Contractual issues Audience development

Business Plan including market appraisal, catering and retail reports Consultation tools including online and in person skills

Museum of Lancashire Consortium

David Clark Sara Hilton

Business planning and site options

The work showed that the business plan was unsustainable and the consortium withdrew.

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This element of the programme was universally highly valued.

The consultants were able to bring objectivity and realism to the process from the

perspective of a `critical friend’. One person pointed out that the fact that they

were independent, had not given years of time and input to a particular museum,

meant they could be `critical, clinical, honest.’ They created a safe space where

the groups could refine their ideas before approaching the County Council and

funders. All the groups appreciated this access to top quality advice and expertise.

`Peter Middleton was a breath of fresh air! He was practical, talked at the right

level’.

`Peter gave us a great service with the draft business planning as well as support

on the collections contract: Rachel was great on the collections, schedule of

accreditation documents and behind the scenes on the projected budgets for

collections care’.

`David [Clark]’s input was a reality check. Those sessions were very useful. His

work was the most valuable part of the project’.

`Sara and Peter were really helpful at pushing through on the bad parts of the

contract and the State Aid issue’.

Some members of Fleetwood Museum Trust had hoped for more hands-on

delivery rather than advice, and there was clearly a very heavy demand on the

Trustees who also volunteer and run the museum and who had delivered a huge

amount of commitment to get the museum open again. They commented that

they would have liked to start the Core Programme again after it finished, when

they felt they had time for it!

Others felt there had been very useful practical support for business planning,

contract negotiation and recruitment.

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One consultant felt that a further and more detailed needs analysis with this

group would have benefited the impact they were able to have and perhaps have

found a solution to these time and commitment problems.

Sara Hilton was mentioned more often than any other consultant in group feedback. `Sara's spread of knowledge and depth of analysis were absolutely crucial. She was REALLY effective at spotting what people needed and engaging so positively’.

It is clearly a strong part of the project’s success that the Co-ordinator was so proactive and engaged, the groups were so committed and open to new knowledge and the consultants were so expert and responsive. All groups identify this part of the project as the most useful, perhaps because its outputs were the most clear. However, the strategic and visioning work is likely to re-emerge as significant as the groups move further into managing their museums and could well come to have as much impact and significance as the `hard output’ work.

External factors which had an impact on the project

• Fleetwood Museum has secured substantial funding from Fleetwood Town

Council which has made it possible for the museum to continue.

• Fleetwood Museum Trust has been founded for 10 years and has its basis in

long standing volunteering in the Museum, which gives stability and

continuity to the Board.

• Judges’ Lodgings Trust Board consists of all new members who joined in

response to the closure threat. This has the advantage of new eyes and

fresh mindsets and the group were very receptive to the ideas of Waving

Not Drowning.

• The Judges' Lodgings Trust Board had the benefit of a Trustee with many

years' experience within the museum profession and so was able to

reinforce areas of need that are particular to this world eg collections

management (conservation and care balanced with access) etc.

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• Museum of Lancashire consortium was caught up in bigger issues around

the site including change n what was originally offered, and late

notification of operating requirements, as well as the withdrawal of key

support from Army Museums Ogilvy Trust. This was a major part of the

consortium’s withdrawal from the proposal. Waving Not Drowning

consultant David Clark helped the group identify income shortfalls and

business planning problems caused by this decision and the group took the

disappointing but logical step of withdrawing.

Even better if….lessons and challenges Managing and communicating local authority processes. This is an issue that emerged from almost every interview. The County Council was in the difficult and challenging position of needing to make severe budget reductions and the museum closures proposal came from this situation. This inevitably involves sensitivity around legal, political and human resources matters. Consultees felt strongly that communications with parts of the County Council were intermittent and fractured and were unhelpfully constrained by what officers were allowed to communicate. Groups expressed concerns that

• they found it hard to obtain timely legal and financial information

• there was confusion around legal, estates and contractual issues

• they would have preferred a more open, collaborative and engaged

approach with themselves seen as partners with the authority

• political changes and some of the political context were not really

explained, meaning that decisions and reversals came as a surprise and

situations like `purdah’ became very frustrating to the groups

`The staff we came into contact with were all that one would have wished …but it was an unhelpful way of running a process’

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`Staff were always friendly and welcoming but we could tell they were constrained in what they could tell us’. `It was frustrating waiting for the LCC council timetable and the committee meetings’. `The first twenty minutes of each meeting with the group was taken up with their frustration with LCC ’. Clearly, Council staff were themselves in a difficult position during this period of upheaval. In this context, the Waving Not Drowning consultants and especially the Project Co-ordinator became an important channel of communication from the groups to the Council via the Steering Group. This was seen as very valuable by the groups but could also be regarded as a diversion of both Sara’s time and the purpose of Waving Not Drowning. The process excluded expertise, such as that of Museums Service staff, from direct engagement with the groups. This issue also meant that a lot of consultant time with the groups was spent hearing frustrations with LCC communication or addressing matters which were not directly related to the delivery of the project.

