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In October, the team at Ullapool Museum joined the best and brightest museums across the country at the bi-annual Association for Heritage Interpretation Awards. The AHI exists to promote excellence in the practice and provision of interpretation across the United Kingdom and holds an annual conference around which the awards are held.  We were delighted to be awarded runners-up in the ‘Volunteer & Community Projects’ category for our redisplay project ‘Future Thinking for Lochbroom’s Past’. The award recognises the outstanding contribution our volunteers made to the project that redisplayed our permanent collections and reinterpreted our unique A-listed building. 

Like most Museums & Heritage Highland members, volunteers are the essential lifeblood of the organisation. This award not only recognises their commitment, but also the professionalism and excellence they delivered in creating the new displays. We are so proud to be recognised by this prestigious award, as the Journal says… ‘This is an exceptional example of a community project that creates an enjoyable museum visit’.  

This year Glencoe Folk Museum has embarked on its most ambitious redevelopment project since moving into its current premises in 1972. Based in two 18^th century heather-thatched crofters’ cottages (Cat B. listed) the museum, founded in 1967, chronicles the rich and exciting history of the Glencoe and North Lorn area between the 17^th-21^st centuries. 

Our collection of c6,000 objects includes unique Jacobite-era artefacts such as a boot belonging to Captain Robert Campbell (the man deemed responsible for Glencoe’s infamous massacre), a chair once belonging to Bonnie Prince Charlie himself and the Clan Donald christening gown. Our social history collection covers local life and work including crofting, domestic life and the Ballachulish slate quarries. Largest of all the objects, and presently in storage, is a rowing boat formerly used by local clans to transport coffins to the burial island Eilean Munde. We are hoping to place the boat on display in 2020 to coincide with the Year of Coasts and Waters and to serve as a pilot display for the redevelopment.

THE REDVELOPMENT – TIME FOR CHANGE
The museum celebrated its 50^th anniversary in 2017 and has not been substantially altered for a number of years. Some of our displays are now showing their age, particularly the outside lean-to display of agricultural objects which will soon be threatening to dismantle itself without external intervention. A redevelopment gives us exciting opportunities to reinterpret the museum’s stories to modern standards for the first time, expand the exhibition space and allow more of the collection to be displayed in a stable environment.

SUSTAINABILITY
We have enjoyed increasing visitor numbers over the last five years, with 7,000 visiting in 2019 including a significant proportion of international visitors. Retail revenue has also seen a dramatic increase thanks to improvements made to the museum’s shop. However, as is so often the case in the heritage sector, the museum remains financially unsustainable and survives in part through investments made from the estate of its founder, Barbara Fairweather M.B.E. A key objective of the redevelopment will be to address the museum’s long-term sustainability, increasing revenue and reducing costs to ensure the museum continues to educate and entertain visitors from around the world for the next fifty years and beyond. 

THE PLAN
A redevelopment manager was appointed in June 2019 to develop the project and secure funding. The project is presently in its early stages, our current major development points being:
-To remove existing non-listed structures from the outdoor display area and replace with a new visitor reception and exhibition building, leading into the 18^th century cottages.
-Improve visitor accessibility and facilities with a new entrance, levelled floors, raised/widened doorways and installation of toilets.
-Create a larger, purpose-built shop to encourage increased visitor spend and contributing towards the museum’s sustainability.
-Renew exhibitions throughout the museum, produced by exhibition specialists with greater language options and interactive features. In particular we hope to improve interpretation of the cottages themselves and represent a contemporary dwelling on the night of the 1692 massacre.

-Convert byre outbuilding into Community Exhibition Gallery – creating flexible space for local groups to produce displays and allowing a programme of changing exhibitions to encourage repeat visits.
-Commission new STEAM curriculum linked schools programme, cementing the museum’s place in local education.
-Develop a nearby field owned by the museum into a collections store and curator’s accommodation, replacing the current unsuitable store/accommodation in Ballachulish village.

CONSULTATIONS
We are very keen that the museum’s ultimate users have a say in its continuing development and one of the first tasks of the project has been to consult a range of stakeholders, visitors and the local community, staff, volunteers and the museum’s board of trustees. 

TALKING TO THE COMMUNITY
Local engagement has included interviews with B&B and café owners, care homes, drama groups, colleges as well as focus groups with local community and parish councils. This has been a fascinating exercise in assessing awareness of the museum’s existence and activities, the extent to which individuals and groups have interacted with the museum in the past, including barriers to engagement, and ask what people think the museum’s role in the community should be. This will be an ongoing process of consultation and feedback throughout the project.

TALKING TO VISITORS
Our ongoing visitor has produced useful results concerning what visitors like about the museum as it is and what improvements could be made. The results overwhelmingly indicate that visitors like the quirky charm of the museum and its historic buildings, wanted to learn more about the Jacobite era, the massacre of Glencoe and daily life in the area, and there is considerable demand for toilets! The findings from the visitor surveys are being fed into exhibition design briefs and architects’ plans.

