| PHILANTHROPY & CHARITY FUNDING |
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Proposed cap on tax relief on charitable donations dropped
NMDC is delighted by the announcement on 31 May that the Government will drop plans to introduce a cap on tax relief on donations to charity. In a statement the Chancellor George Osborne MP said "I can confirm that we will proceed next year with a cap on income tax reliefs for wealthy people, but we won't be capping relief for giving money to charity. It is clear from our conversations with charities that any kind of cap could damage donations, and as I said at the budget that's not what we want at all. So we've listened.” BBC News
UK museums have been major beneficiaries of the generosity of wealthy individuals and were deeply concerned about the potentially devastating impact of a cap on their ability to fundraise for future projects. NMDC joined voices from across the charity sector calling for charitable donations to be exempted from the cap, and is encouraged to see that Government has listened to our concerns. NMDC strongly supports the Government’s ambition to encourage philanthropy and looks forward to continuing to work with Ministers on this agenda.
More on our website
£58m Catalyst: Endowment programme grants announced
36 arts and heritage organisations across the UK, including several NMDC members, have successfully bid for a share of up to £58m from the Catalyst: Endowments programme. Catalyst: Endowments, a joint initiative between the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), Arts Council England (ACE) and the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) will provide grants of between £500,000 and £5m in match funding to help organisations build a new endowment fund or develop an existing one. To receive the full funding award the successful organisations are expected to raise an additional £106m from private and corporate donors over the next three years. Applications to Catalyst: Endowments were assessed by an independent panel chaired by Michael Portillo, and final awards were made by ACE and the HLF. HLF awarded £27.5million to 18 organisations including:
- National Portrait Gallery - £1m
- Sir John Soane’s Museum - £2m
- V&A - £5m
- National Museum of the Royal Navy (HMS Victory) - £5m
- British Library - £2m
- Bowes Museum - £1m.
The HLF will run a second round of Catalyst Endowments in the autumn, with awards to be announced in spring 2013. More information about HLF’s fundraising capacity building grants will be launched soon. DCMS HLF
Jeremy Hunt commissions philanthropy reports and announces national plan for cultural education
In a keynote speech at the Catalyst: Endowments event at the V&A on 20 June, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt MP referred to the $1.9bn endowment built up over a century by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York which provides an annual income of around $100m and asked, "what better time to start a British endowment century than now?" He also outlined his three priorities for increasing philanthropic giving: legacy giving, digital philanthropy and charitable giving outside London. He said he has commissioned external experts Roland Rudd, Matthew Bowcock and Peter Phillips to formulate recommendations on what the government can do in each of these areas.
Mr Hunt also highlighted two related priorities for the cultural sector: “broadening audiences through massively improving cultural education” - a national plan for cultural education would be published before the end of this year - and “what we do to embrace changing technologies.” He concluded by asking whether The Space, the new BBC Art Council digital initiative, should become a permanent, brand new digital arts channel, with live performances every day, and whether it should be a “condition of public funding for the arts that the recipients of that funding provide, free of charge, some of their content for live broadcast on a new digital arts channel as a way of making sure that that content reaches more of the audiences who are funding it through their taxes.” Jeremy Hunt's speech
City Philanthropy – a Wealth of Opportunity
A new campaign to encourage more giving among workers in London's financial industries was launched on 2 July. City Philanthropy - a Wealth of Opportunity, funded by City Bridge Trust, The City of London Corporation’s charity, aims to establish the City as a global centre for philanthropy. The campaign aims to engage people with philanthropy earlier in their careers and focuses on the opportunity philanthropy provides to individuals, business, and the City, as well as the benefits to society. City Philanthropy
Small Charitable Donations Bill introduced to Parliament
Charities will be able to claim top-up payments on up to £5,000 of small donations without needing Gift Aid declarations under changes in a Bill introduced in Parliament on 21 June. The Small Charitable Donations Bill aims to enable charities and Community Amateur Sports Clubs to claim a Gift Aid-style payment on small donations where it is difficult to obtain Gift Aid declarations. Under the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme, charities will be able to claim a top-up payment on small donations of up to £20 from April 2013. Chloe Smith MP, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, said the measures would "unlock around £100m more funding for charities a year by 2015-16." HMRC
