We're building a website

For the rest of the year I will be writing blog posts about the process of building our new website. This is obviously to keep you in the loop though I also hope to develop a sense of the project's opportunities and pitfalls by articulating the whole journey. With these goals in mind, let’s start with the most obvious question.

Why?
For some time, there had been dissatisfaction expressed about our current website both internally and externally (in all fairness the designer built it in 2007). 

Our concerns with the website went far beyond the look or feel. They were about our online strategy and it’s expression in our style and content.

Clearly our strategic goal was to advocate the visitor experience of museums, galleries and keeping places throughout NSW and yet our current website seemed obsessed with our organisation. Even when it was blatantly obvious we should be communicating with you, we seemed to be talking about us to somebody else (I don’t know who). 

We have a dream
We envisioned an easily searchable website representing every museum, gallery and keeping place in NSW to the public. This website would tell the collective stories of volunteer museums, show the programing strength of public galleries and unveil the hidden stories of collections everywhere. Organisations would be able to update information themselves or in partnership with us. 

Original website ideas and concepts for reference committees and potential partners.
Design by Katie Duncan.

And we wouldn’t stop there. There’d be a new, improved sector facing site with accessible resources and online opportunities for collaboration and discussion. 

Simply put, we wanted to make a website that didn’t represent M&G, it was M&G.

Easy, right?

Nope
It’s taken a year from this original impetus to actually procure the design team. During this year, we researched “competitors”, developed a digital strategy with Stuart Buchanan from The Nest and consulted our wise and clear-headed reference committees to explore the project’s risks and opportunities. Late last year we finally procured the services of the Interaction Consortium, Toben and Pure and Applied. 

Adrian Wiggins from Pure and Applied has just completed the user experience and wireframes for our new website: a process that encompasses questions around everything from communication strategies, social media platforms to what exactly you should call the button that takes you to Exhibitions and Events (“Exhibitions and Events” as it turns out).

A few weeks ago, just after Christmas, Adrian drew this picture on our whiteboard:

And in my next post, I’m going to explain exactly what we’ve been doing with Adrian and why this picture is key to everything we’re planning on doing on the website.

P.S. I welcome comments, questions and ideas throughout this process. Also, we're currently looking for someone to be a big part of our online journey. For more information click here.

Great expectations

For many years, friends and colleagues have recommended a visit to the Pioneer Women’s Hut, so it was with great expectations that I finally got the opportunity to visit the museum, located seven kilometres from Tumbarumba on the Wagga Road.

The humble entrance to the museum conceals a delightful collection, which concentrates on the common, everyday objects that are usually discarded when worn out. However, here, they make do and mend ethic of earlier generations is celebrated, along with the female instinct to creatively decorate even the most prosaic of items. Themed displays relate to rural domestic history, revealing “the ingenuity of women in finding solutions to the challenges of looking after a family in early rural Australia.” http://www.pioneerwomenshut.com/home.aspx

Decorative utilitarian household items appear in many of the displays. “Coping with flies” (November 2012), features this eye-catching food cover and fly-swat.

Another personal favourite was the tea-cosy pictured below; the whimsical, tumbling flowers caught my eye. It was easy to imagine a group of women, sitting on a veranda after a hard day cleaning, cooking and mending, enjoying a cup of tea, and maybe a plate of scones with jam and cream, carefully protected from flies with a decorative food cover.

The theme of Making-do runs through every display; darned socks, sheets that have been patched many times, trivets made from covered bottle caps (pictured below), packing-case furniture, patchwork clothing and quilts.

The 75 quilts in the collection motivated staff to develop a new building dedicated to their storage and display. Opened in 2011, the Heritage Quilt room currently features the “Gift of Thrift”.

Glenroy Cottage Crafts is a little shop on the same site, selling locally made products, including jams and pickles, knitted wares, jewellery and the very amusing garden critters made from recycled materials.

So, expectations met and surpassed. This is one museum that I will revisit.

Tamara Lavrencic

Regospective opens in Tamworth

Recently I had the pleasure to be invited back to Tamworth to launch Reg Lynch’s Regospective exhibition at the Tamworth Regional Gallery as part of the 2013 Country Music Festival. Regospective is based on a selection of Lynch’s work produced over the past 35 years. It is Reg’s farewell after a long history curating Guitar Shaped World, a series of exhibitions to be presented in conjunction with the world renowned music festival.

On a particularly hot day in Tamworth (over 40 seems the new norm) it was pleasing to have a large turnout (in excess of 100) to enjoy the hospitality of staff and fine catering of the Friends.

As the official proceedings unfolded I was joined by ABC Radio presenter and art critic Henry Mulholland (a five times Archibald Prize finalist and Guitar Shaped World artist). Henry spoke in some detail about Reg’s work.  My role was to contextualise his contribution in helping cement the gallery’s relationship with the festival and all things country music.

