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Make me a museum... that has a vision and sticks to it
2 Plays9 minutes ago
In this episode I meet Kevin Casey, volunteer, trustee and founder of the Diving Museum in Gosport. We talk about the journey from establishing the museum as a group of volunteers, through redevelopment and professionalisation. A great insight into the commitment and determination you can find within small, volunteer run museums.
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Transcript
Challenges of Establishing a Volunteer-run Museum
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome back to Make Me A Museum, the podcast that explores the practicalities of running small museums in the yeah UK. This episode focuses on the challenges of establishing a volunteer-run museum and how to best navigate things like accreditation, fundraising and ultimately professionalisation.
Introduction of Kevin Casey and Museum Background
00:00:22
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Make Me A Museum. I'm really pleased to be here today with Kevin Casey from the Diving Museum in Gosport. We met, oh I'm not sure how long ago it was now, probably three or four years ago. and i really wanted to talk to you today about the journey you've been on over the last 15 years and as a volunteer run museum that has just employed their first staff members. So it's a really exciting change that's happened fairly recently. But to begin with, Kevin, could you just kind of give us an overview of what is the diving museum? Where is it?
00:01:01
Speaker
what what does What happens at the diving museum? diving museum opened Easter 2011. But the dream of a diving museum started many years before that.
00:01:15
Speaker
We are the the Historical Diving Society, formed in 1990. I've been a member Not a founding member, but still I joined late 1990, having spent my career as 40 years as a commercial diver and always been interested in the history since childhood.
00:01:34
Speaker
um Joined them and was interested in trying to preserve, learn more about the history of
Finding a Location and Financial Beginnings
00:01:41
Speaker
diving. And then what happened was part of their articles was to eventually have a museum and preserve the history of diving.
00:01:52
Speaker
their collection started to increase, people donating that passed away or found items and they needed a building. They couldn't find anything.
00:02:03
Speaker
When you've got a small chap registered charity with no money in the bank, I think many can say they've got a dream, but where's the finances going to come across from? And knew a local councillors, two of them, and knew the gospel that Gospel Borough Council had a Victorian gun battery at the end of Stokes Bay that had been sat idle for over 30 years and approached the council and seen what their feeling was.
00:02:37
Speaker
The building was deemed is unsafe for people to enter, but after that was in 2009 I approached them and took 12 months to convince them that we could and at least use a portion of the building.
00:02:53
Speaker
They gave us a tenancy at will. We did up the museum as much as we could and got our collection in there. Now, that sounds easy, but I had i then approached the Historical Diving Society board first and said, I found you a building.
00:03:09
Speaker
We can display our collection. They said, there's no money. We don't have the money to do that. And some people didn't have trust in councils.
00:03:21
Speaker
the administration changes, they could kick us out. So I said, I don't think they would, but 11 of us put in thousand pound each as patrons.
00:03:33
Speaker
And that's what started the Dodon Museum. We got presented the keys from the council and we had 11,000 pound. Now we're all volunteers and that's where your dedication comes if you want to say that.
00:03:48
Speaker
We just thought we'd open up a building and put our items on display.
Securing Stability and Volunteer Roles
00:03:53
Speaker
And as the penny started to drop over the next couple of years through starting to participate with museum development and um museum development was our savior, godsend or whatever, because from that we started to understand, you know, having a museum, the implications of it and what, how you must look after your collection.
00:04:22
Speaker
And went on for a few years and then we started to realize we've got to do a lot more, how do we do it? And through that, we realized we're gonna start raising money. You can't raise money unless you've got a proper um tenancy.
00:04:39
Speaker
So then we started to apply. So the whole journey went on. We applied for, our where there's a council to take on a legal tenancy and we got a 99 year lease on the building.
00:04:52
Speaker
And that was in 2009, you got that in 99 years? No, no, we got that. it was It took two years to complete that. We completed that in 2019. This was a long journey.
00:05:03
Speaker
When we realised we had to do that, it in 2015, three of us sat down, all volunteers. One took on collections, one took on accreditation, and then both looked at me and i so fundraising was left and I said, I'll do that.
00:05:20
Speaker
So we all went on a journey. that we didn't know where it was taking us and what it was. And I'm sure there's load of museums exactly the same way.
00:05:32
Speaker
They've got a dream and how do we deliver the dream? Every time you deliver one little thing, you realize there's a bigger door.
Establishing Relevance and Volunteer Contributions
00:05:40
Speaker
You open one door, there's a bigger door and a bigger door.