$13bn US donations to arts in 2011
Donations to the arts in the United States rose by about 4.1% in 2011 to €13.1bn, according to a report published by the Giving USA Foundation on 19 June. The study estimated that the total amount donated in the US in 2011 was $298.4bn, an increase of just under 1% after inflation on the previous year. Patrick Rooney, executive director of the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy, which compiles the Giving USA report, predicted that it would take more than a decade for total giving in the US to return to its 2007 level. Giving USA
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| GOVERNMENT & POLITICS |
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£11.3m stimulus for Scotland’s cultural organisations
The Scottish Government has announced £11.3m additional funding over three years for capital projects for five national cultural organisations. The announcement is part of a £105 million package of economic stimulus which was announced by Finance Secretary John Swinney MSP on 27 June. It includes £1m for an energy saving maintenance project at the National Gallery of Scotland and £2.2m for maintenance at the National Library of Scotland. Creative Scotland will receive £3m for a capital grants programme for local and regional cultural projects across Scotland. Scottish Government
Europe proposes to remove public sector information exemption for museums
The EU Telecommunications Council in Luxembourg on 9 June discussed a proposal amending Directive 2003/98/EC on reuse of public sector information. This draft proposal would extend obligations so that publicly funded museums, galleries and libraris (including university libraries) would have to make data publicly available, clarify what material should be made available (to address unjustified withholding) and limit charges for most reuse to marginal cost. Culture Minister Ed Vaizey MP made a statement to the House of Commons on 13 June reporting the outcome of the European debate and explaining that the presidency sought views on how the benefits of the proposal could be realised while addressing concerns over marginal cost charging.
Mr Vaizey reported that many member states were broadly positive towards the proposal, but some also expressed concerns about the cost of making data available at a time when public budgets were under pressure. He continued: “The UK supported the proposal and highlighted the economic benefits of making public sector information available, while acknowledging the need to take account of the implications for public bodies with different funding models, especially those that derive income from the sale and licensing of data. The Commission responded to the concerns of member states by pointing out that most of the information in question had already been paid for by the taxpayer; and that this was an opportunity to develop a market whose value could rise from the current €32 billion to four times that amount."
In 2002-3, NMDC joined museums and educational organisations across Europe arguing that an exemption from the requirement to provide free access to all information including images provided a funding stream that enables digitisation of collections to facilitate greater public access. UK Parliament Farrer & Co briefing
MPs discuss cultural gifts legislation
MPs discussed gifts of cultural objects to the nation during the Committee stage of the Finance Bill on 14 June. Clause 49 of the Bill sets out how a tax reduction will be applied to an individual’s or a company’s tax liability when a pre-eminent object has been successfully donated for the benefit of the nation. Ian Swales MP, Cathy Jameson MP and John Mann MP were among those who raised questions about the extent of public access and measures to mitigate abuse of the scheme.
Catherine McKinnell MP mentioned the concerns raised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales that the new schedule 14 undermined the attractiveness of the scheme. Treasury Minister Chloe Smith MP said that while “the original consultation in June set out that objects with an estate duty charge would not be eligible under the scheme, on further analysis and in the light of the consultation responses, HMRC set out in the notes accompanying the draft Finance Bill that it would look to mirror loosely the inheritance tax conditional exemption charge, but that it was considering waiving the entire estate duty charge and that the donor would not receive a tax reduction.” Clause 49 and Schedule 14 were agreed, as was the Bill itself at Committee Stage; it will now pass to the House of Lords. UK Parliament
Government response to consultation on VAT for listed building alterations
HM Revenue and Customs has published a summary of the consultation on changes to VAT arrangements, including the removal of zero-rating for alterations to listed buildings. The report says “Many respondents felt the relief helped to ensure that listed buildings remained in use and that if it was removed, buildings would fall into disrepair or in some cases be demolished and replaced by new buildings (which would continue to benefit from the zero rate on construction costs).” Despite these objections, the HMRC says in its response that it will proceed with removing the zero rate for approved alterations work which "reflects the Government’s view that support for the heritage, and public money for such objectives, is better channelled through expenditure rather than poorly targeted tax reliefs, especially when public finances are tight.” However, in response to the consultation, HMRC will amend the transition arrangements to provide relief to more projects already underway on the date of the Budget (21 March 2012). HMRC