When I was Director of the Tamworth Gallery (1989-97), Reg was engaged to curate Guitar Shaped World.  Selected artists were invited to produce ‘guitar shaped’ work and Reg’s particularly inclusive style saw many surprising and remarkable works shown. Of note was the year we engaged Wagga based performance artist Arthur Wicks to ‘perform’ on the back of a semi-trailer as part of the festival’s signature Saturday morning cavalcade, but that’s another story.

Reg Lynch graduated from Sydney College of the Arts in 1981 with a degree in Design/Visual Communications and is best known as a designer, illustrator and cartoonist, with work regularl published in Fairfax media.

See newspaper clippings from the opening below, or a slideshow of Regospective works here

Remembering the 2012 IMAGinE awards

Jennifer Colless from the Walgett and District Historical Association Inc passed on the following memories about last year's IMAGinE awards:

Once again Museums & Galleries have hosted a magnificent event on 23 November 2012,  in the most interesting setting, the White Rabbit Gallery at Chippendale.

This was a great evening and, to old and new members of museums, it was inspiring and awesome and a great showcase of the wonderful work being done by the museum development sector helping all areas of museum growth and progress.

It was pleasing to see the Barkers from Lightning Ridge being honoured after their years of preservation of the stories and artefacts of the Indigenous people and lovely to see the family still involved.  We wish them lots of success in the future.

We also congratulate all the Award winners, such a good job they have all done and the award a great reward of which they are justly proud.

Lovely to meet up with folk from other museums, some of whom we have met before, and to catch up on their efforts over the years.

The professionalism of the entries in the competition was good to see and we can all learn from that.

The Grant funding has expanded one of our newer member’s outlook and she will pass on her enjoyment and what she has learned from the function.  Members need to take the opportunity of attending such functions to develop a broader outlook and new expansive ideas develop more readily.  It is good for all members to see what work other museums are doing, how they display, what they use, their space  (OH for the space in the White Rabbit – it made our mouths water).

We were delighted to have the opportunity of viewing the White Rabbit’s galleries.  I loved the open space, the (apparent) simplicity of some of the exhibits and the cleverness of many of the works, they appear to be something else (the honeycombed paper exhibit looked like a lazy serpent waiting for some unsuspecting animal to come within its reach, the military display and the fascinating door, motes of dust , the log and chains, painted bottles, life sized interview (fascinating), porcelain table & chairs, sunflower seeds and so many others. 

It was great, just goes to show what can be done.  Loved it!!

Celebrating museum Standards

The Standards 2012 program officially drew to a close with a wonderful Celebration event hosted by the Adelong Alive Museum. After a delicious lunch served in the adjacent Adelonia Theatre, Mayor Trina Thomson welcomed and commended the 9 museums from the Eastern Riverina that had taken part in the year long program of self-assessment. Her opening acknowledgement of country was heart-felt and set a warm and respectful tone for the rest of the proceeding.  She congratulated the museums for their achievements and acknowledged the valuable contribution that volunteers play in keeping, preserving and interpreting unique local stories. The Mayor presented each museum with a certificate of completion.

The museums that took part in the Standards 2012 Program include:

• Adelong Alive Museum
• Batlow Museum
• Greens Gunyah Museum (Lockhart)
• Museum of the Riverina (Wagga Wagga)
• Temora Rural Museum
• The Pioneer Women's Hut (Tumbarumba)
• Tumut Historical Society Museum
• The Up To Date Store (Coolamon)
• Wyalong Museum 

Feedback from the paid staff and volunteers who took part in the program indicated that while some may have felt daunted by the amount of work required at the start of the program, they found that the self-review surveys provided a welcome opportunity to have a close look at their strengths and weaknesses, to re-examine their policies and procedures and to reprioritise the use of their resources. The networking opportunities presented by the various workshops throughout the year were also greatly appreciated.

Museums & Galleries NSW takes this opportunity to congratulate the museums and the dedicated people who took part in the Standards Program. 

For more information on the Standards Program please visit the M&G NSW website. 

A story by Tamara Lavrencic.

Image 1: The 2012 Standards Program Participants outside Adelong Alive Museum.

Image 2: The team from the Tumut Museum receive their certificates and Final Reports from Mayor of Tumut Shire Trina Thomson.

Image 3: Lunch time was a great opportunity for networking and sharing experiences from the Standards Program.

Lithgow Museums’ Networking Group

Lithgow Museums’ Networking Group meeting at Simmo's Museum, Glen Davis.

The Lithgow area is a hidden gem of history and heritage. Visitors and locals alike can enjoy the history of one of the most fascinating areas in Australia through the many museums, historic sites and heritage organizations. From aboriginal history through to the history of the Small Arms Factory and from Hartley through to Glen Davis there are sites and museums to learn about aboriginal, convict, mining, social, railway and factory history.

In March 2012 a group of museum and heritage organization operators from the Lithgow LGA met at Eskbank House and Museum to have a chat about how they could help each other out. From this initial gathering the Lithgow Museums’ Networking Group was formed. The group meets monthly and our aims are: educating each other to improve the quality of our museums, networking to promote each other’s museums and share resources, co-operating to create a combined museum experience for visitors and sharing enthusiasm and to enjoy each other’s company as museum and heritage enthusiasts. It is exciting to be able to work together, take strength from each other and present a combined museums  experience to visitors and locals.

There are 12 organisations in the group, some able to attend regularly others coming when they can or contributing via email, etc. The groups include: Lithgow and District Family History Society (LDFHS), Lithgow Small Arms Factory Museum (LSAFM), Simmo’s Museum, Eskbank House and Museum, Lithgow Library Learning Centre (LLLC), Lithgow State Mine Heritage Park, Lithgow State Mine Railway Ltd, Hartley Historical Village, Portland History Group, Rydal Village Association, Delta Expo and Newnes Pub. Each organisation takes turns hosting the meetings and this has been an invaluable part of getting to know each other’s museums and being able to share resources and promote other museums to visitors.

The group has participated in several group activities aimed at increasing visitor numbers to museums and generally get the word out that Lithgow’s Heritage is amazing and worth a visit. 

Our first activity was an Open Day for many of the museums in the group on International Museums Day 2012. International Museums Day is in May and is celebrated by over 30 000 museums throughout the world.  With a short time to organize and limited advertising most museums still saw an increase in visitation on the day of over 500 %. The group has more plans for International Museums Day 2013 and also celebrating other international days like Volunteers Day 2012 with an afternoon tea for the wonderful volunteers in all our organizations.

The next group activity was a combined stall at Daffodils at Rydal. Photos from the different organizations were displayed and pamphlets and postcards were handed out along with our first Lithgow Heritage Newsletter outlining heritage events happening in September and October in the region. The most rewarding part of the day was talking to people about the museums and history and hearing their stories of the area. Perhaps this is infact the most rewarding part of running a museum in general.

Our next event was another stall at the Back to Hartley Celebrations on Sunday 28 October 2012. This time we included a “What is it?” table with a variety of mysterious objects for people to ponder, a “Who is it?” display of historic photos of Lithgow Citizens with room for people to comment, displays from the museums and projected historical images of the Lithgow area. Of course the most interesting part of our stall was talking heritage and history and spending time with other museum enthusiasts.

Our Christmas party will be a well earned reward for all the hard work, much of it voluntary, that all the organization participants put in to operating their museums and preserving and presenting to the public the wonderful history that is Lithgow. 

Jan Saundercock

Lithgow and District Family History Society

A Night to Celebrate: The 2012 IMAGinE Awards

All photography by Mimi Kelly.

By all accounts the 2012 IMAGinE Awards presentation was a huge success. With a 20% increase in the number of nominations, a revised presentation format and bubbly enthusiasm expressed by over 100 guests, who enjoyed the hospitality of White Rabbit Gallery – it was certainly a night to remember.

The evening commenced with an Award that recognised Uncle Roy and Aunty June Barker’s Liftetime Volunteer Contribution, having devoted their lives to the preservation and sharing of Aboriginal history and cultural knowledge. The award was accepted by members of their family following a moving tribute given by Steve Miller, M&G NSW’s Manager of Aboriginal Programs.  Queanbeyan and District Historical Museum Society were then announced as winners of the Volunteer Collection Management Category, closely followed by an Award given to the Corrective Services Museum, Cooma, in the Collection Management Category for 1-4 paid staff.

Western Plains Cultural Centre’s recently completed de-accessioning project saw some 1000 items removed from the collection. Such was the manner in which this project was undertaken and given the sustainable advantages it bestowed to ongoing WPCC programs, our judges had no hesitation in giving the Collection Management (5-20 staff) Award to Dubbo.

The exemplary programs developed by Port of Yamba Historical Society were acknowledged by giving the volunteer run Exhibitions & Public Engagement Award to their World War II at Home exhibition. Goulburn Regional Gallery won the same category for 1-4 staff and Sydney University’s The Nicholson Museum won the 5-20 staff award category.

The 21+ staff award for Exhibitions and Public Engagement was hotly contested. Following detailed consideration the judges settled on awarding it to The Australian Maritime Museum for their hugely popular Nawi – exploring Australia’s Indigenous watercraft exhibition.

Category 3, for Education and Audience Development 1-4 paid staff, was given to Grafton Regional Gallery for their Towards the Stratosphere drawing project. It involved six local schools in the production of a 25 square metre drawing that reflected known and unknown aspects of the environment. The 4-20 paid staff award in this category went to Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, won the 20+ staff category for their Bella Room project.

The individual achievement categories were also hotly contested with the paid staff category being shared between Dr Nick Lomb, from Sydney Observatory and Elizabeth Ann Macgregor OBE, Director Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. The volunteer award for Individual Achievement proved hugely popular for its recognition of the work of Ken Smith, Past President and Secretary of the Parramatta and District Historical Society.

The evening ended with hearty congratulations to all winners and a renewed enthusiasm for the way museums and galleries involve and support their communities throughout the state. 

From all of us at M&G a big thank you goes to all nominations for the way in which programs and projects are conceived and undertaken. 

Michael Rolfe
CEO