00:05:43
Speaker
And you're taking more and eventually the door is shut behind you. can't turn around and go back. You've got to keep going. You've got to keep going. I'm really interested in that in that meeting that you had where you kind of divvied up those roles, one collections, one fundraising, what were the backgrounds of the people that were in that meeting? you what What made you say, yes, we're going to do this?
00:06:05
Speaker
John Bevan was our chairman of the Historical Diving Society and had done a lot of research into the history of diving along with some other members. They were heavily into the research. I mean, he was the one, him and a couple of other members,
00:06:21
Speaker
realized that, and Gosport never knew this, gospel i mean, Whitstable say they're the home of diving, but really Gosport is because John Dean, when he invented the very first workable diving helmet, moved to Gosport and lived here for 10 years. And his first wife is buried in Trinity Church.
00:06:39
Speaker
And we introduced to Gosport Borough Council that Gosport was the home of diving. And give you an example, when you walk into their town hall across the entrance inside the building, they have a timeline of Gosport and the history because of it's got the rich military history, things like that. You know, part of the entrance to Portsmouth Harbor, you've got the Spanish Armada, Henry VIII's boat, Mary Rose sunk just off the coast, all this sort thing.
00:07:09
Speaker
And all of a sudden they went, so they cut in the middle of it moved along, and put a bit in there, John Dean and the starting of start of diving in gosport So it had a big impact and it's a very good reason for the museum to be here and on the coast where we're looking. So John knew all this.
00:07:30
Speaker
So John was the automatic one to take on collections. Mike, and but and and he had worked in the oil industry for different diving companies, not as a diver. He'd worked with, he'd been a scientist with the Royal Navy at what was the Royal Navy Physiological Laboratory here in Gosport.
00:07:49
Speaker
and then went into the commercial industry as a safety officer and an advisor and then become an expert witness. Mike Amara, who now is our chairman since John passed away, he worked in that he had been a Royal Navy diver through an injur and an accident, an injury.
00:08:12
Speaker
He then stopped diving,
Evolving from Passion to Strategic Planning
00:08:14
Speaker
we went into the commercial world and become eventually when he retired, he was global vice president for the company he and I work for, Sub C7. So he had a background in things to do with health and safety, writing reports. So he was a more of a natural towards accreditation. He understood the companies having to be accredited in their different, the way they are in industry. So he was a natural for that.
00:08:44
Speaker
I wasn't a natural anything except I i wanted to see the museum surviving to turn into something, you know, important. So it was only the only job left was fundraising and I didn't know what I'd taken on.
00:09:03
Speaker
If they'd have told me in 2015, it was December, 2015, that I'd still be fighting to deliver all this 10 years later,
00:09:14
Speaker
I don't know if I'd have taken it on, but that's what people have got on. If you're a volunteer for an all-volunteer museum, you might be taking on something that could take you 10 years. By the time it's fully delivered, that'd be over, and that'd be 10 and a half years, almost. Yeah, and I think that is something, isn't it, with volunteering, that I'm sensing that it wasn't your intention necessarily to be involved in this role for 10 years or 15 years since the museum started. kind of was formed.
00:09:45
Speaker
So your intention primarily was just to kind of celebrate and remember and to kind of focus in on that history of diving within and the importance of diving within Gospor, the group of you. So what, i mean, at that point, when you had that meeting and you were like, right, we are going to go ahead with this, we're taking these roles.
00:10:06
Speaker
Did you have any idea how long it was going to take you? No, I didn't think it would take this long. The reason I took it on, as I said, I'm passionate about history. I'm passionate about preserving. It was my life for 40 years. So i'm very passionate in trying to preserve commercial diving so people understand why so many people died in the oil industry, why they died. i mean, when I started in New Orleans, she said some of the years, there was 20 people died just in the North Sea, in the British sector.
00:10:40
Speaker
So... It was a dangerous job and I love to see their history preserved. Then there's the Royal Navy. Then there's the scientific side and sort of all
Ensuring Sustainability and Professional Growth
00:10:52
Speaker
opens up. But I was the same as the others. We thought we'd open up the doors, we'd present it and it just plod along. And then all of a sudden you realise we've got, well, when we originally opened it up, the Historical Dome Society is national. Our members are all over the country. It just happened.
00:11:11
Speaker
that I lived in Gosport and then our chairman moved here and our present chairman lives. That's just an accident. But, as some people say in the society, well, why haven't you got it in the middle of the country? The reason we haven't got it in the middle of the country to make it more central is first off, the society didn't have the money.
00:11:31
Speaker
so we had to pick something that was free to us and develop from there. But when you start something like this, you have the dream to set it up. You don't realize what's behind the dream.