Treasure Committee review
DCMS has published the triennial review of the Treasure Valuation Committee. The review concludes that there is a continuing role for the Treasure Valuation Committee as an advisory non-departmental body with secretariat support provided by the British Museum. It finds that the committee has good standards of corporate governance and it makes a number of recommendations aimed at strengthening transparency and openness. Several action points will be taken up during the forthcoming review of the Treasure Code of Practice, which is due to begin, “ resources permitting”, towards the end of 2012. DCMS
DCAL Arm's-length Bodies
In the Northern Ireland Assembly, Dominic Bradley MLA asked about the review of the Department for Culture, Arts and Libraries’ arm's-length bodies and the new media communications protocol. Culture Minister Carál Ní Chuilín MLA replied that the first stage of the review of Museums NI was nearing completion and that progress was being made with getting all arm's-length bodies to sign up to the Media Communications Protocol. TheyWorkForYou.com
Tax incentive for investment in video games, animation and TV
HM Treasury has launched a consultation on its proposals to introduce corporation tax reliefs for the video games, animation and high-end television industries from April 2013. The measures announced in the Budget aim to build on the existing film tax relief which has led to £1bn extra investment in British cinema. HM Treasury
HMS Caroline
Northern Ireland Assembly Members discussed the development of tourism in Belfast in a debate on 12 June. The debate touched on the future of HMS Caroline. Arlene Foster MLA, Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Investment said “I believe that the solution is a partnership with the National Museum of the Royal Navy, which owns the ship, so that we can keep it here in Belfast. It would cost a huge amount of money to take Caroline to Portsmouth. Would it not be much better to see her preserved here in Belfast? Therefore, I have no difficulty in assuring the Member that I will do everything in my power to find a workable and sustainable solution to keeping Caroline here in Belfast.” They Work For You
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| AWARDS |
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Royal Albert Memorial Museum wins Art Fund Prize
The Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM) in Exeter has won this year's £100,000 Art Fund Prize for Museums and Galleries. Judges praised the ambition and imagination of the Museum, which reopened in December 2011 following a £24m transformation. Chair of the judges, Lord Smith of Finsbury, described the Museum as “quite simply a magical place. The Victorian aspirations to bring the world to Exeter are stunningly realised through some of the most intelligently considered displays on view in any museum in the UK. Every exhibit delights with a new surprise, and provokes with a new question, and at a time when local authority museums in particular are in such danger, this brilliant achievement proves how daring, adventurous and important such institutions can be.”
Whitworth Art Gallery and Leicestershire County Council Heritage and Arts Service have each been presented with £10,000 as joint winners of the Clore Award for Museum Learning 2012. The double award reflects the outstanding quality of the shortlisted programmes and the Clore Duffield Foundation’s desire to celebrate innovation in museum learning. Art Fund Prize RAMM
Haslemere wins 2012 Telegraph Family Friendly Museum Award
The winner of the 2012 Telegraph Family Friendly Museum Award is Haslemere Educational Museum, Surrey. Kids in Museums received more nominations for this year’s Award than ever before. The Telegraph Family Friendly Museum Award is the biggest museum award in Britain and the only one judged by families. Haslemere, a small independent museum in Surrey with only two full-time employees, was praised by its family judges for its warm and welcoming attitude and wide range of activities and clubs for children and teenagers. Kids in Museums
Art Fund Prize 2012 reveals the nation’s ten Unsung Museum Heroes
To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Art Fund Prize for Museums and Galleries, the Museum Prize Trust launched a nationwide search for the UK’s Unsung Museum Heroes, “ten everyday individuals who have made a truly memorable contribution to museums and galleries.” These ten heroes are:
- Pam Fry, a volunteer and Trustee of the Museum Cambridge & County Folk Museum for over 20 years
- Anne Lord, volunteer at Colne Valley Museum
- John Henry, 80 year old volunteer at Downpatrick & County Down Railway
- Pam Brown volunteer who runs Ironbridge Open Air Museum of Steel Sculpture
- Adam Corsini, Volunteer Coordinator of the London Archaeological Archive and Research Centre, Museum of London
- Michael Quinn, Foreman of National Museum Liverpool’s small in-house Production Team of joiners, electricians and painters.
