Navigating Change: Advocacy, Influencing and Negotiating
Times are particularly challenging at the moment for museums and heritage sites. The impact of COVID-19, the cost of living and energy crisis, and ongoing funding and staffing cuts have affected us all, leaving us frequently needing to advocate for our sites.
This free in person course has been developed for museum staff and volunteers who are finding themselves needing to advocate for their museum service during periods of change. The course will also cover negotiating and influencing skills. Lastly, this training will also focus on supporting museum staff through managing change and looking after their own wellbeing.
Museum Development East Midlands (MDEM) and Ted Learning are partnering up to help build resilience during these challenging times.
Maximum two delegates per organisation. Priority will be given to delegates from non-NPO and non-National museums in the Midlands which are Accredited or officially Working Towards Accreditation.
Navigating Change: Advocacy, Influencing and Negotiating
March 19, 10.30-3pm
National Civil War Centre, Newark, NG24 1JY
Strengthening your Trustee Board – approaches to succession and recruitment
Trustee succession planning is an important part of good governance and an area all museum charities should be considering.
- Have you considered how the board will manage if one of the trustees decides to leave?
- Do you have gaps in skills and experience on your board and a need for new expertise and experiences?
- Have you thought about the representation on your board, does it reflect a range of views, viewpoints and your museum’s audiences?
- Are you fully up to date with your governing document and the rules and terms of office for trustees?
Join heritage consultant, Heather Lomas and fellow trustees at this quick fire session to discuss approaches to trustee succession planning, effective recruitment, induction, trustee motivations and lots more.
There will be plenty of time for discussion and sharing of top tips.
Monday 11 March, 6pm-8pm
Please note you must be a member of the West Midlands Museum Development Trustee Network to attend this training session – please sign up here if you’re not: https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/TrusteeNetworkEOI/
Dr Tristram Hunt: Colonialism and Collecting
ILAS Global Challenge lecture
With a collection born of the East India Company and material whose origins stretch across the British Empire, the ethics and practice of restitution is of growing importance to the Victoria and Albert Museum. In this lecture, historian and V&A Director Dr Tristram Hunt argues that museums should be less concerned about becoming sites of ‘transitional justice,’ adjudicating on the colonial past, and focus more on detailed, trans-national provenance research. Through biographies of objects with so-called ‘contested heritage,’ Dr Hunt will explain the V&A strategy of Renewable Cultural Partnerships and how museums can engage with, and shape, the coming era of restitution and collections equity between the Global North and South.
Wednesday 7 February 6pm-7pm
Westminster Theatre and Online via Microsoft Teams
Caring for Archives and Works on Paper
This workshop is aimed at general museum staff and volunteers who care for paper objects such as books, maps, archives, photographs, prints, posters, sketchbooks, watercolours and framed works. The day will include practical sessions covering handling, storage and preventative conservation (upkeep and housekeeping).
The session with cover:
- Identification of different paper objects
- How to handle a wide variety of objects including rolled maps, books and flat objects such as photographs, posters and prints
- Storage and packing solutions for different paper-based objects including how to make storage envelopes and folders and labelling and marking
- Advice and tips on environmental monitoring, everyday preservation of objects museum staff and volunteers can carry out, including dusting
- There will be an emphasis on greener collection care throughout the day.
There will also be the opportunity for a tour of Herefordshire Archive and Records Centre building itself which is the UK’s first archival storage building to be built to the rigorous Passivhaus standard.
About the trainers:
The workshop will be led jointly by Liz Bowerman ACR, Senior Conservator at Herefordshire Archive and Records Centre and Emily O’Reilly ACR, Freelance Paper Conservator. Emily O’Reilly is an Accredited Conservator and a Fellow of the International Institute of Conservation, she has worked for national museums and art collections including the National Trust on a wide variety of paper objects.
Caring for Archives and Works on Paper
Wednesday 13 March, 10.30am-4.30pm
Herefordshire Archive and Records Centre, Hereford HR2 6LA
Getting Your House in Order: Audit
Do you have the collections and information you think you have?
This session will explore the Spectrum 5.1 Audit procedure – systematically checking the accuracy and completeness of the information you have about your collections.
At the most basic level, the procedure confirms that your records match the physical reality: you have all the objects you should have, correctly numbered and located where they are supposed to be. We will explore the difference between the Inventory and Audit procedures, discuss the benefits of undertaking regular audits and how you might approach this.
Before the session:
- Think about how you do things in your museum, referring to your museum’s policy and procedures related to Audit. You might also find it useful to have these with you to refer to during the session
- Please check you have a working microphone, for discussions
Essential Information
Maximum two delegates per organisation.
Accessibility
These online events will be auto-captioned by Zoom. If you would benefit from live captioning or any other form of access support, please answer ‘yes’ to the access requirements question on the booking form and email the WMMD team as early as possible stating the support you require.
