2023-03-31-accounts - Museum Of Army Music

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ANNUAL REPORT – Jul 2024

This report speaks on behalf of the Museum Trustees

The Museum of Army Music is in a state of transition, since losing its home of over 50 years during this financial year. The trustees have found a new location and designed a new business model to fit the purpose of a modern collection such as ours:

a. Research centre based at the Museum head office in Minley, Surry.
b. Footprint in London at the Guard’s Museum near Buckingham Place
c. New research focussed website.
d. Displays and potential full museum collection at Historic Dockyard, Portsmouth.

Long term plan. Post 2025, once established as part of the Corps’ key footprint areas, the museum will start to generate some income and the trustees will confirm the business plan. The long term aim is to have a public facing museum, a research centre and an informative website (already online: Museum Of Army Music |). As part of the project funded, the Project manger has made significant progress with a partnership potential at Historic Dockyard, and despite a small footprint in the Guards Museum, London, the museum could grow in Portsmouth located at a fashionable, well attended site in Portsmouth, based next door to the Alford School of Music, yet outside the wire. The trustees are pursuing this avenue and will report back at the next museum trustee meeting.

GIA and Arts Council Accreditation. Having previously been granted full accredited status with the Arts Council and subsequent public funded status, the Museum is now in a part accredited status since the closure of Kneller Hall. It is expected full accreditation status will be achieved within the next 3 years which will potentially keep the GIA staffing fund for the foreseeable future. Part of the project is assisting the trustees to achieve full accreditation with the plans set out above being actioned.

£5k Grant. For the last 2 years, the Corps Trust has provided a grant to cover costs sat outside of the rules from the GIA.

a. GIA. A grant of £24,007.74 to cover staffing costs only associated with the museum. The amount would ordinarily cover 1 x Curator part time, to open the museum when required and carry out display changes and research enquiries. This was the situation pre closure of the KH site. Today, 2 x staff are using the GIA in full to sort all the items from storage, re-catalogue and plan future displays/stories. Further funding is required to project manage the development of the new museum aims.
b. £5k. To work alongside the staffing costs to pay for insurance, MODES (museum catalogue), staff travel expenses to Portsmouth and London or any other small costs such as stationary and web hosting.

£20k Grant. The extra £20k will go towards staffing the set up and delivery of designed displays in the new locations and the continued forward momentum of achieving the Museum aim. Target completion to complete the setting up of the concept is Apr 25. Note this would be inclusive of the £5k grant already paid, so an additional £20k is being asked for.

Post grant phase. After Apr 25, it is anticipated that the full cost of the GIA will cover expenses in the main. The museum would benefit hugely with continuing the annual grant of £5k for the miscellaneous costs as described. However, as part of the long-term plan, the opportunity to rent space at Historic Dockyard could be an income generation opportunity and the trustees are currently looking into any potential costs associated with a rental agreement, expected to be far less than £25k per year, reduced further with the offer of combined events and mutually beneficial income generating projects.

Income Generation. With the current footprint plan comes opportunity to raise funds through trustee led event activities, grant applications and any profits from the services provided by the museum website and displays. The museum trustees have discussed sending all income generated to the Enterprise Fund to reduce the cost burden from the grants. The project manager has already achieved £7k worth of funding and has reported additional opportunities, although acknowledged the use of the Project Manager time must concentrate on the aim rather than application of lengthy grants which could be deemed cost neutral - this point will be fed back to the Project Manager.

Summary. The museum is in a pattern of growth and should be a hub for RCAM sldrs to use to visit, gain Esprit de Corps, educate and be inclusive to veterans. The work carried out has made significant progress to date since the plan to deliver a new business model started in Apr 23. Achieving the museum aim is likely to bring a return for RCAM Sldrs with the service it will provide, not necessarily in monetary value short term, but this is certainly a long term aspiration.

Further background

Current financial situation. In 2024/25, the Museum will receive a Grant in Aid payment of £24,008. This supports 102 days curatorial time per annum which over a 48 week work pattern equates to 2.125 days per week. Up until 2023/2024 the GIA was supplemented with a grant of £5,000 from RCAM Corps Trust. This unrestricted fund has been used to cover running costs outside of staffing including insurance, software and cloud storage and day-to-day running costs.