- Roy Overall, ornithology volunteer for 50 years at Oxford University Museum of Natural History
- Patricia Candlish, volunteer guide at Robert Burns Birthplace Museum
- Jeffrey Charles James Elson, volunteer at The Staffordshire Regiment Museum
- Sally Hall, volunteer at Wordsworth Trust for 20 years. Art Fund Prize
Collections Practice Award goes to V&A
The V&A has won the Collections Trust’s inaugural Collections Practice Award. V&A's Collections Management Project is a comprehensive programme designed both to review and improve the museums’ management processes and to extend the support the Collections Management team is able to offer the museum. The judges said, "the V&A’s comprehensive approach and the way it had already started to deliver real efficiency gains for the museum, made it a worthy winner." Other nominations were the Natural History Museum, Bristol City Museum and Gallery, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, National Museums Scotland, and Canterbury Museums Service. Collections Trust
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| MUSEUM SECTOR NEWS |
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Record 48.9% of adults visited museums and galleries last year
The latest data released from the DCMS Taking Part Survey, now in its eighth year, reveals record levels of adults attending museum and galleries in England and a significant rise in black and minority ethnic groups visiting museums:
- Between 2005/06 and 2011/12, the proportion of people visiting a museum or gallery “in the last year” increased from 42.3% to 48.9%;
- Over the past year, the proportion of adults visiting museums has increased by 2.6 percentage points (from 46.3% to 48.9%);
- The proportion of black and minority ethnic (BME) groups visiting a museum or gallery in the last year rose from 37.7% (in 2010/11) to 44.4% in 2011/12, an increase of 6.7 percentage points;
- The number of by 16-24 year olds visiting museums has also increased by 6.6% to 44.4% since 2010/11.
- Last year, 29.6 % of adults visited 1-2 times a year, while 15.3 % did so 3-4 times a year.
While people who live in rural areas are just as likely as people in urban areas to have visited a museum or gallery in the last year, there are variations by region. Londoners had the highest levels of attendance (55.3%), while the East Midlands had the lowest (43.9%). Since 2005/06, the proportion of people visiting museums or galleries increased significantly in all regions except the East Midlands, with the greatest increase in the West Midlands (up by 11.7 percentage points since 2005/6).
The data also shows record levels for heritage and arts engagements: 74.3 % of adults reported having visited a heritage site in the last year and 78.2% of adults had engaged in the arts. Library and archive attendance, however, remains at the lowest level since 2005/6, with 38.8 adults having used a library in the last 12 months, down from 48.2 % in 2005/06. DCMS
ACE launch Renaissance Strategic support fund
Arts Council England announced further details of the Renaissance Strategic support fund on 14 June. The funds will be invested in geographic locations not served by the Arts Council's Major Partner funding, with immediate negotiations in South Yorkshire and East Midlands to fund programmes from mid-2012 through to March 2015. It will support specific areas of work that demonstrate innovation, resilience and sustainability, encouraging collaboration within the museums sector in England.
There will be two stages to the Renaissance Strategic support fund, with approximately £7m available in the first stage in 2012/13. ACE will distribute this by commissioning bids in the East Midlands and South Yorkshire, with the remaining funds used to commission projects from Accredited museums to meet other strategic and geographic gaps.
