Case Studies

SCOTO members exchange

Aspirations for community led museums and heritage centres

Image of Dunkeld & Birnam Arts Centre behind a row of trees

The Curated Conversation proved to be a really valuable approach. This was face to face with the five independent museums coming together. This included the host – Dunkeld Archive – plus Trimontium Museum, Ullapool Museum, The Scottish Crannog Centre and Abernethy Museum. They came together in Dunkeld & Birnam to hear where Dunkeld Archive is at and what their ambition is to then share their stories and give advice. This was made accessible to a bigger group face to face and online by forming a panel to firstly each present their story and then explore several topics. They each shared their experiences in relation to operational challenges and opportunities to overcome these, and also described recent project activity which had made a big difference. Each presenter also shared their current ‘headaches’ and had a group discussion on how to tackle these. This then allowed Dunkeld Archive as the host to pose various questions and then open this up to the floor (for face to face and online participants).

 

Learning Outcomes

  • Shared learning on operational challenges and opportunities connected with community run heritage centres and museums.
  • Shared learnings on the development of community run heritage centres and museums.
  • Community engagement from locals in the Dunkeld and Birnam area to hear the stories from elsewhere and be involved in the Dunkeld Archive project development

Community Organisation:
IN PERSON Dunkeld Archive Trimontium Museum, The Scottish Crannog Centre, Ullapool Museum, Abernethy Museum, community representatives from Dunkeld and Birnam, Crieff, Comrie, the Heritage Network and SCOTO plus representatives from HES and MGS ONLINE Sanquhar Enterprise Company, Battle of Prestonpans Museum, Digital Alness HMS Unicorn / Seasearch CIC Pictish Arts Society, Comrie Heritage Group

Exchange Host Partners:
Trimontium Museum, Glen Esk Museum, Abernethy Museum

SCA Endorsing Network Member:
SCOTO

"The model we adopted worked - bringing other community heritage groups together who have recent experience of tourism facing project activity and/or are similarly considering an aspirational project and providing a forum for them to share their experiences together and quiz each other. Everyone got a lot out of it and the resounding comment is we all can learn so much from each other and just need time to be together to do that."