‘We are the Champions’
Pennine Lancashire Museums group, has secured a grant £71,000 of Arts Council strategic support funding for a new multi-museum project, ‘We are the Champions’.
This ambitious project will see all nine museums in the partnership develop workforce ‘champions’, to develop their brand, share best practice across the museums and improve the visitor experience as a result.
The champions will work on a number of different areas, including social media for the venues, audience development, front of house work and volunteering.
The project will build on themes developed in the 2013 ‘Wonderful Things’ project which connects the museums across the area through history and the wealth of objects they hold collectively.
Simon Goff, Head of Green Spaces and Amenities at Burnley Council said:
“We’re delighted to receive this funding from the Arts Council to help us develop the Pennine Lancashire Museums partnership. Visitors to Towneley Hall and any of the other museums in Pennine Lancashire enjoy a first class experience, and this funding will allow us to ensure we are constantly striving to make this experience the best it can be.
“The social media and audience development strands to the project will ensure that we are engaging with our visitors in the ways they want, and we hope as a result visitors to all the museums in the group will increase.”
Notes:
The museums involved in the Pennine Lancashire Museums group are:
| Towneley Hall Art Gallery and Museum | Gawthorpe Hall |
| Queen Street Mill | Briercliffe Blackburn Museum |
| Helmshore Mill Textile Museum | Haworth Art Gallery, Accrington |
| Clitheroe Castle Museum | The Whittaker Museum, Rossendale |
Pennine Lancashire Museums is a well-established partnership of nine museums and will use the strategic funding to develop their collective workforce, to embed the PLM brand and ‘collaborative ethos’ and to create a new way of cross-organisational working that will strengthen areas of service delivery including: collections stewardship, care and development; commercial and operational activities; audience development and marketing a new governance model.
57 arts organisations have received a total of £5,715,338 through the Renaissance Strategic support fund for the period 2014/15. 18 projects will receive funding through the Designation development fund, in which the Arts Council is investing £700,000 in 2014-15 and £700,000 in 2015-16. Both the Renaissance Strategic support fund and Designation development funds are part of the Arts Council’s total investment approach to museums for 2015-18. See more at http://www.artscouncil.org.uk
For any further information, please contact [email protected] or 01282 477223