The second stage in 2013/14 and 2014/15 will be an open application process, with up to £15 million available in both years. Any Accredited museums based in England with more than 15,000 visitors per year (except Major Partner Museums and national museums) will be able to apply for between approximately £50,000 and £500,000 for specific activity that contributes to the Arts Council's goals, particularly demonstrating resilience, sustainability and innovation. These second stage awards will take place in two rounds - one beginning in September 2012 for activity starting in April 2013, and the other in September 2013 for activity starting in April 2014. Arts Council
Two thirds of London 2012 visitors want to visit museums and theatres
A poll of 1,600 people in the UK found that 66.4% of London 2012 visitors “would like to go to a museum or experience London theatre" as part of their visit to London. The Guardian reports that global entertainment marketing agency Aka surveyed 1,600 adults from across the UK about their attitudes towards London's culture and entertainment offering. 51% said they were likely to visit historical exhibitions in museums. The survey also found that one in three missed an exhibition or performance they had wanted to attend in the last year. Of these, 25% forgot to buy a ticket and 11% assumed tickets would be sold out. Guardian
Your Paintings Website Reaches 145,000 Paintings
Another 21,000 oil paintings have joined the Your Paintings website, the partnership between the Public Catalogue Foundation and the BBC. The National Portrait Gallery, National Museum Wales, Ashmolean, Hunterian, Royal Academy and Royal College of Art collections are among those joining the site. Also being added are all public collections with oils in Cumbria, Lancashire, the Isle of Man, Glasgow and Plymouth together with another 46 National Trust properties. This has taken the total number of UK painting collections on the site to over 1,700 and the total number of paintings to 145,000. The website receives just over 100,000 unique visitors a month (35% from overseas). There are approaching 7,000 registered painting ‘taggers’ who between them have generated over 2 million tags. www.bbc.co.uk/yourpaintings
Museums at Night: barriers to participation and possible change of date
Culture 24 would like to hear from museums and galleries who did not take part in the Museums at Night festival. A short online survey asks museums about the barriers to participation and ideas to make it easier for more museums to take part. The survey is also seeking views on changing the days of the Museums at Night festival. It would still take place around International Museums Day (18th May), but instead of running over Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening, Culture 24 is considering moving it to Thursday, Friday and Saturday evening. Museums at Night
New Skills Academy for cultural heritage
National Skills Academy for Creative & Cultural has secured £1.5 million of new investment through the Government’s Growth and Innovation Fund and is extending its remit to cover the cultural heritage, design and jewellery sectors. Led by Creative & Cultural Skills and a broad range of partners including the Museums Association, ICON, Tate, V&A, Arts Council England and the Heritage Lottery Fund, the new development programme aims to enhance and develop career opportunities for talented young people within museums and galleries, built heritage, archaeology, heritage craft and conservation, and provide the sector with the skills needed to prosper in the current economic climate.
National Skills Academy for Creative & Cultural is a membership network of 20 colleges and 220 theatre and live music employers nationwide. Following the announcement, Creative & Cultural Skills is actively seeking new partners in the cultural heritage and FE sector. Paul Latham, Chairman, Creative & Cultural Skills said, “With this funding, we can now support the further development of higher-level, industry-led apprenticeships, careers guidance, specialist education and training and new professional standards for all those working in the creative sector. We look forward to working with a wide range of partners in this new three-year development period.” Creative & Cultural Skills
The Skills Academy is also looking for representative from museums and galleries to become Skills Ambassadors and support skills development on a local level. More
HLF investment in museum skills training in Northern Ireland
The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) announced further investment of £270,000 in collections skills training across Northern Ireland through its Skills for the Future programme. The money will deliver 12 new paid trainee posts in museums for people seeking to build a career or retrain in the heritage sector. The scheme will be overseen by the Northern Ireland Museums Council (NIMC) acting as the lead partner on behalf of NIMC and the National Museums Northern Ireland (NMNI). The training areas include Caring for Collections, Collections Management and Collections Interpretation and research. HLF
Six Scottish cultural organisations pioneer digital research and development
National Galleries of Scotland is one of six Scottish projects that will receive funding from the Scottish Digital Research and Development Fund for Arts and Culture run by Nesta, Creative Scotland and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). The Fund aims to support art and cultural organisations to work with digital experts to understand and test the potential offered by new technologies.
Following the launch of the £500,000 fund in January, over 50 projects applied for funding and awards were made totalling £262,000 to organisations. The National Galleries of Scotland will receive £43,000 for a project working with Kotikan. The projects will be undertaken over the next year and each will be evaluated to produce new data and research insights that can be shared with, and benefit, other organisations in the arts and culture sector. NESTA
Sky launches history of Great Britain initiative for schools
Sky has launched an educational outreach programme to accompany Sky Atlantic's series The British, offering free resources on the history of Great Britain to all primary and secondary school students in the UK and Ireland.
