Museums Galleries Scotland launches national advocacy campaign ahead of the 2026 Scottish Parliament election, calling on political parties to recognise museums as essential civic infrastructure.
Museums Galleries Scotland has launched a national advocacy campaign, Museums: Scotland’s Stories, Scotland’s Future, and is urging museums across the country to actively take part ahead of the 2026 Scottish Parliament election on May 7th. The campaign responds to pressure on cultural funding and increased attention on the role of civic institutions. It aims to ensure museums are visible in political debate and recognised not only as custodians of the past, but as active contributors to Scotland’s future.
David McDonald, Senior Advocacy and Public Affairs Manager at MGS said: “The months ahead offer us an opportunity to shape how museums are understood by those who will hold power in the next Parliament. Scotland’s museums support learning, wellbeing, community connection, local pride, and economic recovery every day. If these contributions are not clearly articulated, museums risk being overlooked when national priorities are set.”
This campaign aims to make a clear and positive case for sustained investment and recognition. It brings together four national policy asks that highlight where government action can make the greatest difference, they are: – Multi-year support for the Museum Futures programme – Recognition of museums as forces for social good – Support for museums as trusted civic spaces for inclusion – Capital investment to reduce museums’ carbon footprints and adapt for a changing climate
In addition to these national priorities, the campaign provides every museum with the opportunity to add its own local fifth ask, connecting national ambition with local need. By gathering and aligning these local priorities, MGS aims to demonstrate that challenges facing museums are systemic and that investment in the sector supports national outcomes through local action.
MGS has created a toolkit to make it simple for museums of all sizes to take part in the campaign. The toolkit includes various templates to help museums engage with local candidates, create social media content, and send out press releases.
As the evening’s grow longer and the days shorter, many of our Highland museum adjust their opening schedule. Some go into hibernation for a few months, re-launching with gusto around Easter, but a growing number stay open during the quieter season – just with slightly reduced hours. Will you be travelling to the Highlands this winter and looking for a heritage fix? Then please do check ahead to ensure you time your visit just right. Many that are closed, will open just for you if you get in touch in advance so even if the hours don’t suit – all is not lost
Seasonal opening isn’t just about visitor numbers — it’s about balance. For many Highland museums, closing or scaling back in winter is what keeps them sustainable the rest of the year. It’s a time to care for collections, rest and retrain staff and volunteers, fundraise and prepare new displays, projects and/or exhibitions. For those that stay open, even on reduced hours, it’s a lifeline for local people — a warm welcome, a place to connect and a reminder that heritage is about people. The rhythm of opening and closing mirrors Highland life itself: responsive, resourceful and rooted in community.
Museum
Winter / Seasonal Notes
Specific Hours (if published)
Website
Gairloch Museum
Partial winter opening
Nov 3 – Dec 17, 2025: Wed–Sat 10:00 – 4:00. 10:00 – 5:00.
We’re looking for a skilled Programme Coordinator to oversee delivery of the Highlands and Islands Digital Heritage Network, a pioneering national pilot helping 9 rural museums build digital skills, engage new audiences and share their unique heritage stories.
Location: Home-based, with visits to museums across the Highlands and Islands
This role will suit someone with experience in cultural or digital project management, strong facilitation skills and a passion for supporting museums to thrive in the digital age.
Apply now
Send your CV and one of the following (letter, video, voice note, or presentation) outlining your experience, interest in the role, and proposed daily rate to Siobhán Beatson at chair@museumsandheritagehighland.org.uk by 24th September.
Interviews: Held via Zoom w/c 29th September (questions shared in advance). Applicants must have the right to work in the UK.
Made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Thanks to National Lottery players, this role will support museums across the Highlands and Islands to build their digital futures.
On 2nd September 2025, Strathnaver Museum launches a new podcast series called ‘Highlands Reimagined’.
The podcast was commissioned by Strathnaver Museum, is produced by Anya Media and published in partnership with the Wild for Scotland podcast.
