Sunday, April 18, 2010

Museums in the Highlands prepare their case against cuts

We've already heard how cuts in funding could mean the end of Nairn museum in Viewfield. Museums across the Highlands have developed a strategy to fight their corner. They plan a meeting in Inverness on the 26th of May, their blog states: 'It will be a high-profile meeting with a press-launch and will kick-off with a press photo-shoot; many influential stakeholders will be invited.'

As part of their strategy the HMIF recommends that members:

'Go to your ward forum meetings. There is a time for questions at the end of the meeting so have a question prepared and don’t be afraid to ask for a response. Remember you are fighting for your museum.
Invite everyone when you have an exhibition opening! Local councillors, Hugh Fraser, any one you feel will help your museum. Don’t take no for an answer.
Create a case study for your museum. Be brief and focused but detail the community value of your museum and quantify volunteer and board hours as well as any retail sales. This is your opportunity to sell your museum – pass a copy to us but also make sure local councillors see it.
Solicit letters of support from Schools, MSPs, MPs, MEPs, local councillors, community councils and local celebrities. Pass this information to us but again make sure it goes to your Councils
Ask local people to feed into the consultation process as they need to make their voices heard as well. The link to the Blog on the Council’s web page is here: http://www.highland.gov.uk/yourcouncil/news/blog/ '

Just another facet of the impact the cuts could potentially have on the cultural and social live of the Highlands. Anyone heading for the budget blog will be disappointed however. The Highland Council website proclaims: ' this will commence following the General Election on 6th May. Why the delay? Many people are worried about these cuts and wish to state their views, surely any off-topic party-political point scoring posts could simply be deleted?

You can find the Museums blog here.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

For some to prosper, some must suffer. You must let the market decide. If the market decides that for some to be rich some must be poor so be it. Work hard and earn money and pay for private facilities. Privatise the seafront and all other public spaces and charge for access. If we lose the museums, public pools etc so what.

Anonymous said...

"If we lose the museums, public pools etc so what"

Well under your brave new world if we lost them we wouldn't be able to charge access to them (which we already do!)

Maybe you need to work harder at your ideas?

old relic said...

I wonder how many supporters would sign up to a 'save Nairn museum' page on Facebook?

Maybe museums are just not part of the digital age as yet?

Graisg said...

@ Anon(10.03)
Perhaps those that want to spend billions on Trident could raise the money from coffee mornings and jumble sales then?

Anonymous said...

I find the notion that people will somehow prosper as a result of the closure of museums hard to reconcile. Surely access to culture is part of so-called prosperity? As an aside, the museums we're talking about are "private" - note the word independent in the linked post.