00:11:43
Speaker
And if you've got a good team with you, you can spread the load. Unfortunately, our society is all over the country and it was very hard to spread the load. And there was a comment made to us when we were going to the lottery and that, and this is something that if there always stayed in my mind, but they said, why should we support all white male hobby and basically that's how it started and then we have to then all of sudden you realize for your hobby to survive it must go to the next level and that was a big learning curve and i'd say over the last over the first 10 years of the museum i learned a lot i learned lot first i would never had any experience with museums being a visitor Now when I walk in a museum, I look at display cases and not what's in them.
00:12:42
Speaker
I've learned so much, but that's what you must be willing to take on. And if you engage with it, you attract more. If you show passion, you'll attract more people that will take the load off you.
00:12:54
Speaker
And that's what we'll keep it. Because what i was alluding to, when we first opened the museum, we had a lot of divers, ex-Navy divers, army divers locally, who wanted to become volunteers. And then all of a sudden you realise we're all old and retired. I hadn't retired then, but either we're close to retiring or retired. So how how is it going to survive when these people pass away? So is your dream just going to be while you're alive and then its state and and it dies? And that was that's the light bulb that goes on in your head.
00:13:26
Speaker
What can make your dream sustainable? And that's all of a sudden you realise, oh, I've got to do a lot of
Achievements and Leadership in Museum Development
00:13:32
Speaker
work here. If I want to hand this on to another generation, we've got to we've got to do a lot more than we originally thought. that that that is That's the big light bulb. All of a sudden you realize, you look around and everybody, you know, we've had a group of members pass away already and we've got a memorial bench outside, some of the outside exhibits and we put their names there.
00:13:57
Speaker
And I look at them and they all had the same dream, but a lot of didn't, they just assumed that it would survive. And that's when you realise, oh, you've got to do a lot more work. If you want to, you've got to get involved in the museum world. You've got to engage with museum development. You've got to see other museums survive.
00:14:18
Speaker
And we've got to the point now where we've got two employees. Yeah. Yeah. And I think where where you're saying, you know, the if, you know, it's been 10 years and that's, that's really long time to be kind of working on this. But I think from one perspective, you can see it, you know, that it's such a long time to be involved and to be kind of you know putting in some really long hours and um you know feels like a bit of a slog. But actually in that time, in that 10 years, you have achieved a huge amount. And where you've said you know it started from kind of your passion and and this kind of white man's hobby, um i think a lot of museums do come from a place like that. but that That enthusiasm is really the seed that begins
00:14:57
Speaker
And then you kind of work out whether this is something that is sustainable or not and whether you've got the people involved who can take it to the next level. And with yours over that 10 years, I mean, it's just grown humongously um from, you know, from being, you know, you three sat around a table working out who's, who's going to do what to now being, you know, at the point of opening this refurbished site with staff members and with this kind of public sustainable, hopefully as well, um future, um looking to the future because you have your environmental controls, you have your air source heat pumps, um you know, you've you've done so much in those 10 years that it's it's quite an incredible journey really to see see where you've come from, which is why I wanted to kind of focus on that bit for a little while. It's a hard one. You need a few people with drive.
00:15:53
Speaker
You definitely, you need a driving force. It's a team effort. We couldn't achieve anything without a team. but there's got to be a leader on the team. And I and i don't want to say that I'm the leader or anything, but myself personally, I've got a dream. I mean, we've got an item we've got an itemum going at the front of the museum.
00:16:11
Speaker
And it was me that realised its importance. It had been in John's collection. it was in Charlestown. It was going to be sold. And I found out through contacts its importance.
00:16:24
Speaker
So now it's going to be installed at the front the museum as an exhibit. and they all call it Kevin's Bell. And that's because, in other words, somebody has to keep pushing. every There's got to be a dreamer.
00:16:39
Speaker
And if you don't have a dreamer, you'll just all plot around in a circle. And I'm not patting myself on the back. I don't mean it like that. But I'm i'm also i'm planning the next the next steps already, even though we haven't finished these steps, because I can see what has to be put in place for this to be a sustainable future.
00:17:01
Speaker
And it's really, really important to get it done so the museum can survive in its own right, which is extremely important. And for example, we just said the three of the two employees, they're paid by the lottery for three years.
00:17:19
Speaker
I'm already right from day One one of the questions, is one of the when we interviewed the ladies, They said, well, what's your dream? And I said, for me, i was one of the interviewers, I said, my dream is that we build this museum up to the point when your three years is up, we've still got the money in the bank to continue paying your wages because we need paid employees. that's we You must. mean, they will take us to the next level.
00:17:49
Speaker
It's also realizing your own, not vulnerabilities, but your own abilities.