The ‘Highlands Reimagined’ podcast explores why young people leave northwest Sutherland and what will encourage them to build their futures in the region. It features interviews with students from Farr High School, local entrepreneurs and remote workers across three thirty-minute episodes.
Using objects in the museum collection, the young people explore the age-old problem of Highland depopulation and outward economic migration. Through interviews with national and regional representatives from government, agencies and community organisations, the young people discuss their hopes and fears for their future as part of their Highland community.
The podcast emerged from Will Sadler’s successful 2024 Artist in Residence project with Strathnaver Museum, where he used objects in the museum collection to explore issues relevant to Highland communities today. The Artist Residency Programme has been part funded by Museums Galleries Scotland, The William Syson Foundation, the Children’s and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund, and has received £5,755 from the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
Fiona Mackenzie, Strathnaver Museum manager, explains: “We have many fascinating objects in our collection which can help us explore and understand issues which affect us today. We are incredibly excited about the launch of ‘Highlands Reimagined’ which provides a vehicle for our young people to share their hopes and concerns for their future within their Highland community.” Will Sadler, the podcast’s producer says: “This podcast explores the differences between the picture-postcard Highlands of my childhood holidays and the complex reality of growing up there. The goal isn’t to dismiss an appreciation for Scotland’s natural beauty, but to enrich it by revealing the nuances of life in one of Western Europe’s most sparsely populated areas as it faces ongoing population challenges. Fundamentally, I hope the show encourages us all to consider what role we play in helping to build a more resilient future for this beautiful place.”
Kathi Kamleitner, co-producer of the Wild for Scotland travel podcast, notes: “The northern Highlands are often presented as a ‘wild’ and rugged landscape to be enjoyed by tourists seeking vastness and space. But it’s important not to lose sight of the people who call these landscapes their home. ‘Highlands Reimagined’ paints a complex picture of modern life in the Highlands and centres the lived experiences that often get omitted in favour of a romanticised landscape.
Young volunteers can bring something very special to a museum or heritage organisation. Fresh energy and ideas, new areas of expertise, more visitors, and opportunities for succession planning to name just a few.
This toolkit will help you to identify why young volunteers would benefit your organisation, how you could benefit them and how to go about recruiting. It will also provide you with tools, templates and tips to ensure everyone has a safe and positive experience.
This toolkit has been designed in partnership between Museums & Heritage Highland and Dingwall Museum with funding support from Museums Galleries Scotland and The Space.
Workforce wellbeing is vital to ensuring the sustainability and resilience of our Museum and Heritage organisations. While our organisations work to deliver wellbeing benefits to our communities, it has become increasingly important that the wellbeing of our workforce is prioritised. As any in-flight safety briefing will tell you, ‘put on your own oxygen mask first’. If we do not provide our workforce with the tools necessary to identify and address concerns, they will be unable to provide the services to their communities.
In this toolkit we will look at tools, templates, workshops, and tips to help your organisation improve workforce wellbeing. It will help you to identify what your organisation is doing well and where it could be doing better. We will consider policies & practices, team working, culture, and collaboration & consultation.
This toolkit has been designed in partnership between Museums & Heritage Highland and Brora Heritage with funding support from Museums Galleries Scotland and The Space.
This toolkit aims to help museums build remote volunteering opportunities that allow people from all places and walks of life to work with their resources and collections. The tools are divided into sections on Preparation, Initiation, and Reflection. Templates and links to further resources are included at the end.
This toolkit has been designed in partnership between Museums & Heritage Highland and the Arctic Convoy Museum with funding support from Museums Galleries Scotland and The Space.
Screen Arts specialists, Poetic Film School, has had a busy year delivering training and festival screening events across the far north Highlands. Robert Aitken tells us all about the work going on and ambitions for the future.
The main aim of Poetic Film School was to bring host partner based displays and archives to the fore with visual stories from within local communities, tackling issues such as environment, energy transition and rapidly changing landscapes. It was important to break down these very real concerns and connect to our past to help inform present day challenges. This is what makes it all the more important to re-examine past trials, hardships and successes; to reinvigorate how we coped with, reacted to and leant from often complex changes.