These events are run in partnership with Museum Development East Midlands (MDEM). The events will be hosted by MDEM on their Zoom account. By booking onto these events you give permission to share your booking information with the events partners for the purpose of the events administration. WMMD’s privacy policy can be viewed here and MDEM’s privacy policy can be viewed here.
All participants will receive an email containing a Zoom link to the training prior to the event. The email will be sent to the email address used for booking. If you have not received an email the day before the event please contact us.
If you can’t see the booking button, this event is fully booked. To join the waiting list please email wmmd@ironbridge.org.uk
Getting Your House in Order: Audit
Thursday 14 March, 10am-12noon
Online
Getting Your House in Order: Documentation Histories and Manuals
Are your in-house instructions in a clear and useable format?
Have you recorded key information about historic cataloguing systems, old numbering systems and policies?
This session will firstly explore how to develop or review your procedures manual. We will also look at how to gather and record information about the history of your documentation systems, and the potential benefits of this information.
We will explore this topic using elements from the Collections biography toolkit developed by Museum Development Yorkshire, alongside Collections Trust’s guidance about developing procedures manuals:
By the end of the session, delegates will:
- Understand the importance of a procedures manual and how to produce one.
- Understand the benefits of capturing the history of your museum’s documentation systems.
- Understand the types of information you can include in a documentation history and how to identify sources of information.
- Begin to think about how your organisation might approach capturing and recording this history.
Before the session:
- Think about how you do things in your museum, referring to any written information about your museum’s current and previous documentation systems. You might also find it useful to have this with you to refer to during the session.
- Please check that you have a working microphone, for discussions.
Essential Information
Maximum two delegates per organisation.
Accessibility
These online events will be auto-captioned by Zoom. If you would benefit from live captioning or any other form of access support, please answer ‘yes’ to the access requirements question on the booking form and email the WMMD team as early as possible stating the support you require.
These events are run in partnership with Museum Development East Midlands (MDEM). The events will be hosted by MDEM on their Zoom account. By booking onto these events you give permission to share your booking information with the events partners for the purpose of the events administration. WMMD’s privacy policy can be viewed here and MDEM’s privacy policy can be viewed here.
All participants will receive an email containing a Zoom link to the training prior to the event. The email will be sent to the email address used for booking. If you have not received an email the day before the event please contact us.
If you can’t see the booking button, this event is fully booked. To join the waiting list please email wmmd@ironbridge.org.uk
Getting Your House in Order – Documentation Histories and Manuals
Wednesday 21 February, 2pm-4pm
Online
Get Accreditation Ready: Preparing your Accreditation Application
Get Accreditation Ready: Preparing your Accreditation Application
This practical workshop will provide an overview of the Museum Accreditation Standard. It will cover the standard’s requirements, the process of preparing an application or return, supporting guidance and resources, and the online application portal. The workshop will be peppered with practical exercises and group discussion so that participants can learn from one another.
This in-person, full day session is ideal for museums who are applying for the first time, are already Accredited and preparing their return, or those seeking to refresh their knowledge of the Scheme.
Bookings close: 5pm, Monday 19 February
About Jennie Crawford
Jennie is the Midlands Accreditation Advisor for 23/24. She has extensive knowledge of the museum Accreditation standard having worked as an Accreditation Adviser for Arts Council England (2011-15) and Museum Development NW (2018-22).
Maximum two delegates per organisation. This is for all museums in the East and West Midlands. Museums in the East Midlands can book their place here.
Accessibility
This workshop will be held at West Midlands Police Museum. You can read about the museum’s accessibility arrangements here: https://museum.west-midlands.police.uk/plan-your-visit/access/
If you would benefit from any adjustment or support for accessibility, please answer ‘yes’ to the access requirements question on the booking form and email the WMMD team as early as possible stating the support you require.
Dietary
Drinks and refreshments will be provided throughout the day and a vegetarian buffet will be provided at lunch. Please let us know any allergies or dietary requirements on the booking form when you book your place.
Accreditation Workshop
Thursday 21 March, 10am-3pm
West Midlands Police Museum, B4 6BJ
Introduction to Sustainable Development
Workshop and Surgeries with Henry McGhie
Climate change, inequality, decolonisation, budgets, social inclusion. Society faces so many challenges, and museums face many pressures to address them, both from funders and from our own desire to make an impact.
Which challenges should we choose?
How can we avoid ping-ponging from one issue to another?
Sustainable Development can help.
Sustainable Development is an invitation to all parts of society to work for a world with universal respect for human rights and to protect and restore the natural environment.