Personal Growth and Learning from Failures
00:17:55
Speaker
And we have got the museum to a stage where it's beyond us.
00:18:02
Speaker
In other words, the proper management of the museum and the proper community engagement managing, we need professional people for that.
00:18:14
Speaker
We can dream it, but how do we deliver it? So this is an important step. So any volunteer organization got to work themselves up to a a position that they can take then a professional on, i all of a sudden realized, what I always thought, oh, it's going to be hard when the professionals come in with the volunteers. And then all of a sudden I realized, no, it's me that's going to be the hardest.
00:18:43
Speaker
And I started to think because I'm going to have to stand out, start handing over things that have been my domain. And I thought, it's good. um i've I've come to terms with, but you don't realize all of a sudden there's two people there and I've got to start sharing.
00:19:00
Speaker
So there's um it's a lot to deal with and a lot to think about, but that's really important because you cannot take your focus off. It's not me, it's the museum, which is the important thing.
00:19:13
Speaker
And that was learning curve for me. All of a sudden now, I've got to start handing things over. um i think I've got to be more strategic. which I enjoy.
00:19:25
Speaker
enjoy the networking. Networking everything. Networking with museums, networking with people in business, that's important. And what I've finally learned is I've got to hand over the day-to-day running, which I was heavily involved in.
00:19:40
Speaker
Even though I still make the final decisions, I pay the bills. But I will hand the museum totally. Once the all the work's done, hand it over to the ladies, and I'll just be strategic, which is much better because my wife would be a lot happier but it's understanding where you are don't become a dictator don't think that you're the only one that can can think it's it's been a big learning curve for me you know in my life it's it's done a lot for me I suppose one of the things that I'm really interested in is actually that core part, you know, over the last 10 years or so where, yes, you might have been the dreamer, but you had to make it happen. and
00:20:23
Speaker
You had to become a doer as well to be able to make that dream happen. And often, often people are either the dreamer or the doer and not both. So what was the process like? You didn't come from a fundraising background. You didn't come from a museum background. You had, you know, a hell of a lot to learn, as you said, at that point about running a museum. and You had a vision of where you wanted to go, which I think is hugely important.
00:20:49
Speaker
But actually making that vision happen, that is that is a really big job. And what happened at that point where you or what did you do, I suppose, to make that vision a reality? How did you start at a place where you, you know, were just like, I don't know how to do this to actually doing what you have and and and achieving so much in that time?
00:21:11
Speaker
Right, I'll go back. now we We opened the doors in 2011. We plodded along and then realized we had to do more. And that's where the meeting in 2015 was. And we at we had that talk at the museum around a table and we were at a workshop and the lottery were there.
00:21:31
Speaker
don't think historic I think Historic England were there possibly an other and some um some independent consultants and we had a chat and that's when we divided it up.
00:21:42
Speaker
And I can remember the lottery standing on the stage and saying, look, we've got this money. you've all All the people were invited to this were people with dreams around Portsmouth Harbor, all to do with the old military buildings and things like that. And said, apply, apply.
00:22:00
Speaker
So i applied for the 10,000 pound for development and and that paid for a consultant. Okay. And this was in It must have been 16, 2016.
00:22:15
Speaker
and we got the 10,000. I the consultant. And then I thought I could write a lottery grant myself. And I put down basically the lottery grant I put in was the dream.
00:22:27
Speaker
umm winner And I've still got the the application here. I read it at times and now I just see how naive I was. But it was good to do that.
00:22:39
Speaker
because from being naive, that's how you learn. But um I still remember that consultant's face when she finally stopped working with us because 10,000 pounds didn't go very far.
00:22:53
Speaker
i can read I can still see her face looking at me. i might be wrong, but saying, he's got a dream, but he's not gonna get anywhere. But Delantri didn't tell us not to come back. They said they told us where we'd gone wrong. weren't but I thought I understood everything they wanted. I wrote the whole application myself with some with the aid of the consultant and was totally out of it. Then that's how I, you must fail, you must fail.
00:23:23
Speaker
And then I applied it again and failed again.
Industry Support and Funding Strategies
00:23:29
Speaker
But you don't give up. And while we were going to the lottery each time, we're also chasing other money.
00:23:38
Speaker
we We eventually got industry to support us and that helped a lot. The industry gave us ยฃ110,000, not in one lot. they They spread it over a couple of years.
00:23:55
Speaker
Can I just ask you, when you say industry, is that from diving-related organisations or other businesses, other industries? No, diving-related related industry That scene allowed us to get the consultant I then worked du worked with from 2017 until this year.
