The Royal Green Jackets Associa on
THE ROYAL GREEN JACKETS (RIFLES) MUSEUM
This is the last time that I shall contribute to the E-Zine as Chairman of the Museum’s Trustees as I handed over to Brigadier Vere Hayes on 30 October and stood down as a Trustee. Brigadier Nigel Mogg also stood down as a Trustee after eleven years of committed and invaluable service.
the history of these awards dating back to 1991 that a military museum has received a Heritage Award. Our success with the Waterloo exhibition, and sustaining
During the 16 years I was Chairman I have witnessed great change in the wider museum sector and in the impact of that change on our Museum. Museums now have to be much more professionally and imaginatively run if they are to be sustainable over the mid to long term. Success is dependent upon offering a great visitor experience. Good governance, high standards of curatorial care, interpretation and display, and a sound financial base are all essentials. Our Museum is scoring increasingly highly on all these points. We have an excellent Board of Trustees with a wide range of professional skills; we have a small but dedicated permanent staff backed up by equally committed volunteers; and we have financial reserves that would enable us to weather a short-lived albeit not a lasting storm. Our growing reputation as a pro-active, innovative regimental museum is one in which I am very pleased to have been able to play a part and one which I know my successor and the Board are committed to preserve and develop further. Looking to the recent past, the central event has been the ‘With the Rifles to Waterloo’ exhibition which transited from being temporary to permanent on 30 September. Some items loaned for the temporary exhibition have been returned to their owners. The rest, including the Waterloo diorama, is as it was, so if you have not yet visited, there is time to do so. The Waterloo exhibition has been a resounding success heralding a 41% increase in visitors during its first six months and a likely one-third increase in visitors over the full year. The forecast for 2015 is an all-time record of 16,000. Admission income and over-the-counter shop sales are also well up, promising a good financial outcome at the end of the year. As icing on the cake, the Museum received a MOD Sanctuary Runners-Up Award for the best Heritage Project in 2015, the first time in 20 | Volume 7 Issue 2
Exhibi on Title panel.
(To be con nued on next page) E-Zine 2015
