The Resilience Syndicate project begins

 

 First Posted: 25th October 2016

 In News And Opportunities

This week, our Resilience Syndicate Administration Assistant, Hayley Du-Buisson, has joined our Project Manager, Hollie Davison. On 7th November, our six new interns will begin work so in the meantime, here is some information on the project. The interns will be blogging about their experiences. The Culture Syndicates’ team will be disseminating learning throughout the project, with the aim of sharing knowledge to improve sector operations.

​The Arts Council England Resilience Fund awarded Culture Syndicates with £149,189 to run the Resilience Syndicate project, which has created six paid internship roles, to work alongside six partner museums across the East Midlands.  Awarded through Round Two of the Museum Resilience Fund, this is a significant opportunity for sector entrants, museum development, workforce training and the company. Building on the work of the 2015-16 Intern Power project, also funded by the Museum Resilience Fund, the Resilience Syndicate will aid sector development by training six new museum professionals and developing  six East Midlands museums.

Working alongside Rutland County Museum, Kettering Museum, Mansfield Museum, Bassetlaw Museum, Ayscoughfee Hall Museum and the British Horological Institute, our six interns will identify and develop shared opportunities for engaging audiences and improving interpretation. For twelve months the interns, supported by Culture Syndicates professionals and the museum partners, will work on projects to help the museums improve their operations. They will begin by creating audience development activities that will allow museums to understand their visitors more. They will then report their findings back to the museums to suggest and develop methods of engaging audiences. This is likely to involve assessments of museums’ collections, finding common themes and addressing how they might interpret their objects. The interns will be empowered to direct this part of project as much as possible, further developing their skills within the industry.

The interns’ placements will culminate in the creation of a touring exhibition consortium to improve environmental sustainability and generate income for the partner museums. This will allow the museums to act more efficiently by sharing their exhibitions and, if the interns’ deem it viable, rent their exhibitions to the wider market.

The six interns who have been employed for the duration of the project are Sian Fox, Ann-Marie Rooney, Emma Raymond, Elsa Trueman, Ellie Cooper, and Annabelle Arnold.
​
The interns will be supported via Culture Syndicates’ Development Programme to improve their employability and workplace skills, such as writing job applications, interview techniques and undertaking project work. All the interns are graduates from a wide range of degree subjects, aiding Culture Syndicates to diversify the heritage sector. The project will show how the ‘syndicate’ model advocated by Culture Syndicates can work on a larger scale: creating paid training opportunities for interns using live projects that benefit museums and their audiences.