00:24:13
Speaker
A few things you have to do is start to be willing to fail, but learn. And the luxury were good. They invited us up to London. We sat there we got told what we did wrong, which was great.
00:24:27
Speaker
Then because we started getting some money from industry over a couple of years, and It's also southeast we were in Southeast Museums development then, and I got a grant out of them also for the consult.
00:24:45
Speaker
And even with the consultant, we failed again. But along the way, we got grants to do our governance. We realized our governance was wrong. We realized all these parts the bits that they want to see, this is what you learn by failing, that they tell you, well, you didn't do this, you didn't do this, this isn't up to scratch.
00:25:10
Speaker
So you've got to start trying to take little grants. So I was taking little grants out of Southeast and then Southwest and from different organizations to try and fill these gaps and get the experts to fill these gaps. And then we approached Historic England. don't There's many parts to this jigsaw.
00:25:32
Speaker
And I'm just thinking as I'm talking. Like we were in a building that was in a terrible condition. We could only use one third of it. The other third of it, we stored our chairs in one room and it was that wet in there. We had to put a gazebo over it.
00:25:47
Speaker
It was terrible. So we eventually approached historic England. And when you approach these organizations also, another ingredient is very important.
00:25:59
Speaker
is your passion. They must believe in you. And if they believe in you, that's a big step. In other words, they know that their money is not going to be wasted.
00:26:12
Speaker
So Historic England gave us a development grant. We're very lucky. And that allowed us to understand the building.
00:26:23
Speaker
That was 36,000 pounds. So we all we ended up was with was a document that said all the faults in the building and roughly what they thought would be required. It wasn't totally in-depth.
00:26:37
Speaker
It could be inaccurate, but it gave a good... So that was a document that helped us. It got us to raise more money with Historic England, Pilgrims Trust, quite a few organizations that would help us with the fabric of the building.
00:26:56
Speaker
so You've got to look at every angle. It's not just everything focused on the lottery. Definitely the lottery is very, very important. They are our biggest funder.
00:27:09
Speaker
But um take on when you fail, take on everything they say. Also, the other thing I learned very much is you must look at the guidance and you must deliver the outcomes. Your project must do both.
00:27:27
Speaker
And every time you answer a question, you've got to keep looking at those two. So I learned that, which I never did before.
Community Engagement and Networking
00:27:35
Speaker
Before, i probably spent too much time saying, oh, our great dream with Historical Diving Society, we want to save all the diving history, we want to do this.
00:27:46
Speaker
No. And as I said, why should they support our collection? It turned out, I've had, my mind has totally turned around that the collection is a tool.
00:28:02
Speaker
The tool is how you support your community and what you can deliver with that tool. And that, I'm still having trouble explaining that to a lot of the volunteers.
00:28:13
Speaker
We're preserving the history Dyson, but we we're preserving it to help our local community in a way. That sounds very simple, but yeah, it's a tool.
00:28:26
Speaker
to teach the new generations, the young children, adults. It is entertainment, but it's really got to be a tool. so And by using as a tool, you're preserving it. It's a double-edged sword.
00:28:39
Speaker
And that, for a volunteer that just started off with a dream, a group of volunteers, that's a very hard door to open, if you want to use that sort of euphemism. It's very hard door to open and still having trouble explaining to the volunteers that, yeah, and we're doing really well, that's an important object, but no we can't put it on display because you're not, it's not, and you just can't fill the building with every item you've got.
00:29:11
Speaker
You've got to fill it in a really nice way that engages with the public and you're using the building and you're using the collection to its best ability to help the local community or the whole country because we're the only dedicated dime museum.
00:29:25
Speaker
There's many, many parts to it. And I don't know if I'm describing it very well or if I'm jumping around a lot, but there's so much to learn. And the thing is, you must retain this knowledge and you use it to keep delivering, keep delivering.
00:29:41
Speaker
And um network networking is important. Engaging, as I've already mentioned, engaging with museum development. We wouldn't be where we are today without museum development. I sing it from the highest,
00:29:55
Speaker
in a mountain, how important the MDOs are, support of the MDOs, the workshops. Prior to COVID, we used to attend workshops, multiple workshops every month, and we were still working then, but it was so important. And that's how first of people got to know us. We got help.
00:30:15
Speaker
We got advice. And you can't survive without that. You can't live in your own little cocoon. oh I've got this dream. Oh, I've got this building. oh, we're doing really, really well.
From Dream to Community Institution
00:30:26
Speaker
No, you must be part of the wider community with the museums because you'll get much more help that way. I don't know if I've answered all your questions there.
