The winners of the Newsletter Awards, announced and presented at our Annual Conference, are listed in this edition. As well as congratulating the recipients of these awards I would also congratulate the judges on the task they faced. As I have said, the variety is enormous but all can compete equally.
The BAFM Journal gives an overview of what is happening with Friends around the UK, with a good mixture of snippets and longer articles both interesting and informative and I do hope each group is circulating this publication widely amongst its members.
Two other publications come immediately to mind - the AIM Magazine issued six times a year by the Association of Independent Museums and the Museums Journal published monthly by the Museums Association. The former keeps us up to date with what is going on in the independent museum sector and the latter on the museum sector generally, covering not only the UK but the wider influences. Both have very interesting and pertinent comments on the many government reports and activities and both organisations have representatives on the BAFM Council. The Art Fund too, produces an excellent Art Quarterly. Our nation would be so much the poorer if we didn’t have the Art Fund’s support to save many of our treasures from being sold overseas.
However, newsletters are no longer the only means of keeping in touch with the membership and increasingly more and more groups are making use of the website. Council had a very interesting and enthusiastic talk by Ingrid Beazley about ‘blogging’. For those of you unfamiliar with this term, ‘bloggers’ contribute to an on-line dialogue, expressing views and sharing ideas. Ingrid told us about the blog set up by the Friends of the Dulwich Picture Gallery, Dulwich on View (see her article in the Summer Journal). Further afield, an article in the Museums Journal (August) tells us about a blogging experiment set up by New York’s Brooklyn Museum which has resulted in more than 380 photographers submitting their work to the Museum website where they could then be evaluated by visitors to the website.
However you choose to communicate - blogging, linking your website to others’ on-line sites, or the good old newsletter - keep spreading your message far and wide!