In-Between Place Film Festival
Poetic Film School’s most recent activities have been screenings of the ‘In-Between Place Film Festival’; three films produced at education events with communities at Helmsdale, Lairg and Strathnaver last summer. The culmination was the making of three short-films which made great use of archives, artefacts and displays, as well as the great locations offered at each locale. The community films produced were –
THE FARR OGHAM – a revelation of story and mythology about the Picts.
TEND – an intimate portrait of one person’s life to care for the sick and poorly and how her legacy inspires a community to nurture each other today.
PLIGHTING THE ORD AN LUIRG – a signal sent from past, present and future that reminds us of the fragility and wonder of humans being tethered to the land.
SCREENSKILLS Collaborative
Screen-skills are now one of today’s main communication tools yet there exists very little by way of education and learning. The ‘SCREENSKILLS Collaborative’ now establishes a transferable digital skills framework for communities across the Highlands in response. The uses for museums and heritage organisations alone are numerous and includes understanding past responses to turbulent periods of change. Exploring such themes through collaborative and accessible Screen Arts training can help create new narratives, insights and perspectives with new host partner screening events.
Community Cinemas
Just about any host venue can be turned into a ‘Community Cinema’. Poetic Film School has worked with a range of organisations screening all kinds of newly filmed cultural stories. Main factors to consider include access, appropriate technology for the room size and ensuring the space can be suitably darkened for projection. The biggest consideration is to ‘create a social experience’ for your attendees. Allow time for refreshments at the start and a mid-event comfort break for longer events. Screening more local themed films will engage much more active discourse, so consider a discussion session at the end.
License to Screen
Most filmed material needs permission to be shown publicly, which is usually attained from the ‘Rights’ or ‘Copyright’ holder. Sometimes it’s not always clear who this is and there may also be multiple ‘Rights’ holders that need to be contacted. There are some exceptions for film licenses, such as educational screenings, but you should always check your venue qualifies for each chosen film. Do remember to factor any licensing fees in event costs too, which is normally based around audience size.
Many venues find it problematic acquiring films around local themes with simple licensing. As such Poetic Film School is now exploring a new ‘Screen Arts Film Archive’ with easy licensing options offering mix of film lengths and themes for event programmers and curators. Options for converting old film reels and video tape for digital screening with an associated ‘Found-Film Project’ are also being explored.
The Evolution of Training in far North Highlands
We may be better connected digitally today but the physical scapes around us still shape us. Connecting in person is seen as one of our main training focuses. But there is much more to our training than learning new digital skills – we are building a culture of documented story-telling based on past wisdoms that itself builds on centuries of legacy writing and poetics. The evolution of Screen Arts training in far north Highlands now lies in the visual documentation of what we leave behind.
Changes to environments and landscapes are only truly felt by people when they experience a place over time. The last time the far North Highlands saw such a scape-shift was post war. Today, the Highlands faces many of the same issues around its economy, energy and environment. Large scale changes happening around us today directly affect tomorrow’s history and heritage. The ability to capture this through engaging community Screen Art stories, working with museums, heritage orgs. and all kinds of host venues is at the heart of Poetic Film School.
Action, innovation, and ambition are on the agenda at Air Faire, a major summit for Highland museum and heritage professionals taking place in Inverness later this month.
On May 22nd and 23rd, staff and volunteers from museums and heritage organisations across the Highlands and beyond will gather to discuss how they can build more resilient, inclusive, and sustainable futures for their communities.
Air Faire is being organised by Museums and Heritage Highland, a forum that facilitates connections between cultural organisations across the region. Siobhan Beatson, Director of Ullapool Museum and Chair of MHH, said: “Museums and heritage sites are vital to the culture, economy, and wellbeing of our communities. By sharing our knowledge and skills at Air Faire, we aim to realise our ambition for museums and heritage sites to serve as inspiring, innovative, and educational spaces where everyone is welcome.”
The diverse responsibilities of museums and heritage sites are reflected in the range of topics being discussed at the summit. Air Faire will feature panels on fundraising, volunteering, workforce wellbeing, and engaging with younger audiences, as well as workshops and talks on the role of Gaelic in museums, LGBTQ+ representation, and anti-racism.