00:30:36
Speaker
Yeah, I think you have. And there, I mean, there's just so much in there in terms of, you know, if you're part of a small museum that's volunteer run and you're, you know, you have this vision and how do you make it happen when everything's kind of feeling,
00:30:51
Speaker
quite overwhelming about where, you know, where do you start? You've got, you know, you need to get some money in and you need to do all this, that and the other. But actually, i mean, there's there's lots of things around the outside, but I think that it's the thing that kind of comes out really strongly within what you're saying is that that vision was really core. You were really focused on what you wanted to get and you kept that in your mind and built everything around that.
00:31:16
Speaker
And all of this learning has really been tightly bound to that vision and to preserving those objects and and preserving them for the future and working out the best way of doing that. So, ah you know, that's evolved over time from being, you know, you know, a group of people who were interested themselves and thought it was important to actually being able to see that you can,
00:31:42
Speaker
do all of those things you can look after those objects but you need to understand how it's important to other people and how that will kind of keep it going and the sustainability of that but but learning about how how you have that collection as your tool i think that is a kind of ah a really really important thing that i think a lot of people don't necessarily see right at the beginning and i think that's that's that's a really key bit of bit of learning think the biggest thing is be prepared to fail Ain't the failure a success story?
00:32:16
Speaker
Never give up, but learn from your failures. Be prepared to fail multiple times. I found it strange that was eventually set up when we got the lottery. I said, I'm so glad I failed.
00:32:29
Speaker
if i'd had got If we'd have got the lottery first time, a museum wouldn't have lasted. We didn't have the resilience built into us. We would have just been operating, oh, blimey, we got the lottery first time. Well, listen, no, um um'm ah I'm not talking about a professional museum. I'm talking about a volunteer museum. I'm sort of letting volunteers understand.
00:32:53
Speaker
um I think by failing, you eventually build, as long as you never give up. you never give up. You find out why you failed and try again and be prepared to fail again and learn and learn each time.
Strategic and Financial Planning for the Future
00:33:10
Speaker
The one thing that Doesn't do it, never stops. Down the line what what has to be done when this lottery grant's finished or this big project. But I don't think if you want a museum to be resilient, oh yeah, you can calm down.
00:33:28
Speaker
You must be thinking ahead. You must have a three-year plan, a five-year plan, and a 10-year plan and what it takes to get that. So I never knew about any of this when I started, but I realised the importance of those.
00:33:40
Speaker
what has to be achieved in that time. With one of our volunteers, a retired forensic accountant, we're working out our projections through to 2033. It was a requirement to do it, but we took this on.
00:33:57
Speaker
So we got the worst case scenario, medium case scenario, and a really good case scenario. So we know where we'll be financially. we can You never know, but our guess is where we'll be.
00:34:10
Speaker
And that's important because you've got to look ahead. And once the museums open, we get our first year over, up we think we will review a lot of this to see where we'll be in 2035, 2036.
00:34:24
Speaker
You must look ahead. And cause you've got to pass this over to the next generation and they must know what's required. so resilience, financial stability are two important things to keep it going. And that must come out of this. And that's what the lottery and all funders want to see. They don't want to fund public money and something's going to fail in five years. And there's a lot of examples of that.
00:34:48
Speaker
There's a lot to think of and a lot to pass on. Yeah, definitely. But I think, I mean, those are two really, really important things. So not letting failure, not taking it personally, I suppose, as well, that failure, that it it is an opportunity for learning. So thinking about it as a positive thing is something that's really important. And also not necessarily not thinking, oh, well, those funders think my idea is rubbish and my vision is rubbish, because that's not necessarily true. It's just not been, it's not ticked to all the boxes at that time. And, you know, there's still that opportunity, that vision is still worth it if you have the determination to make it happen. So that's something to to kind of take away, I think.
00:35:27
Speaker
But also the other thing is ah you just said then about looking forward. So that, again, is that going back to that vision. You always had that that in your focus. But something that's really important that I think a lot of small museums you know do really struggle with is looking forwards because all day, every day is a fight to keep your doors open. And so it's really hard to take that time to step back and look out there and and see what's happening next and where you want to go next and how you're going to get there. But that strategic view is, so you know, coming from you is is saying, you know, that is really important. And it may not be, you know, when you first start out that you know how you're going to get there, but you knew that you wanted to have that museum. And you had that in your sights.