Work achieved 2023/24: After a hiatus in museum work while the collection was stored at Chatham and following the move to the new RCAM HQ the latter part of 2023/24 was spent reestablishing the museum. Curatorial activities were focused on setting up the new collection store, condition checking items, commissioning new photography and supporting the development and installation of the new RCAM display at the Alford Schools of Military Music, Portsmouth. Whilst in storage, the museum incurred an underspend on its GiA grant which it was permitted to carry forward. This additional funding was used to engage a Project Manager who led on planning and initial delivery of more strategic activity including:

a. RCAM display presence . Scoping requirements for new RCAM locations at Minley and Portsmouth including small display in ASMM Memorial Room

b. Developing new public displays . Building relationship with The Guards Museum which will result in a new RCAM display in autumn 2024

c. Marketing. Development of a new website, social media plan, newsletter and journal content

d. Income generation. Mapping funding opportunities including securing additional c£7k to date.

e. Stakeholder relationships. Building of relationship with stakeholders including Arts Council England Accreditation team, regional Museum Development team, AMOT, NAM, Hampshire Military Museums Network.

Staffing Requirement 2024/25 . Curatorial capacity and current workload does not allow for the development work to be absorbed into their business as usual. It is anticipated that it will take the remainder of the financial year to complete the current curatorial tasks and to create capacity to take on the development tasks to planned FOC in April 2025.

The strategic strands listed above are still developing and require delivery to embed them. Without further investment the work achieved so far could remain static, and in the case of the relationship building and display development, is unsustainable with current funding levels. The continuation of the Project Manager role will support a further 12 months of work to establish this work so it can be handed back to the Curatorial team to be absorbed into an updated curatorial role description.

Income generation. With staffing comes the capacity to secure additional funding. Funding already identified is as follows:

a. Aim Pilgrim Grant - £3,000 for conservation (Sept)
b. Other SWMD funding - £1,500 – skills development[1] (Sept) / Display grant £3,000 (Nov)
c. AIM Skills grant – up to £350 – training bursary* (Rolling deadline)
d. Other funding will be sought as new streams become available

Further income generation and fund raising will be evolved by the museum trustees once established, the museum will generate the following income streams:

a. Further display development in partnership with The Guards Museum
b. Pilot project for potential future displays at The Historic Dockyard, Portsmouth
c. Museum of Army Music UK touring exhibition to raise profile

National Lottery Heritage Fund

It is planned to apply for a substantial grant of c£25k to either National Lottery Heritage Fund Grant / Arts Council England Project Grant to support longer term development for the museum. The focus of this is yet to be agreed by the Trustees but a grant of this size will take considerably longer to research and write.

Fran Stovold Museum Project Manager

1 Identified as grant writing, website and social media training for the curatorial staff

Request for £25k grant – summary of projected spend

Application to Corps Trust for £25k grant		Q1: Apr to Jun	Q2:Jul to Sept	Q3: Oct to Dec	Q4:Jan to Mar
	Total no of days	1.25 days per week /15 days per quarter @ £300 perday	1.25 days per week /15 days per quarter @ £300 perday	1 day per week /12 days per quarter @ £300 perday	1 day per week /12 days per quarter @ £300 perday
Project Manager	54	4500	4500	3600	3600
Public exhibition costs – The Guards Museum		683
RCAM exhibition costs – Minley corridor in HTW			2363
RCAM exhibition costs – Minley: timeline in HTW				2258
RCAM exhibition costs – Displays within ASMM					3570
		5183	6863	5858	7170
					25074

Request for £15k grant – summary of projected spend

Application to Corps Trust for £15k grant		Q1: Apr to Jun	Q2:Jul to Sept	Q3: Oct to Dec	Q4:Jan to Mar
	Total no of days	1 days per week /12 days perquarter@£300 perday	1 days per week /12 days per quarter @ £300 perday	0.75 day per week /9 days per quarter @ £300 perday	0.5 day per week /6 days per quarter @ £300 perday

Project Manager	3600	3600	2700	1800
Public exhibition costs – The Guards Museum	683
RCAM exhibition costs – Minley corridor in HTW		2363
	4283	5963	2700	1800
				14746