Welcome to your January Newsletter!

In our first newsletter of 2025 we're launching our SW Museum Skills winter programme, so you can freshen up your skillset for the year ahead. You can also now access The EDI Roadmap E Learning on our website - no pre booking required!

Read on to find out how three museums in Wiltshire have been using their Capacity Builder grants, and you can also get your usual fix of news, updates and grants opportunities from across the sector.

Keep your eyes peeled, as later this month we'll be releasing a special newsletter with all the information you need to know about the upcoming Growing Together peer networking sessions.

Updated Accreditation advice will be available in our February newsletter, and make a note in your diaries that Small Open Grants will open for applications on Monday 24 February. Take a look at our website for further information on Small Open Grants. 

As we embark on a new year, it's the perfect time to set yourself up for the year ahead and invest in your professional development. Our winter SW Museum Skills programme offers a diverse range of online and in-person workshops led by experts. You can also connect with fellow museum professionals, share experiences, and collaborate on innovative ideas.

Whether you're a seasoned museum professional or just started volunteering, our program has something for everyone. Take a look at our program and book your place today!

Building on this experience, earlier this year we developed a new e-learning resource, The EDI Roadmap. This free online resource is designed to help museums of all sizes and types develop their understanding of EDI and take practical steps towards creating more inclusive spaces. 

The EDI Roadmap is now available to access without booking, and can be found in our resource library on our website.

Three museums in Wiltshire – Chippenham Museum, REME Museum and Crofton Beam Engines – were awarded a Capacity Builder grant in October to work together to build the skills needed to become certified Arts Award Centres.

Arts Award connects young people with the arts world, taking them on a creative journey with a recognised qualification at the end. All three museums have identified young people as a key target audience, and Award activities offer different and exciting opportunities for engaging with them.

Thanks to the grant, staff members from each museum have completed the training required to become an official Arts Award Advisor. Supported by Gill Simmons, from Brave Bold Drama, they are now exploring their collections and sites looking for inspiration to build their activities around.

Gill has previously worked with Bristol Museums to create Arts Award resources, so the group travelled to Bristol to find out more about the process used to put together the sessions there. Rather than developing ideas in isolation the museums are working together to explore and test ideas with Gill and each other, before creating the final offer for their individual sites ready to launch later in 2025.

Shannon Bye wins inaugural Heritage Crafts Fashion
Textile Maker of the Year Award

Hampshire silk weaver Shannon Bye has won the inaugural Fashion Textile Maker of the Year Award, supported by the Costume Society, including a £2,000 prize and trophy awarded at a special presentation at Eltham Palace on Tuesday 26 November 2024.

Heritage Crafts was set up 14 years ago as a national charity to support and safeguard heritage crafts skills, and has become well known for its Red List of Endangered Crafts. The award celebrates a heritage craftsperson who has made an outstanding contribution to fashion textiles over the past year. 

Shannon Bye is Heritage Weaving Manager at Whitchurch Silk Mill. During the last year, as well as making excellent progress in her own silk weaving practice, she has developed her capacity to lead a growing team of weaver tacklers.

Deadline for 2024 Collections Trust Award

The Collections Trust Award is closing for applications at 9am on Monday 13 January.

The award highlights the often-unsung achievements of those who manage the collections that lie at the heart of all museums. Your museum could win £1000 to spend on an agreed collections management activity. 

Has your museum undertaken a project that put collections data to work in the context of rethinking cataloguing? Or perhaps you have improved workflows and procedures so that formerly ‘single use’ content can be safeguarded and retrieved for a variety of users and uses. If that sounds like you then get your application in now!

The Right Stuff? 

Bridport Museum have recently published a case study of their innovative collections review project ‘The Right Stuff’ which took place between 2019 and 2023.  Supported by an Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund grant managed by the Museums Association, the project was designed to make the museum and its collection more sustainable and more relevant and had the involvement of the community at its heart. The case study can be downloaded from their website.

Van Neste Foundation

Grants for projects around social change and children & young people. The Van Neste Foundation makes the vast majority of its  grants to UK registered Charities and UK registered Community Interest Companies (CICs). 

The foundation meets to assess grant applications three times a year, typically January, June and October.

Health and Wellbeing in Museums Fund

The Museums Association have just announced a forthcoming Health and Wellbeing in Museums Fund, a £1.5m, three-year programme of grant-making, networking and learning dissemination for health and wellbeing programmes in museums. The programme is funded by the Julia Rausing Trust.

There will be 20 grants of £50,000 to £75,000, embedding excellent practice and reaching at least 5,000 participants, with a legacy enabling further support in future. Full information on the fund will be available in spring 2025, with funds to be awarded in two rounds in 2025 and 2026.

The best ways to get in touch are via the form on our website or by emailing museum.development@bristol.gov.uk

If you think a colleague or friend would like to keep up to date
with Museum Development South West, please forward this email or encourage them to join our newsletter by clicking below:

Museum Development South West content: