Major Grant Imminent, Major Grunt Inevitable

Palms are sweaty, forehead is glistening, hair is receding and greying - why? Wednesday 25th January 2012 is the day the Arts Council of England (ACE) announce the Major Grants for museums with designated collections in England. A potential boost of millions of £££ for museums is imminent - Major Grant. Or a potential loss of income, staff combined with the crushing of hopes and dreams - Major Grunt. Well at least for 3 years anyway. What will happen on Wednesday Grant or Grunt?

1.

Major Grant  -  Celebrate with staff                                                          

Major Grunt -  Tell staff Strategic Grant was the main aim all along

2.

Major Grant  - Put "too rich to care"on your  Outlook auto reply                                                       

Major Grunt -  Put "closing down sale now on" on your Outlook Outlook auto reply                                                 

                                           

3.

Major Grant  - Try to remember the 5 strategic ACE goals                                                                                                                                            

Major Grunt -  Know you will never forget the 5 strategic ACE goals                                

4.

Major Grant  - Know you are now officially an excellent museum                                                                                  

Major Grunt - Know you are now certainly going to be an ex museum  

5.

Major Grant  - Know you now have diverse audiences                                                                                                  

Major Grunt -  Know you now have reverse audiences

6.

Major Grant  - Know your museum embodies leadership                                                                                                            

Major Grunt - Know your museum exudes desperation

7.

Major Grant  - Know you are now a child friendly museum                                                                                                         

Major Grunt - Know that claiming to be child friendly will definitely get you arrested

As Albert Einstein said "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results" - so book yourself in for psychiatric treatment now, because you are going to go through it again in 3 years time. Either that or 2015 will find you taking it easy on a park bench in London cradling a bottle of meths. It's your choice.

New Year's Resolution: Clear that backlog

Happy New Year dear reader.

After a Christmas break watching reviews of the year which singularly failed to mention the museum crisis in this country I began thinking about starting 2012 off as positively as possible given that the world is apparently guaranteed to end on 21st December 2012. This gives plenty of time for the conscientious museum professional to meet his or her maker with their museum meeting current accreditation standards.

So here is my to do list.

1. CLEAR THE ACCESSIONING BACKLOG ONCE AND FOR ALL. I can't allow everything to be destroyed in a global apocalypse without being properly recorded.
2. I realise I am unable create the time to do it myself, so I will apply for small grant funding to employ part time staff to clear the backlog.
3. In the current circumstances money is thin on the ground so I will instead recruit new volunteers and train them up to do it.
4. I don't have time to train volunteers myself. So I will recruit fully trained registrars as volunteers thereby cynically using the glut of recently unemployed museum professionals.
5. All unemployed registrars will still want paying and have already set themselves up as consultants so I will create four backlog clearance timetables based upon objectives 1-4.
6. I don't have time to create four timetables, so I will simply re-write the collections management strategy to reflect the available resources to clear the backlog.
7. Sod it - I'll just call it all a 'handling collection'.
8. Bugger - objections from the Education Manager means I will ethically dispose of the backlog, or failing that sell the stuff on ebay.
9. Bollocks - museums don't want to increase their collections and the trustees don't want to be seen to be selling their stuff.
10. Hire a skip and hope nobody notices before 21st December.

Happy New Year