Welcome to your January Newsletter!

Happy New Year from all of us at Museum Development South West! We hope that you are all refreshed and ready for the opportunities we have in store this year. 

Starting off, you can now book yourself onto our winter SW Museum Skills programme. From volunteer recruitment to object entry, there is something to cover every area of museum practice.

Get your diaries ready - in this month's newsletter we're announcing the opening dates for our 2026 grant programme!

We also have a wide range of sector news and opportunities for your museum to get involved with. Lastly, we have an update from our Reducing the Risks: Hazards in Collections project.

We are pleased to announce that the winter tranche of the SW Museum Skills programme is now live. All of these free sessions are being delivered online, ensuring accessibility for staff, trustees, volunteers and freelancers. These sessions provide practical guidance and strategic insight to strengthen your museum’s operations, collections management, audience engagement and more.

Also, don't forget our EDI Roadmap e-learning module which is available on demand, offering flexible learning to support inclusive practice.

Our popular Small Open Grants and Capacity Builder Grants will be retuning for 2026!

Small Open Grants will open for applications on Wednesday 4 March and close on Wednesday 15 April. These grants of up to £10,000 are the perfect catalysts for change and improvement which benefits the communities which museums serve. 

Round 1 of the Capacity Builder Grants will open for applications on Wednesday 29 April and close on Wednesday 27 May. Round 2 will open for applications on Wednesday 5 August and close on Wednesday 9 September. These grants can be used to help individuals, teams or groups of museums engage with training and other CPD activities.

It is not a requirement for draft applications to be shared with your local Museum Development Officer prior to submission, but we do recommend that you talk through your idea with them at the development stage.

The first round of Reducing the Risks: Hazards in Collections training has been completed. In December, 130 people from 61 museums learnt how to identify six of the most common hazards found in museums: Asbestos, Arsenic, Lead, Mercury, Mould and Radiation. The training took place over multiple in-person training days and one online training day.

After the training, each museum took home a 6kg bag of Hazard kit including PPE, water wipes, ziplock bags, polythene sheeting, hazard tape, hazard labels, a pen and a cleaning brush, along with the supplier details to help turn their learnings into actions. 

Find out more about the training and what else our Hazards in Collections participant museums are getting up to in our latest blog.

This January there are new Accreditation achievements in our area to celebrate! Congratulations to all of the following museums:

Sandford Awards 2026- open for entries

The Sandford Award is the UK’s leading quality mark for museums and heritage sites, offering the only independent accreditation for heritage learning through on-site assessment. It recognises high quality not only in formal education programmes but also in informal learning, including family programmes and self-guided provision.

You can enter The Sandford Awards until 11:59pm on Friday 13 February 2026.

Documentation in practice symposium – call for session proposals

Collections Trust and the Museum Development England Network are working in partnership to deliver a second online documentation in practice symposium. This year’s event will focus on banishing the backlog, exploring different elements of implementing the Spectrum Inventory and Documentation planning procedures. The event will take place online on Thursday 16 April 2026. Bookings will open in early 2026.

Have you been involved in a successful inventory project, have tips on resolving temporary numbers, or have an interesting relevant case study to share? 

If you’d like to propose a session for the event, please fill in the form on the Collections Trust website by 1pm on Monday 19 January 2026. If you have a question please email events@collectionstrust.org.uk.

Call out for museums: join the Museum Accreditation Redesign test group 

Arts Council England are looking for eight museums that reflect the diverse typology and geography of existing scheme users across the UK, to help them test emerging outputs from the Museum Accreditation Scheme Redesign. This will include museums of all sizes who are independent, run by the Local Authority, nationally funded and come from single or multi-site operations. 

The group will be representative group of current Museum Accreditation Scheme users who can undertake the following:

• Test content featured in the draft Accreditation Standard  
• Explore how a museum could evidence the new Standard  
• Test elements of the new process for the Scheme  
• Share experiences of being in the test group with the sector  

To apply please complete an Expression of Interest form by Sunday 25 January 2026.

Dorset Council - Capital Leverage Fund

The aim of the Capital Leverage Fund is to support community and cultural organisations to deliver capital projects which provide new and improved facilities for Dorset communities and residents.

Grants of between £1,000 and £25,000 are available for projects that meet one or more of Dorset Council's four cultural priorities of: (1) Community; (2) A Cultural County; (3) Environment, and (4) Economy.

Grants can contribute up to 20% of a total project cost, meaning that applicants must find 80% of the total project cost from other sources. Applications close at midnight on Thursday 15 January 2026.

Wiltshire & Swindon Community Foundation - Community Grants

The Foundation’s Community Grants programme supports people and communities in need in Wiltshire and Swindon. Grants of up to £5,000 per year for up to three years are available to voluntary organisations, including registered charities and Community Interest Companies (CICs) with an asset lock, for projects and activities that improve people's lives.

The programme is particularly interested in supporting projects and activities that: (1) tackle poverty and inequality and its effects; (2) prevent or alleviate poor mental health, and (3) support children and young people. 

Grants can be used for core, project or capital costs. The programme has regular application deadlines. The next deadline is Monday 2 March 2026.

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

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