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MUSEUM REPORT 2018 Your Museum was closed for the first two weeks of January 2018 to allow the staff to catch up on some much needed ‘housekeeping’, the first programmed opportunity since the changes to displays in 2015 for the ‘Road to Waterloo’ exhibition to check, and where necessary update, the documentation of objects that had been moved or put into the ‘on site’ reserve collection; as a result there was a small drop in the expected number of visitors from 13,500 to 13,200. However, despite the slight drop in visitor numbers income was up thanks to slightly increased admission charges from January (£5 for an adult, £4.50p for a senior citizen) and the income from Joint Tickets, of which more later. Total shop sales income was down but on-line shop sales increased significantly reflecting the wider retail market trend; however, whilst this higher volume of on-line sales is welcome it takes a lot of staff time to pack, label and dispatch the goods purchased and the possibility of employing a ‘Shop Manager’ is being considered.
Accreditation The most significant and welcome news of the year came in early autumn when the Arts Council confirmed the renewal of the Museums’ Accreditation. This is a significant achievement and Mrs Christine Pullen, our Curator, deserves praise and thanks for the way she manages the Museum and carries out her duties as Curator. For those who are not familiar with ‘Accreditation’ the Arts Council website explains the Museum Accreditation scheme as ‘the UK industry standard for museums and galleries; it tells everyone involved with a museum that they’re doing the right things to help people to engage with collections and protect them for the future, and it does so by making sure museums manage their collections properly, engage with visitors, and are governed appropriately.’ It is not, however, the Curator alone whose efforts are recognised by the renewal of accreditation, it is a team effort; Ms Elspeth McPhee as Museum Assistant and Major Ken Gray as Archivist both put in an enormous amount of work and deserve the thanks of us all.
Publicity An aim in 2018 was to raise the profile of the Museum on Social Media by making regular posts on ‘Facebook’ and ‘Twitter’; please follow us if you are on social media, not only does it raise the Museum profile but it also keeps you abreast of developments - and the greater the number of ‘likes’ you post in response to what is put out the better! On ‘Trip Advisor’ at the start of the year the Museum was registered as ninth out of seventy ‘most popular’ attractions in Winchester’. Thanks to our front of house volunteers encouraging visitors to give Swift & Bold Journal 2018
Swift & Bold Journal 2018
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