Legacies and models Relationship building Local authorities are not always able to communicate the details and challenges of their processes. However, if a local authority is at least considering the possibility of future externalisation of museums, it should

• establish a dialogue, a process and a collaboration with potentially

interested groups well in advance of any decision being made

• be involved at an operational and expert service level in the

discussions, and

• establish clear channels of communication in advance and maintain

them throughout the process.

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This could take at least two to two and a half years before any externalising takes place and is needed for each museum affected. Mass externalisation or closure without these embedded relationships and resilient community managers is setting the future community management of museums up to fail. Impartial and expert advice This has proved to be invaluable for museum groups in the current situation. Clearly not every museum being externalised can receive a grant to work with expert consultants, and therefore it would be useful for sector support and funding bodies to consider how to capture the learning from Waving Not Drowning to make it available more widely.* The bespoke consultancy has proved most useful; might there be a way for funders to have designated grants for this? *Since this report was written AIM has published a very useful Success Guide for local authorities planning to externalize museums – see Appendix C Useful Links

Volunteer board welfare Waving Not Drowning has also shown how anxious, hard work and stressful the externalisation process can be. Most volunteer board members are retired from other careers and find themselves devoting enormous amounts of time, energy and emotional input. Welfare and wellbeing programmes could be considered to address this, as well as diversifying boards to include younger and different volunteers.

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Appendix A: List of consultees LCCMS and LCC current staff: Steering Group Sue Ashworth – current Project Leader David Brookhouse Heather Davis Ian Watson Martine Winder

Project Co-ordinator Sara Hilton

LCCMS former staff and Project Leader Gill Brailey

Fleetwood Museum Trust Keith Porter – Chair Sue Porter – Secretary Sonia Alderson – Board member Charlie MacKeith – Board member Margaret Turner – Board member Richard Gillingham – Board member Cllr Terry Rogers – Board Member and Fleetwood Town Council Elected Member Ben Whittaker – Museum Manager

Judges’ Lodgings Trust Garth Lindrup – Chair Sue Widden – Secretary Roger Jump – Treasurer Liz Feather – Board member

Museum of Lancashire Consortium Ralph Assheton – Duke of Lancaster’s Own Yeomanry Godfrey Tilney – 14/20 Kings’ Royal Hussars

Consultant Team Gaby Porter – Gaby Porter Associates Emma Parsons – Emma Parsons Consulting David Clark – DCA Consultants Peter Middleton – L & R Consulting Rachel Mulhearn – Rachel Mulhearn Associates

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Appendix B: Interview templates Steering Group members (past and present): 1. Can you tell me about the background to Waving Not Drowning and the context in which it started? 2. Can you talk me through the Steering Group and your involvement in it? 3. What impacts have you observed on the groups? 4 What challenges have you seen? 5. What in your opinion is the current position for the three museums? 6. What lessons and legacies has Waving Not Drowning left for the sector or other museums?

Project Co-ordinator 1. Can you talk me through the start of your involvement with the project? 2. Can you describe the process of Needs Analysis and devising the programme? 3. Can you describe the content and delivery of the Core Programme Re-Imagining the Museum? 4. What impacts have you seen on the groups? 5. What challenges have there been? 6. Where do you think the groups are now? 7. What lessons and legacies are there for the sector or other museums?

Groups: Fleetwood Museum Trust, Judges’ Lodgings, MoL Consortium Introduction: purpose of the evaluation and independence of the evaluator 1.Can you talk me through the start of the process – where would you say your groups was before Waving Not Drowning? 2.Can you describe how your needs and requirements for support were assessed? 3. What were your views on the Core Programme Re-Imagining the Museum – residentials and one day seminars? 4. What were your views on the level and appropriateness of the bespoke support from your consultant/ mentor? 5. Where do you feel you are now? 6. What worked best and had the most impact? 7. What could have been done differently or was a challenge? 8. What might be useful to other groups or is a legacy for you?

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Consultants 1.Can you describe your briefing and first involvement with the project? 2. Were you involved with the needs analysis? 3.How did you shape your plans in response to meeting the groups? 4.Can you describe the detailed support you gave? 5.Were there any external factors that affected your work? 6. Where do you think you had most impact? 7. How would you sum up the project’s impact, success and legacies including for others in a similar position?

Appendix C Useful Links Museums and Collections at Risk Statement – ACE https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/working-together-protect-museums-and-collections-risk Museums Association Guidance on museums facing closure https://www.museumsassociation.org/download?id=1223556 Association of Independent Museums Success Guide: Successfully taking over your local museum https://www.aim-museums.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/V-5-Successfully-Taking-Over-Your-Local-Museum-2018-6.pdf