00:36:15
Speaker
And you may not have had a 20 page strategy written up but you knew you knew where you wanted to go and that is the first first bit isn't it the first um kind of point to have and then you've kind of built up the strategy and now 10 years later you do have those longer term plans those written plans the worst case scenarios the best case scenarios and it's bit and it's evolved into that but even just having that destination in mind has helped the other thing which is really important which i would say too
00:36:47
Speaker
volunteer museums your little museum or big museum is really good you love it that's what you work for but don't become an insular look at the world around you look outside the windows go out and see what's happening elsewhere because you'll just plug along and not really be able to develop the you'll have some ideas you want to be here in so many years now but you need to visit other museums not as a guests walking around up as a visitor looking at their displays. You want to visit other museums and find out how they're operating. What's their what's their best practice? what's What's their failures? What is their issues?
00:37:31
Speaker
What do they do good? you know And from that, you must understand the world you're operating in. Do not become just focused on your own little museum because them.
00:37:46
Speaker
I'm not saying you'll fail, but you won't progress. You've got to join into the bigger museum world to progress. And that's what the funders want to see. They want to know that you're part of the museum world, especially Arts Council.
00:38:00
Speaker
they They need to know. ah yeah We've eventually been successful with Arts Council. Boy, we failed there a few times. um So that
Integration into the Museum Ecosystem
00:38:10
Speaker
that is an extremely important thing, is to mix with other museums.
00:38:14
Speaker
and ah and different styles of museums, from all volunteer music museums to fully professional museums. And you've got to learn how to deal with national museums. You've got to understand how the different government indemnity, UKRG forms, all these sort of things.
00:38:35
Speaker
And once that opens up, you will understand what you've got to deliver and how how to deliver it by being just your own little group. you You're not learning anything.
00:38:46
Speaker
with inside yourself. You've got to look out. And also, just while you were saying that, I was thinking, and you've got to learn all those acronyms as well, which I know is ah as a thing that is very close to your heart, making sure that everybody understands what the acronyms mean.
00:39:01
Speaker
Well, I know. I used to sit in meetings and I would sit there and I was, you know, workshops. And they were all talking these acronyms and didn't have a clue. And now I find myself doing it.
00:39:16
Speaker
It's the sign of ah of a museum professional. You have reached that level where you can talk in acronyms and confuse all the newbies. Yeah, it's very funny
Balancing Personal Life and Museum Commitments
00:39:25
Speaker
that. I've actually, I've said it to my wife a few times. I don't believe i've what I just said then. I'm doing what played you what used to wind me up with other people, but it makes it a lot easier.
00:39:37
Speaker
There's one thing I haven't mentioned in all this, especially when you become re retired. I've got a wife. I've got six grandchildren. I've got two daughters.
00:39:49
Speaker
And my wife can get very upset with me. She says, because I'm a volunteer, i work all different hours. I'm not like a, you could say, a nine to five professional.
00:40:01
Speaker
I don't switch off. And that does mind my wife up a bit. So you've got to also bring your family along with you and alienate them, even though my wife does get upset with me at times, but then she does believe in my passion as well.
00:40:20
Speaker
But, you know, that's another hard thing to juggle as a volunteer, how much time you can give. Yes, i can I can almost see so many other trustees and volunteers at volunteer-run museums nodding along and saying, yes, absolutely, you know, my partner get so frustrated with this, that and the other because of how much time I put into this museum and I think that that is that is definitely something that happens and having that support of your of your family, your nearest and dearest is is definitely um helpful for but for these museums and i i think that there is um
00:40:57
Speaker
something within within the the number of people that volunteer for museums or run museums as volunteers is is just vast. And if we could add up all of the hours that people put in to supporting these organisations and these causes, and there is ah a phrase called the passion tax, which you know a lot of freelancers say that they they suffer from that and and museum professionals too because of the the kind of rates of pay and everything else. But I think certainly... you know, volunteers are are part of that, that, you know, you're you're almost paying paying the passion tax by by supporting the museum and heritage set sector so much with your free time. You made me think of something on what you wrote. We've taken on two professionals and they've engaged with the passion, which is really important. You want the volunteers to see the same dream as you and not volunteers, the employees to see
00:41:57
Speaker
same dream as you and engage with it and boy both of them have engaged with it and they're really excited about where it's going what's made it good for them they've come in they can't they started in may and so we've virtually got they've got the last 12 months of delivering the new museum so they're becoming trickle parts of it it's great when you can get employees that are as engaged with you makes life very easy so that's an important thing to make an employee engage with your dream like that and that that isn't difficult they've got to they've got to see
Key Insights for Volunteer-run Museums
00:42:34
Speaker
that you're working that volunteers are working with them and not just dumping everything on them absolutely that real team effort and and that
00:42:45
Speaker
