Friends harness sector knowledge

Friends harness sector knowledge

London Transport Museum Friends hosted a transport heritage conference at the weekend to encourage other museums and Friends to develop closer working relationships and identify areas of concern and opportunity.

Organisations making presentations were asked to outline the work of their society or museum and to focus on three aspects that they thought they did particularly well and a further three which troubled them.

Friends led the way with road transport being represented by Crich, the London Bus Museum, East Anglia Tansport Museum and the Trolleybus Museum.

Presentations also came from the three nearest heritage railways to London: Buckinghamshire, Bluebell and Epping Ongar.

There were re-occuring themes throughout the day, with funding, skills, widening market appeal and encouraging volunteers the key challenges for many.

Break out groups discussed these key areas and their conclusions were summed up by conference chairman, Museum Director, Sam Mullins. It is hoped that some of the ideas that came out of the conference will form the basis of development at some of the organisations.

Fifty people attended from more than 30 organisations. It is hoped that more conferences will be organised in the future.