Meeting documents

Ms Sue Shave, County Museum Director, to provide an update.

Ms S Shave, County Museum Director, reported the following:

• The Museum was hosting the first of the Elizabeth Frink Shows in the country to commemorate 25 years since the death of the artist– an iconic female artist from 20 Century worth visiting; ends on 21 April 2018.
• Curators Choice – running until 30 June 2018.  Each curator had chosen their favourite items for display.
• Paul Kidby: Discworld and Beyond - The art of Terry Pratchett on display in 5 May – 30 June 2018.
• Civilisations – an interactive LEGO brick adventure displaying life size models from around the world with some of the Bucks County Museum appropriate collections displayed too. 
• Wonder Dogs ;skulls and skeletons and the stories of local charities working with dogs to improve human lives
• World War I (legacy of war).
• Meet the Saxon Warriors – 1-2 April 2018.  A poster would be circulated to the group.

Action:  Ms Shave/Ms Taylor

• Mediaeval puppetry – the story of Beowulf told in puppetry for May half term.
• Recruitment opportunities were available at the moment – Community Outreach Officer, Workforce Development Officer and Marketing Officer posts on the web site vacancies page funded mostly by the Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation funding (NPO)
• The Arts Council NPO funding for Bucks County Museum Trust (BCMT) would make it possible for BCMT to work on community engagement projects over the next four years, including Rites of Passage projects and reminiscence projects collecting objects and stories from community groups with the new Community Outreach Officer.
• Events would be held to celebrate Eid and Diwali to help engage with the community.
• A Local Archaeology Day held at Halton would be held on 22 July 2018 funded by Heart of Bucks Kop Hill Climb – the day would be by invitation only for selected charities and groups in need around Aylesbury. Ms Shave said she hoped that the BCC Archaeology Officer and colleagues might be free to help on that day too.
• Pre-history workshops would be taking place with schools at the Halton site during the summer term onwards - details to be available shortly. The workshop would include a replica dig, prehistory objects handling session, cave art and fire making experimental archaeology and had been trialled by Halton School.
• The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) had recently reduced the limit for funding for projects in the South East from £2.0 million to £1.0 million; therefore, Ms Shave had been considering splitting the master plan for development of Church Street and Halton into smaller projects and looking for funding from other organisations as well.
• Ms Shave and the team planned to refresh the Touch of Bucks galleries in the next few months and plan completely new galleries with a more representative story of the people in Bucks.
• The Museum had applied for a wedding licence and wedding packages would be available from May 2018 onwards.
• Work continued with partners Milton Keynes Heritage Trust and Milton Keynes Museum to help care for and relocate their collections to their new galleries spaces and displays over the next 2 years.

Mr R Pushman enquired if there was an audio library of the Buckinghamshire dialect.  Mr Farley advised there were a substantial number of recordings at the Halton site from all over Buckinghamshire. 

Mr Farley thanked Ms Shave for transforming the museum.