Accreditation
Arts Council runs the accreditation scheme for museums. The Accreditation Scheme sets out nationally-agreed standards, which inspire the confidence of the public and funding and governing bodies. It enables museums to assess their current performance, as well as supporting them to plan and develop their services.
Initially, museums need to complete an eligibility questionnaire and send it to Arts Council. Once this is approved, the museum will be regarded as Working Towards Accreditation. Then the museum has up to 3 years to complete the policies and procedures required for the full accreditation. The Accreditation Advisor and your Museum Development officer can help you with the whole process.
For more details visit https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/accreditation-scheme/accreditation-how-apply
Case Studies
Jane Austen’s House Museum
We interviewed the Director of the museum, Lizzie Dunford, about the new Virtual Tour created during the lockdowns imposed during the pandemic, when visitors could no longer physically access the museum in person.
The Project was ambitious, and the quality of the output was undeniable. For this reason we felt that other museums could take inspiration from how Lizzie and her team broke down barriers to access to their museums, at a low cost, in a short time frame.
You can view the full video (9.45) below, or select individual chapters to watch by selecting ‘watch on YouTube’ and choosing from the chapters listed underneath the main video. The chapters are as follows:
- 00:00 Introduction
- 00:21 Part 1: The Virtual Tour
- 02:17 Part 2: Audience Reaction
- 04:20 Part 3: Cost VS Impact
- 05:55 Part 4: Lessons Learned
- 07:46 Part 5: Looking to the Future
Local Authority Devolution films by South East Museum Development.
A practical guide for local authority museum services that are considering a change/devolution of governance and how to manage the process.. We have divided the content into 10 sections plus an introductory film on the types of governance available.
Each video includes case studies from 3 case studies Banbury Museum Gallery, Hampshire Cultural Trust and Gunnersbury Park & Museum. Banbury and HCT moved to charitable trusts’ and Gunnersbury became a Community Interest Company (CIC). The films are in an interview format with their respective leaders at the time. Dr Janet Owen, Simon Townsend and David Bowler. Timings are indicated for each film.
PART 1: Introduction to each service and their leaders.
PART 2: Main factors for changing governance and the current arrangements at the start of the process.
PART 3: What were the options before a decision was made
PART 4: Getting a service ready for change and the challenges of developing a business plan
PART 5: The mechanics and process of a change in governance
PART 6: Trustees and changing the culture
PART 7: Milestones after the change of governance/reopening
PART 8: Financial impact and ongoing relationship with your local authority
PART 9: Pitfalls and how to avoid them
PART 10: Successes, advice and looking forward
Introduction to Devolution of Local Authority Museums – Past and Present with Adrian Babbidge
- History of museums changing governance 0.30 – 5.40
- Merits of museums going it alone versus larger trusts 5.45- 8.22
- Separate arrangements for museums versus larger trusts 8.30 – 10.00
- Which model to choose 10.05 – 13.55
- Jargon explanation 14.05 – 21.05
- Suitable governance types 21.18 – 28.39
- Characteristics for a successful outcome 28.55 – 33.11
- Money! 33.15 – 39.13
- Potential Pitfalls 34.20 – 43.00
Museum of Farnham
We interviewed Museum Curator Josh Godfrey at the museum about his team’s work in engaging new community groups with the museum, discussing both the challenges and the successes of their work. Josh also shares his top tips for creating new digital assets for community engagement, as well as how making community connections can benefit a museum service.
During the interview you can also learn about how integral museum development support was in the development of the museum’s community engagement aims, and find out more about how they co-curated an exhibition about the impact of the pandemic on their community in Farnham, Surrey.
You can view the full video (9.29) below, or select individual chapters to watch by selecting ‘watch on YouTube’ and choosing from the chapters listed underneath the main video. The chapters are as follows:
- 00:00 Introduction
- 00:15 What did we want to achieve?
- 00:50 Part 2: Digital Assets
- 02:22 Part 3: Top Tips
- 03:23 Part 4: Co-Curating
- 05:16 Part 5: Community Connections
- 06:59 Part 6: Museum Development Support
- 08:17 Part 7: Looking to the future
The Museum of Oxford
We interviewed Katy Hammond, Volunteer Engagement Officer at the Museum of Oxford, about their recent volunteer diversification work. Katy shares the key information about their involvement with SEMD’s Growing Volunteering Project, and how that led them to conduct a race equalities audit and further their aims to be more representative of their community.
During the video Katy also shares the key learning outcomes from this work, and details of how Katy and her team developed an entirely new approach to volunteer management, from recruitment, induction and professional development.