FUNDING
The hardest part of any project isn’t deciding what to do, it’s working out how to pay for it. As well as committing substantial amounts of the museum’s reserves we have been invited to submit a Development Phase application to the National Lottery Heritage Fund and are simultaneously developing bids to the Garfield Weston and Wolfson foundations. We are also working on how to attract sponsorship for the project and for the 2020 season hope to roll out a package of sponsorship offers and rewards to suit all pockets, from opportunities to sponsor display cases and entire exhibitions to a new ‘adopt an object’ scheme aimed at the quirky gift market.

CURRENT SITUATION
As will be obvious this is a large project which is only beginning to take shape. At the time of writing we are in the midst of drafting funding applications, liaising with architects for outline building plans, making initial enquiries for planning permission and listed building consent as well as compiling an exhibition design brief for circulating to potential museum designers. Exciting times!

There’ll be more news of our developments soon; watch this space…

Recently stepping into Yvonne Cotter’s very big shoes, Melissa tells you about her background and aims for Nairn Museum.

Hi, I’m Melissa. I’ve just started working as Manager at Nairn Museum. 

My background is diverse. For many years I was employed by the University of Edinburgh as a literacy tutor and support officer for students with learning difficulties, and I’ve retained an interest in the provision of access for people with different needs. I’ve also worked extensively in museums, including Abbotsford – the home of Sir Walter Scott in the beautiful Scottish Borders and the Brontë Parsonage Museum on the edge of wild moorlands in West Yorkshire. History and literature are my passions, and I look forward to exploring the heritage of Nairn, with the help of our friends at the Nairn Literary Institute.

One of my most interesting and fulfilling jobs was at the Gavin Maxwell Museum – as live-in Custodian on the tiny island of Eilean Ban, tucked beneath the Skye Bridge and with my very own Stevenson lighthouse to look after. I was responsible for the care and interpretation of Maxwell collections, provided tours of the author’s home and talks on his life and career, and assisted the Eilean Ban Trust on the maintenance of the island and the protection of its wildlife. There was plenty of marketing and promotion to do, and finding ways to engage local people, together with the area’s many visitors. The experience was hugely rewarding, though it could also be quite lonely at night – alone on my island. Perhaps it was a dream, but I’m convinced I was visited one night by a ghostly presence: could it have been the legendary Viking army said to haunt the island? The days were more sociable, and it was a wonderful experience – living so close to nature with seals, sea birds and occasional otters as my daily companions. Writing a blog on daily wildlife sightings was part of my routine and in between duties I enjoyed cycling over the Skye Bridge to Kyleakin. The sunsets on the way home were often spectacular.

My husband and I moved to the Highlands permanently in 2017 when he took up the role as Curatorial Manager for the Highland Folk Museum and Inverness Museum and Art Gallery. I worked at the Folk Museum and the Castle Viewpoint at Inverness Castle, before taking up a position as Learning Support Officer at the University of the Highlands and Islands campus in Inverness. It’s wonderful to be coming into this new role now at Nairn Museum, and I’d like to extend my thanks and good wishes to Yvonne Cotter, who has served the museum so admirably over the last decade. I’m really looking forward now to working with our wonderful volunteers, and also supporting the Trustees as we move forward with some exciting developments at the museum. It’s an exciting role, but it comes with many chaIlenges – preserving the museum’s welcoming and friendly atmosphere and sense of community, while developing ways to attract more visitors and engage with new audiences, especially amongst younger people. The Trustees and I are looking at ways to increase and diversify income at the museum, building financial sustainability and helping to secure this much-loved institution’s future for generations to come.

This autumn saw the launch of a new charitable organisation created to support the heritage sector in the north of Scotland. Museums and Heritage Highland aims to be a voice for the Highland heritage sector, supporting its members in a range of areas including advocacy, sustainability, audience and workforce development, collections care and collaboration. MHH launches at the recently relocated Gairloch Museums and they were joined at the opening by around 40 people representing over 20 different organisations.

The new organisation evolved from the existing Highland Museums Forum (HMF) in response to the 2017/18 ‘Our Collective Future’ project, funded by Museums Galleries Scotland and Heritage Lottery Fund.  This partnership project included nineteen independent museums from across the Highlands and aimed to address the challenge of funding reduction by finding ways to increase the economic sustainability and future resilience for the sector. 

Development Manager Helen Avenell said,

“The heritage sector in the Highlands faces particular challenges and opportunities and the creation of MHH is a response to the growing need for us to work collaboratively with additional support. We hope that Museums and Heritage Highland can develop opportunities to capitalise on collective strengths and skills to build capacity, increasing the profile of Highland heritage and developing a strong advocacy voice for our members.”