Consider how you and your museum or museums you are familiar with might broaden and deepen your understanding of issues faced by community organisations.
Develop a plan of action around this, that is itself sensitive to the time-constraints faced by such organisations. Consider, for example:
- It is not usually formally part of the community groups’ work to educate museum professionals, so opportunities to learn from them need to be ‘win win,’ with the group gaining too.
- Hold an event bringing together local community and voluntary groups.
- Pay participants whenever possible. (This could come out of staff training budget, or equalities budget, for example).
- Hold a discussion group, led by an independent organisation, to discuss what might draw more organisations to be interested in partnerships
- Check what group members might find a barrier to participation. For example, formal-feeling events with presentations by experts might not work
- Invite the group for a guided tour of a museum, followed by cake.
- Take the manager out for lunch.
- Volunteering for a day, or five, at community and voluntary organisations.
This should take about 30 minutes.
Please record your learning, in your reflection notes.