This two hour online workshop with Henry McGhie will explore the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and how Sustainable Development can support museums to:
- understand local challenges and direct your resources and opportunities to addressing them
- strengthen how you contribute to a better world, by working to do more good, and do less harm, tailored to your local reality
- draw on information about the wider world to access existing tools and resources
- helps you to set goals, make plans, and to monitor and communicate your impact
- understand how human rights and environmental goals are the foundations of sustainable development
Henry is offering one-to-one follow-up surgeries in early March to provide tailored advice or further detail on how Sustainable Development can support your work. Please email wmmd@ironbridge.org.uk for more information and a book a surgery.
About Henry McGhie
Henry McGhie has a background as an ecologist, museum curator and manager. He runs the consultancy Curating Tomorrow, working to strengthen museums’ contributions to sustainable development agendas, including the SDGs, climate action, biodiversity conservation, human rights, and Disaster Risk Reduction.
Introduction to Sustainable Development
Thursday 22 February, 10am-12pm
Online
If you can’t see the booking button, this event is fully booked. To join the waiting list please email wmmd@ironbridge.org.uk
Carbon Literacy Training sessions 2 and 3
634 museum staff, volunteers and trustees have become Carbon Literate through Museum Development England since November 2021.
Reducing your energy usage means reducing your energy bills, benefitting both your budget and the planet.
West Midlands Museum Development (WMMD) and Museum Development East Midlands (MDEM) are partnering to deliver several rounds of training, using the Carbon Literacy for Museums Toolkit developed by Museum Development and the Carbon Literacy Trust as part of the national Roots and Branches project.
What is a Carbon Literacy course? Becoming Carbon Literate will give you an understanding of what climate change is, the scale of its effects, and how museums fit into the global, national and local picture to address climate change. You become Carbon Literate by making an individual pledge, and an organisational pledge to take back to your museum, of what you can do, and is in your power to achieve, to make a significant difference to your carbon impact.
Who can attend? Anyone – we welcome all trustees, managers, volunteers and paid staff from museums across England who want to understand the part they can play in tackling the climate emergency.
What’s involved? The course is made up of four modules – the first module is pre-recorded and there are three Zoom sessions:
- Tuesday 27 February – the pre-recorded module will be sent to you. It lasts 1 hour 30 minutes
- Tuesday 5 March, 10am-12.30pm – Zoom session 1
- Thursday 7 March, 10am-12noon – Zoom session 2
- Thursday 7 March, 1pm-3pm – Zoom session 3
You only need to book once for the whole course.
Attendees will be certified as Carbon Literate once they’ve successfully completed the course. Therefore, it is essential you are able to attend all three Zoom sessions and undertake all course activities in full.
Bookings close: 5pm, Monday 19 February
Maximum two delegates per organisation. Priority will be given to delegates from non-NPO and non-National museums in the East Midlands and West Midlands which are Accredited or officially Working Towards Accreditation.
This event is run in partnership with West Midlands Museum Development (WMMD) and Museum Development East Midlands (MDEM). The event will be hosted by MDEM on their Zoom account. By booking onto this event you give permission to share your booking details with the event partners for the purpose of the event administration. WMMD’s privacy policy can be viewed here and MDEM’s policy can be viewed here.
Accessibility
This event will be auto captioned through Zoom. If you would benefit from other forms of access support, including live captioning, please answer ‘yes’ to the access requirements question on the booking form and email the WMMD team as early as possible stating the support you require.
All participants will receive an email containing a Zoom link prior to each event. The email will be sent to the email address used for booking. If you have not received an email by the day before the event please contact us.
Leading Through Change
This course supports leaders and managers with the skills needed to lead your teams effectively through periods of change.
Why come on the course?
If your organisation or team is going through a period of change, it can be a challenging time to ensure everyone feels supported and is able to continue to work productively. As a leader you’ll need to focus not only on the practicalities that change brings but understand how to support your people on an emotional level.
This course will give you the tools to do that, whatever your level of leadership or management responsibility in your in your museum, whether it’s in a voluntary, paid or trustee capacity.
Learning outcomes:
At the end of the course, you’ll be able to
- identify the skills and attributes of an effective leader
- recognise how different individuals respond to change and the impact this has
- explain how to manage change effectively in your organisation
- identify ways to positively impact how you lead others through change
What is it?
An interactive, full day course delivered by change management expert, Nigel Rothband, which will give you a greater understanding of how change impacts your team at an individual level, along with improving your skills to lead others through this effectively.
What will I do on the day?
Through practical activities, discussion and exploration of both change and leadership theory, you’ll gain a greater self-awareness of your own leadership style and approach and how you can use this to support your team through a period of change.
Bookings close: 5pm, Monday 5 February 2024
Leading Through Change
Tuesday 20 February, 10am-4.30pm
The Education Room, Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery SY1 1LH
If you can’t see the booking link this event is fully booked. To join the waiting list please email wmmd@ironbridge.org.uk