You can view the full video (10.19) below, or select individual chapters to watch by selecting ‘watch on YouTube’ and choosing from the chapters listed underneath the main video. The chapters are as follows:
- 00:00 Introduction
- 00:14 Part 1: Growing Volunteering Project
- 02:11 Part 2: Race Equalities Audit
- 04:13 Part 3: Volunteer Recruitment
- 06:18 Part 4: Volunteer Training
- 07:11 Part 5: Reflections
- 09:17 Part 6: Looking to the Future
The Royal Engineers Museum
We spoke with both Rebecca Nash, Director, and Danielle Sellers, Collections Manager at the Royal Engineers Museum, about their recent ‘Making African Connections’ Project.
Rebecca and Danielle shared with us how the Project came about, and discuss how they began to approach democratising their collections in collaboration with relevant community groups and their existing museum stakeholders.
Difficult conversations naturally arise from this kind of work, and they discuss how they approached these through their work democratising their Sudanese collections, and share their top tips for taking on challenging topics and embracing change positively.
You can view the full video (11.47) below, or select individual chapters to watch by selecting ‘watch on YouTube’ and choosing from the chapters listed underneath the main video. The chapters are as follows:
- 00:00 Introduction
- 00:15 Part 1: Making African Connections
- 02:54 Part 2: Decolonising the Collections
- 04:13 Part 3: Difficult Conversations
- 06:43 Part 4: Key Outcomes
- 07:45 Part 5: Reflections
- 09:09 Part 6: Looking to the future
Conservation
Professionally accredited conservators, who specialise in a range of material types, can be found on the ICON conservation register http://www.conservationregister.com/
There are many ways to monitor the environment in your museum environments, from digital monitors, data recording monitor, to card humidity strips and light fading cards. For more information on the recommended environment for museum collections and how to monitor it, please refer to the Environmental Monitoring page.
All materials that come into contact with collection items should be inert materials and not give off volatile organic compounds (VOCs) or give off other chemicals. Many of these materials can be bought from sites such as Preservation Equipment LTD , Conservation Resources and Conservation By Design .
All materials that come into contact with collection items should be inert materials and not give off volatile organic compounds (VOCs) or give off other chemicals. The British Museum run oddy tests on many types of materials to see if they are suitable to use near museum collections and have published their results on their website .
There are a range of conservation grants available, run by different institutions. Please see our grants page for further details.
General
Contact details are listed here
https://southeastmuseums.org/about-us/museum-development-team/
We are happy to advertise museum jobs in the south east via our website and newsletter. There is no charge. Please visit https://southeastmuseums.org/job/ to input your job details. We will then check and add them to the website and, if appropriate, the job will also be included in the newsletter.
The newsletter comes out once a month, so we recommend getting your advertisement submitted as soon as possible.
Grants
South East Museum Development has a small grants programme that museums can apply to.
There are also funding opportunities available with the following organisations:
Your local Museum Development officer can offer advice on completing the applications.
Narrow Your Search
Alternatively, you can attempt a manual search using our website search bar in the top right. If you are unable to find a resource, try searching by the Category list above.
All of our resources have been categorised. Select a category from the list below to narrow your search down.
- Access
- Accreditation
- Advice Sheets
- Advocacy
- Agents Of Deterioration
- Archive
- Art Forms
- Audience Development
- Audiences
- Business Development
- Children And Young People
- Collections Care
- Collections Management
- Commercialisation
- Commissioning
- Community Engagement
- Conservation
- Consultancy
- Coronavirus
- Culture
- Data
- Design
- Digital
- Disaster Planning
- Diversity
- Documentation
- Education
- Emergency Planning
- Entrepreneurialism
- Evaluation
- Events
- Family
- Finance
- Fundraising
- Governance
- Grant
- Hampshire Solent
- Health
- Income Generation
- Insurance
- Integrated Pest Management
- Interpretation
- Kent & Medway
- Kent And Medway
- Leadership
- Learning
- Links
- Management
- Marketing
- National Archives
- Networks
- Partnerships
- Planning
- Policy
- Preventive Conservation
- Professional Development
- Recorded Training
- Recruitment
- Remedial Conservation
- Resilience
- Retail
- Safety
- Schools
- Security
- Social Media
- Strategy
- Succession Planning
- Sustainability
- Tourism
- Trustees
- User Services
- Visitor Experience
- Volunteer Management
- Volunteering
- Well-Being
- Workforce Development
Training
Visit our training page for more details about forthcoming training opportunities
This lists training organised by the South East Museum Development and by other organisations. Click on the title to find out more about the training and book your place.
Other courses run by external providers may have a charge.
South East Museum Development training is open to all volunteers, staff and Trustees of accredited museums in the south east. Freelancers in the sector are also welcome.
If you would like to attend a training but are not sure if you are eligible, please contact your local Museum Development Officer.
These are saved in our Resources library https://southeastmuseums.org/resource-library/
The most recent additions will be at the top, or you can use the Resource Categories at the side or simply Search for the title of the training in the Search box.