Galleries of Justice, Nottingham

Work areas: project management, HLF applications, activity planning

We worked with the Galleries of Justice in Nottingham to develop a first round Heritage Lottery Fund bid to unlock the historic courthouse building and increase potential to attract visitors. We are now working with them to refine the proposals for a second round application. The project will provide a completely new visitor experience, opening up the complex historic building and providing new access to collections and the heritage.

 

Museum Development East Midlands

Work areas: audience development, organisational support

We worked to deliver the audience development strand of the Museum Development East Midlands museum support programme for 2013/14 and 2014/15. We worked with organisations across the East Midlands to increase their capability to understand their users and non-users and to attract new audiences.

 

The Millowners Arms at Kelham Island Museum

Work areas: project management, interpretation delivery

Kelham Island Museum's newest gallery looks at the history of beer in Sheffield. Set up to look like an old-fashioned pub, it includes a functioning bar alongside exhibits from the city's brewing past.

 

We led on the development of the gallery, working with design company G+ Studio to make the exhibition a reality.

 

Mansfield Museum

Work areas: HLF applications, activity planning, interpretation planning, management & maintenance planning

We worked with Mansfield Museum to develop a Round Two HLF application for a project involving working with the local community to create a new industrial gallery centred around people's memories and experiences of industry. The new exhibition forms an introduction to the museum, located in one of its key gallery spaces. We supported the museum through the HLF process as well as preparing the Activity Plan, Interpretation Plan, and the Management and Maintenance Plan.

 

Quilt Museum and Gallery, York

Work areas: audience research, strategic marketing

In 2010 we worked with the Quilt Museum and Gallery in York to research their audiences and review the visitor offer. This work involved a large-scale visitor survey, focus groups, internal and external peer reviews and consultation with current users and non-users. The work informed the museum's strategic marketing plan and will feed into future developments.

 

Renaissance Yorkshire

Work areas: Audience development planning, visitor research

We worked with Renaissance Yorkshire to deliver a mentoring scheme designed to help boost visitor numbers and improve the quality of visitor experiences for four museums in the Yorkshire and Humberside region.

 

We provided support in audience development, including evaluating how audience data is gathered, how it is used to help inform future activities, and building capacity within each organisation to enable them to develop their own audience development plans. The museums we supported through this programme were: Doncaster Museums Service (Doncaster), the Aircraft Museum (Doncaster) the Museum of North Craven Life (Settle) and the Pannett Art Gallery (Whitby).

 

The Hawley Gallery at Kelham Island Museum

Work areas: business planning, interpretation planning, audience development

In 2010 the Ken Hawley Collection Trust (in partnership with Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust) launched its new gallery and storage facilities in what had been a derelict building.

 

The £700,000 project was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. DBA Consulting helped manage the HLF application process and prepared an options appraisal, an audience development plan and a business plan. We also wrote the exhibition plan for the new gallery.

 

Vale of Glamorgan Council

Work areas: options appraisal, business planning, consultation

We undertook a piece of work on behalf of the Vale of Glamorgan Council in Wales, assessing the potential options for a new museum within the area. This involved working with a variety of local volunteer history and heritage groups to assess their needs and ensure that these were met by the final recommendations. The project also involved looking at the capital and revenue implications of any new building or service to ensure the viability of the project, as well as assessing both physical options (including a number of dispersed locations) and virtual options.

 

Denby Abbey and Farmland Museum

Work areas: HLF applications

We worked with the museum on a Round One HLF application to redevelop one of the museum’s main buildings on the site. We supported the museum through the HLF process as well as preparing the Round One application.

 

Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter

Work areas: business planning, project management, audience research

We worked with the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter over several years to to develop a major redevelopment programme for the museum and win £10.1 million of funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

 

As lead advisor for the project, we prepared many of the supporting documents for the funding application including the business plan and audience development plan. We also commissioned qualitative and quantitative research into the museum's audiences which were used as an evidence base for the audience development plan.

 

Hawley Gallery Evaluation

Work areas: Evaluation

We worked with Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust over a three year period to evaluate the delivery of the Hawley Collection HLF project. We worked with staff to put a monitoring system in place and supported them to gather data and feedback using appropriate sampling techniques. The information contributed to a comprehensive report to inform the final project evaluation.

 

Greater Manchester Museums Forum

Work areas: strategic planning, research

In 2010 we worked with L&R Consulting on a project with the Greater Manchester Museums Forum to develop a sustainability strategy for the city's museums. The project is concerned with developing new approaches, models and advocacy for collaboration and service delivery. This has involved consultation with all of the museum services in the area, the collection of data from the museum service, the preparation of an advocacy document and the running of a workshop with all the museum managers.

 

Coventry Heritage and Arts Trust

Work areas: transfer to trust, organisational structure, governance

In 2008 we worked on the transfer of the Herbert from Coventry City Council to an independent trust. This followed an earlier piece of work to assess the options for the future management of the museum.

 

We worked with the Council and their legal advisors on the transfer and we were involved in Trustee recruitment, recruitment of a new Chief Executive and Finance Officer for the Trust and setting up new financial systems. We also prepared a business plan for the transfer which took into account the change to Trust status, the opening of a significant extension to the existing museum and the costs of a more ambitious programme.

 

Kelham Island Museum Redisplay Project

Work areas: business planning, exhibitions, interpretation planning, audience research

We have worked with Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust for a number of years and have prepared five successful Heritage Lottery Fund bids for them.

 

Following major flooding in 2007, we managed the conservation of the collections, the recovery of the industrial store and the re-creation of the main galleries at Kelham Island Industrial Museum. The new main galleries and the Hawley Gallery at Kelham Island Museum have been highly commended by museum visitors, leading members of the HLF, the Chief Executive of the MLA, and by leading museum professionals.

 

DBA Consulting were responsible for developing all aspects of the main gallery redisplay project including the audience research, consultation, developing the interpretation plan, content creation, selection of and liaison with designers and project managing the installation.

 

National Museums at Chatham

Work areas: business planning, marketing planning, programming, audience development

Chatham Historic Dockyard is a rare example of a complete dockyard from the age of sail. The National Museums at Chatham project brings together the maritime model collections of Chatham, the Imperial War Museum and the National Maritime Museum onto one site. DBA Consulting acted as project advisor for the £5 million HLF application. We prepared the options appraisal, business plan, audience development plan and economic appraisal for the project, which is now in progress. We also prepared a marketing plan and an additional business plan for a new temporary exhibition space at Chatham. This included a five-year business model with an illustrative programme of events, founded on a model which considers the costs and income of different exhibition types and different hire arrangements.