Wandsworth Museum Campaign Group: Bulletin #4
The WMCG has warmly welcomed the news that a local benefactor - the Hintze Family Charitable Foundation - has come forward and offered £1 million to re-establish the Museum in West Hill under an independent trust and a further £1 million to run it for five years. This proposal includes the De Morgan Collection which was to be evicted from West Hill Library as part of the Council’s plans for Wandsworth town centre. At the same time as announcing this very positive news on 28th March, the Council proceeded to confirm their original timetable and process for the closure of the Museum as part of its plan to amalgamate West Hill and Alvering Libraries, using the Museum’s Court House premises in Garratt Lane as their combined location for a central library. We now have the contradictory situation where the clock is ticking towards a closure date of September despite the Council having reversed its stance on the future of the Museum and having accepted the Hintze’s offer to help save it.Faced with the decision of the Council to proceed with closure of the Museum and eventually transfer it to West Hill, the challenges that face campaigners and residents are:1. to persuade the Council to retain those members of staff whose unique skills and experience have made the Museum such a beacon of excellence so that they are available to transfer, if they wish, to the new Museum when it is established;2. to ensure the Council preserves the Museum’s pioneering outreach services to schools and other community groups so that these too can be continued at the new museum with the minimum interruption;3. to minimise the gap in time between closing the Museum and re-opening it at West Hill;4. to minimise the costs of relocating the Museum to West Hill so that the generous donation from the Hintze Foundation is not dissipated in unnecessary storage and handling; and5. to work effectively with the Council and the Hintze Foundation to ensure that the new Museum has a solid start and strong financial platform.If the above factors are not carefully managed, there are real risks to the future of the Museum even with the generous donation from the Hintze Foundation. Without the existing staff, with their specialist expertise and local knowledge, and with the artefacts put into storage, the Museum will lose its hard-won national Accreditation. Without Accreditation it will not qualify for the various museum grants that are available, money it will certainly need for its future survival.In addition, a closed Museum may well have to return artefacts it has received on loan and will no longer be able to continue the excellent education programme for schools. Everything will have to begin again from scratch.These issues are being urgently addressed by the Wandsworth Museum Campaign Group now that the initial priority of securing base funding has been achieved. WMCG is a strictly non-political committee with members from across the political spectrum, including many with relevant professional experience in areas such as conservation, heritage, financial & project management, marketing, buildings and architecture. The Group’s focus is now on the essential detailed planning that the Museum will need to make the most effective possible use of the new trust framework as well as to best use the funds offered by the Hintze Foundation. To this end the WMCG has approached the Hintze Foundation, Wandsworth Borough Council, the Museums Libraries Archives Council, the Museum of London, the London Society and the Association of Independent Museums to ensure the Group is fully appraised of how and where it can best contribute to the transfer, establishment and running of the new Museum.In spite of the substantial donation offered by the Hintze Foundation, WMCG is not complacent and in order to retain the award winning status for which the Museum has already been recognised WMCG needs your support (especially anyone with database management skills). So please follow the story in the press, on this and other community websites and if you’re interested to find out more or wish to become a Friend of Wandsworth Museum please email your contact details to: WandsworthMuseumGroup@hotmail.co.uk
Cedric Peachey ● 6686d0 Comments