sense of vision. And again, that brings the organisation together is having that sense of vision. I think, I mean, there is so much in in our conversation, I think, that that museums could take away, you know, about, yeah, having having that long-term vision about investing in fundraising, whether that's through you know, ah a dedicated volunteer or, you know, getting consultants in if you can, and for the for the museums that have more staff paying for a fundraiser, you know, that is that is really important for those grant funds. um
00:43:16
Speaker
But I think also, yeah, thinking about that collection as a tool, um looking outside of your organisation. I remember when I went travelling, somebody said to me, you know, the most important thing you can do while you're traveling is to look up because you spend so much time looking at where you're going, where you're walking, you miss so much. and And that's exactly the same sort of vision, that idea that you need to look outwards, you need to learn from other people and and your sense of, you know, continuing to learn that you, you know, you never get to the end of your journey of learning, you're constantly picking up information, you're constantly looking around meeting new people, gathering ideas, building up that map of where you want, of how you're going to get to where you want to go. um
00:43:58
Speaker
But I think also there is there is something within all of this about, you know, having people at the core of the organisation too, who can articulate that vision, who can help the others everybody else coming in keeping that kind of dream alive throughout that time and and you know in your case it it has been you and your team of volunteers who who have that passion and have that drive and have kept it going and i think that that is something that is really not always recognized is how important it is for people to be able to articulate that vision and share it and bring people along on that journey with you've mentioned that what you've just said then has made me think of three things
00:44:40
Speaker
two of them are combined together really is finding a good consultant. There's loads of good consultants. eventually got one who I got on so, so well with. We just both s sunk from the same hymn sheet. That was great. So we stuck with her and she was fantastic. and She an important part of delivering what we've delivered.
00:45:02
Speaker
And we had to get an architect. And why not? mean, I've never done this before. I mean, I've never gone out looking for consultants. in my previous life. I never looked for architects. It has to be a conservation architect as well. And you want one that's on Historic England's approved list.
00:45:20
Speaker
So I went out to a group of cons consult architects and only one came to the museum to see what we're doing. The rest just, most of them were that we were just too small for them.
00:45:35
Speaker
Didn't need to just didn't even really take any interest, but just said, it's going to cost this amount. So I went with the one that bothered to come out and it's turned out good. Yeah, I do have arguments with him. and We disagreed on a lot of things, but he is bought into our project.
00:45:55
Speaker
But the other one that he made me think of, and i I always think about it, you know that show, it was it The Dragon's Den? Somebody goes and stands in front of those experts and tries to sell a dream and you've got to have all your answers and i stood outside the museum it was during the omnicron um covered about so we couldn't we could socialize at distance and the head of the arts council came to gosport and he wanted to look at all the different sites and before the only crime actually hit the council said for he would like to come and see the diving museum just before we had any Arts Council grants.
00:46:38
Speaker
I said, yeah, i no problem. I'll give them a tour. Then because of the COVID again, they said, no, we can't do We're just going to do a tour on a bus. I said, I'll meet them in the car park.
00:46:49
Speaker
No, no, they won't do that. I got a phone call back an hour later. Yeah, they'll meet you in the car park. You're going to have 10 minutes. You've got 10 minutes to deliver your dream to the head of the Arts Council.
00:47:02
Speaker
And I I didn't waste one second of that. I had it all worked out. They asked questions and I had the answers to every question. fine answers, where it's going, pull that that's that's how you sell yourself. And then that's a really good example to watch in that show and see all the mistakes people make. And that's the mistakes you can make when you're to trying to deliver a dream.
00:47:25
Speaker
You've got to make people, the biggest thing is making people and organizations believe in you, that's your volunteers, your consultants and the funders. They've got to believe in your dream. They've got to believe in you that you will deliver that.
00:47:40
Speaker
That's probably the biggest thing. And watching that show teaches you a lesson. And I think that is an absolutely brilliant way to end our conversation today. make people believe in you, get your elevator pitch, that 10 minute pitch of what your vision is and how you're going to get there. I think that is ah an absolutely golden nugget to take away.
00:48:04
Speaker
So i will I will go and sit and and work out my 10 minute pitch to the Arts Council. Thank you so much, Kevin. It's been an absolute joy. thank you very much. okay Thank you.
00:48:21
Speaker
Wow, what a great insight into the Diving Museum's journey. One that seems totally remarkable and yet with so many elements that will be so recognisable from many volunteer-led museums.
00:48:33
Speaker
There's an awful lot to be inspired by in that interview, but having a vision and not just following it through, but ensuring you have the ability to bring your team along with you has got to be my top learning from today.
00:48:49
Speaker
with an action for me to create a 10 minute elevator pitch. What is the vision for the museum? And how can we work together to make it happen?
00:49:05
Speaker
Thank you for listening. And I hope to see you again next time here at Make Me A Museum.