The initiative is “designed to equip every student with key facts and information regarding the history of Great Britain” and will target pupils from ages 7 to 14. Teaching resources including images and lesson plans will be tailored towards each episode of the seven-part series, with subjects including the Roman invasion of Britain, The Domesday Book, The Caxton Printing Press, and the Great Fire of London. Sky Atlantic
National Art Pass leads to 20% increase in Art Fund membership and more grants
Art Fund membership has increased by 20% through sales of the National Art Pass since it was launched in April 2011. The organisation now has 92,000 members. The increase means the Art Fund was able to commit £6m to the purchase of works of art over the last year, helping 84 museums buy 141 works for their collections. These included the Art Fund's largest ever grant for a work of art – £2m towards the acquisition of Titian’s masterpiece Diana and Callisto for the National Gallery and the National Galleries of Scotland. The rise in membership income has also enabled the Art Fund to expand support for museums in other ways, including running fundraising appeals, supporting the development of curators, lobbying for tax incentives to encourage lifetime giving of art to museums, and supporting new collections through funding initiatives such as Art Fund International, Art Fund Collect and Renew. Art Fund
Also
At the second Museums Showoff event in London on 27th June a packed crowd heard Hedley Swain talking about how he sees dead people, how the Enlightenment Gallery saved the British Museum and a hands-on learning session with a pigs bladder ball from St Fagans. The event, which raises money for Arts Emergency, will be held again in the autumn. Museums Showoff
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| CULTURAL POLICY |
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GREAT campaign helping to make UK “top of mind” for investment and tourism
Initial findings show the GREAT campaign to promote the UK in 2012 is helping to make UK the “top of mind” destination for investment and tourism. The GREAT campaign was launched by the Prime Minister in New York last September and has now reached over 50% of the UK’s premier international business audiences, with 44% of business people who saw the campaign saying that ‘the advertising motivated them to do business with the UK’. VisitBritain’s initial research in some of the UK’s key target cities reveals that the intention of foreign tourists to visit has increased more for the UK than for key competitors such as the US, Australia, France and Italy – potentially generating an extra spend of more than £30m a year as a result. DCMS
Arts Council publishes two audience development toolkits
Arts Council England has launched two new toolkits to help arts organisations understand audience segments: 'Dinner and a show' and 'Family and community focused'. The toolkits are based on Arts audiences: insight (AAI) segmentation research commissioned by Arts Council England that breaks down the English adult population in terms of their engagement with the arts and identifies 13 distinct audience segments. The toolkits set out the characteristics of each group, suggest processes for encouraging them to experience the arts, and provide case studies from organisations that have undertaken pilot projects aimed at attracting this audience segment. Arts Council
Charity says cultural organisations should spend 15% on programming for children
The charity Action for Children’s Arts is calling for the “production of original work for children to be part of the remit of our flagship cultural organisations.” A new report, Putting Children First, based on Freedom of Information request, reveals that UK’s flagship arts organisations spend just over 2% of their total budget on performance or exhibition of original work for children. As children up to twelve years old make up around 15% of the population, Action for Children Arts is proposing adopting 15% as a benchmark for their fair share of public funding for the arts. The charity argues for a less rigid distinction between children and grown-ups when it comes to arts programming to create exhibitions and performances that appeal to both children and adults. It wants “galleries to put on exhibitions that children will want their parents to see.” Action for Children's Arts
£6 million additional Lottery funding for libraries
ACE has announced that an additional £6 million of National Lottery-funded Grants for the arts will be available to libraries from September 2012. This fund will support projects that stimulate ambitious and innovative partnerships between libraries and artists and/or arts organisations, encouraging communities to participate in cultural activities.
Funding will run from September 2012 until March 2015. More details will be announced in September. Arts Council
London 2012 under budget
The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games is on track to be delivered on time and under budget, according to the Government’s last quarterly economic report to be published before the Games. The overall funding package for the Games remains at £9.298 billion with £476 million of uncommitted contingency available. DCMS
Digital capacity rights and IP seminar
Bookings are now open for the Building digital capacity for the arts - rights and IP seminar at the BBC Conference Centre on 9 July. Building digital capacity for the arts is an Arts Council England and BBC Academy partnership. This free seminar is aimed at arts organisations and artists from across England who want to learn from and share experiences about the use, exploitation and development of rights models around new and archive material on digital platforms. Speakers from the BBC, V&A, Imperial War Museum, the London Review of Books and the John Peel Archive will share their insights into rights clearances and approaches to IP. Arts Council
Also
Vladimir Tolstoy, the great-great-grandson of Leo Tolstoy, has been appointed a cultural adviser to the Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Art Newspaper reports that Mr Tolstoy has been the director of Yasnaya Polyana, the writer's estate and museum since 1994. The Art Newspaper
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| APPOINTMENTS & HONOURS |
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Honours
Congratulations to our member Gordon Rintoul, Director of National Museums Scotland, and Professor Jack Lohman, lately Director of the Museum of London, who were both made CBE in the Queen’s birthday honours. Others from the museum sector to receive recognition included an OBE for Peter Michael Barber, Head of Map Collections at the British Library and an MBE for Jonathan Betts, Curator of Horology at the National Maritime Museum.