Nicola Henderson, Innovation and Network Manager at MHH, added: “Air Faire offers a unique opportunity for people to exchange ideas, connect across disciplines, and develop creative new solutions to shared challenges. As well as welcoming a range of perspectives from cultural organisations across Scotland, we invite representatives of other industries to attend and explore the potential for collaboration with museums and heritage sites.”
The significance of Air Faire is highlighted by the range of panellists from key heritage organisations and funding bodies. This includes speakers from National Museums Scotland, Museums Galleries Scotland, the Museums Association, Historic Environment Scotland, and the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The summit is made possible thanks to funding from Museums Galleries Scotland and The Space, along with the support of our sponsors AOC Archaeology and Vernon Systems.
Air Faire builds on a series of successful initiatives undertaken by Museums and Heritage Highland. The forum has supported museums and heritage sites through the post-pandemic recovery by co-ordinating Highland Threads, an innovative digital exhibition which showcased museum collections from across the region; launching Museum of the Highlands, an online learning tool for schools; and running workshops and professional development opportunities for heritage workers.
The 8th May 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day (VE Day). The day signifies an opportunity for communities across the UK and Commonwealth to celebrate and honour the Second World War generation and those who lost their lives in the War.
Nationwide initiatives include the lighting of beacons across the country and a specially written tune for the pipes, performed on the top of the UK’s four highest peaks. Museums across the Highlands are also playing their role in the programme of events and activities to mark the day.
The Highlands played a vital role in the World Two war effort. Many Highland men fought in the war, but the region also served as a key training ground and housed military bases and airfields. The region’s rugged terrain made it ideal for specialised training and its coastline was crucial for naval and air operations.
Between 1941 and 1945 Loch Ewe was the main strategic military base for naval convoys. As a deep sea loch with direct access to the north Atlantic Ocean, Loch Ewe at times saw up to ninety-five Merchant Navy and Royal Navy ships anchored in the loch. The Arctic Convoy Museum are offering free entry on 8th May as a gesture of commemoration. This is a great opportunity to see their new displays at the museum in Aultbea. They also have a special exhibition of watercolours in the Inverasdale School Tearoom. They were painted from memory by Arctic Convoy veteran Jack Shirley based on sketches he made during his war service. The paintings capture everyday life of sailors who made the perilous journey from Loch Ewe to the Arctic. Each painting is a snapshot of a journey from which many did not return.
On the north coast, Strathnaver Museum will have a special pop up exhibition as part of Bettyhill Village Hall’s VE Day celebrations on 3rd May. You can explore objects from the store, hear the stories of those who did not come home and a screening of Strathnaver Museum’s Their Past, Your Future film featuring interviews with WWII veterans and civilians. This is a free event between 11am to 3pm with refreshments and table top games provided.
Photo of Aunty Baba by Katie Gray
The Highlanders Museum at Fort George near Inverness has a special exhibition launching on VE Day that explores how the War ended in different countries throughout Europe. Discover the special relationship between soldiers of the Seaforth Highlanders and Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders and the Dutch people they liberated. Learn how a Seaforth Highlander took the surrender of German troops in Norway; alongside the Norwegian resistance fighters he had served with during the war.
A special free event at Dingwall Museum on 8th May between 12pm and 4pm will see volunteer George MacIvor talking about life during the war through some of the museum’s artefacts.
During World War II, the west coast of Scotland served as a key training ground for the British Commandos and other Allied forces. The Commando Basic Training Centre at Achnacarry Castle near Spean Bridge, was a renowned facility for rigorous training, including amphibious assaults and mountain warfare. Other locations like Arisaig House also played a role in Commando training, particularly for the Special Operations Executive (SOE). At West Highland Museum you can explore this story in their Commando Exhibition where you can unpack some of this hidden history with hands-on object discovery.
Wherever you are in the Highlands, take a moment on 8th May to share in remembering VE Day and explore some of the special Second World War stories the Highlands has to share.
