October Issue 2001

The AIM Bulletin is the main communication channel for the UKs 1000+ independent museums and heritage organisations - half the total provision for the British Isles - which have been in the forefront of the museum movement for over 20 years.

IN THIS ISSUE

• AIM has offered to work with the Heritage Lottery Fund to develop a framework for encouraging sustainability in museums, including the introduction of endowment schemes. AIM has made its offer in response to the HLF’s consultation document Horizons of Heritage.  Considerable areas of the distributed national heritage – industrial, transport, rural life, mining collections, as well as exceptional material such as the Mary Rose and SS Great Britain, are reliant on generating their own income in an increasingly crowded market place – they need financial assistance through sustainability programmes, AIM says. Page 1.
  
  
• The newly-introduced Climate Change Levy (the ‘energy tax’) is the latest administrative headache for hard-pressed independent museums.  Kew Bridge Steam Museum is facing a 20% increase in its annual fuel bill and the Mary Rose Trust is budgeting for another 8.27% a year as a result. AIM has urged its members to register for the 5% fuel VAT levy to gain exemption.  The new tax has revealed differences in approach to charitable trust museums between Customs & Excise and VAT regulations and that of the Inland Revenue and the Charity Commission.  Whilst the latter two regard admission income as for charitable rather than business use, Customs & Excise regard it as evidence of business activity.  AIM plans to lobby Government on the anomaly. Page 3.
  
  
• Will Scotland’s museums audit be fit for independent museums?  AIM member Kilmartin House, Argyll, has questioned its helpfulness for them, compared to local authority or nationally-funded museums.  Professor Victor Middleton, asked to comment, says the resulting information – chiefly on collections and curatorial procedures - will be used to make decisions that could determine the future success or possibly survival or closure of many of Scotland’s struggling museums.  The audit should have focused more questions on museums’ outward-looking responsibilities – revenue generation, audience development, role in the community etc. The Scottish Museums Council points out that the national audit process has been rigorous and an independent panel will assess museums’ significance after the questionnaires have been digested.  SMC director Jane Ryder says the data must be used “intelligently” to argue the case for funding to meet different objectives. Page 5.
  
  
• Independent museums in England are now joining those in Wales critical of the Government’s misplaced publicity over ‘free entry’ to museums. Visitors turn away when asked for the admission fee, says Crewkerne Museum, Somerset. The Government, keen on positive reaction to its free entry plans for national museums, has tarred all museums with the same brush, apparently forgetting that half the museums in the country – many of them charitable trusts - have to charge admission to survive.  Crewkerne Museum says if nationals are to receive grants from Government to enable them to offer free admission, it is surely only fair for funding to be directed through area museums councils to enable independents to do the same. Page 7
  
  

Also in this issue

• AIM Council’s agenda-setting meeting planned for November
• HLF’s new grants scheme for smaller organisations
• Keeping the (streamlined) Museum Registration Scheme for museums only
• AIM’s session at the Museums Association Conference on the Regional Museums Task Force Report
• Smaller museums need help with the wider implications of ICT
• Trust status for West Country museums
• Special conference to prevent demolition of Carrick – City of Adelaide at Irvine
• Building the case for ‘social capital’ in independent museums
• Museum profile – The Usk Rural Life Museum
  
  

Plus

Information on AIM’s latest events, AIM’s Trading Survey, the Bob Harding Training Fund Bursaries and FOCUS information papers, and the two-page AIM Directory – 30+ providers of products and services for the museum sector.

Further information contacts:  Sam Mullins, AIM chairman - Tel 020 7379 6344.  Fax 020 7565 7250.   Email  samm@ltmuseum.co.uk.  Diana Zeuner, AIM Bulletin editor - Tel/Fax 01243 811364.  Email  heavyhorse@mistral.co.uk.