Trustee appointments
The Prime Minister has appointed Dr Angela Dean to the Board of the National Heritage Memorial Fund and Heritage Lottery Fund. Dr Dean was a Trustee of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council before it was abolished. She has spent 25 years in international finance, working for much of her career as a Managing Director for the American investment bank, Morgan Stanley and completed a doctorate in early 17th-century English politics at Somerville College, Oxford. HLF
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is inviting applications for four trustees for the Wallace Collection. Wallace Collection
Royal Armouries
Andrew Scott CBE CEng FMA has been appointed as interim CEO and Accounting Officer at the Royal Armouries. Andrew retired in 2010 as Director of the Science Museum Group having previously spent 15 years as Director of the National Railway Museum in York. The Director General and Master of the Royal Armouries, Lt-Gen Jonathon Riley, is currently under temporary suspension, pending the outcome of a review of issues raised by the Museum's auditors.
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| NEWS FROM OUR MEMBERS |
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This month Sir John Soane’s Museum unveils the first phase of its £7m restoration project – No.12 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, the house next door to Sir John Soane’s Museum, restored to its former glory and providing new visitor facilities. Phase 1 of Opening up the Soane reveals a new Soane-designed house, built and decorated by John and Eliza Soane for their own use in 1792 and restored by Julian Harrap Architects. The restored spaces have enabled the shop and cloakroom to be moved out of the Museum and enabled a new gallery for temporary exhibitions. The changes have created improved circulation routes to reduce the wear and tear on Soane’s fragile Museum. In November 2012, the restored Shakespeare and Tivoli Recesses will open off the main staircase of the Museum, and Sir John Soane’s private apartments on the second floor of the Museum will be restored and opened in 2013-15. Sir John Soane’s Museum
Imperial War Museum North is celebrating its 10th birthday this week. Since opening on 5 July 2002, IWM North has welcomed over 2.5 million visitors, held more than 60 special exhibitions and displays and run over 5,500 TimeStack object handling sessions for visitors. IWM North has won more than 30 awards, including being named as one of the top four large visitor attractions in the country at the 2010 Enjoy England Awards for Excellence. IWM
Riverside Museum, Glasgow has been shortlisted for a National Lottery Award in the Heritage category. The winner of each category will be decided by public vote. To add your support for Riverside Museum click here.
Scientists at the Natural History Museum have revealed for the first time how four-legged dinosaurs stood. Museum dinosaur experts Susannah Maidment and Paul Barrett studied more than 200 dinosaur fossil bone specimens, looking at how muscles and soft tissue attach to forelimbs, hind limbs, hip bones and vertebrae and reconstructed the muscles on dinosaur limb bones. The next step is to produce 3D computational models of the limbs to look at how the muscles worked as the animals moved. NHM
The British Museum has announced a series of loans of single star objects from the collection to venues across the UK. These 'Spotlight Tours' have been funded by the £100,000 Art Fund Prize the Museum received last year as 'Museum of the Year'. It is anticipated that the Spotlight Tours will run for up to four years under the Art Fund prize sponsorship. The tour will begin with the loan of a bronze of Herakles to the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill. British Museum
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| JOBS |
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Over 2,500 jobs at leading museums around the UK have been advertised on NMDC’s job site www.nationalmuseumjobs.org.uk over the past four years. Current vacancies include:
- Collection Storage Planning Manager, British Library
- Learning Volunteer Programme Developer, Natural History Museum
- Explainers, Science Museum
- Senior Curator (Contemporary History), Museum of London
- Post Excavation Officer, National Museums Scotland
- Finance Manager, National Gallery
- Digital Marketing Officer, National Galleries of Scotland
- Conservator, Royal Armouries Museum
- Project Assistant, Wallace Collection
- Organic Conservation Intern, National Maritime Museum
- Conservation and Programming Manager, Glasgow Museums
For details of these jobs and many more visit www.nationalmuseumjobs.org.uk
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