What the heck is a lek?
Males great bustards perform spectacular courtship displays, gathering at a ‘lek’ or small display ground to try to impress the females.
Dear colleagues, supporters and friends
In this blog, I’m reflecting on all that we’ve achieved together through Wessex Museums partnership over the past year. Without a doubt, 2022 will forever be the year of Hardy! This time last year, Wessex Museums were celebrating our first successful Crowdfunding campaign and busily packaging up rewards for our supporters. The partnership went on to secure a further £50k+ for Hardy’s Wessex.
The exhibition was the flagship project of our current National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) programme, and despite the challenges of Covid, co-ordination across four venues and the exhibition landing in the middle of the cost-of-living crisis, it was a shining example of what this incredible partnership of museums can achieve together. Watch out for the evaluation report on Hardy’s Wessex early next year.
We said goodbye and good luck to colleagues, including one of our Wessex Museums founders, Jon Murden, and our own valued Wessex team members, Harriet Still and Jo Wiltcher, without whom Hardy’s Wessex would never have been possible. We also welcomed a Wessex baby in May; a new team member, Suzanne Bragg; two MA placement students; new partnership-wide colleagues and trustees, and excitingly, three new museums – welcome Swindon!
Outside of Hardy, much of our work has been focussed on Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) – work the partnership does behind the scenes in support of our shared purpose to be more relevant, and our mission to connect, inspire and add value to people’s lives. We’ve made steady progress with this important work, but there is always much more to do! Our Diversity Data report has been published and provides us with a better understanding of our data to help us to diversify our organisations. The report will be examined against the recently published data from Census 2021 and will provide our museums with the evidence and tools to reconsider their recruitment practices.
This year, our Engagement Lead, Dr Anjana Khatwa, has trained more than 40 staff and trustees in EDI, generously and bravely sharing her own lived experience, and giving us the knowledge and skills to dismantle prejudice in our organisations. This will help us meet our EDI commitments from 2023 onwards, as we focus on our underserved audiences through co-creation, decolonisation and diversifying our organisations.
Throughout the year, it’s been great to see colleagues across the partnership working together in new ways and making the most of the opportunities this special partnership has to offer, including the formation of new Audience Intelligence, Environmental Responsibility and Decolonisation Working Groups. And we end the year on a high with the offer of £1.3m from Arts Council England for three more years as a National Portfolio Organisation and a new phase for the partnership. I can’t wait to continue our work together.
I hope you all find some time to rest and recharge over the Christmas period. It’s been another challenging year and we certainly all deserve a bit of self-care. Have a brilliant Christmas and I look forward to all the great things we will do together in 2023!
Kristina Broughton
Wessex Museums Partnership Manager
Images above: Lydiard House Museum (left); STEAM – Museum of the Great Western Railway (photo: Jack Boskett, features a locomotive on loan from the National Railway Museum).
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Males great bustards perform spectacular courtship displays, gathering at a ‘lek’ or small display ground to try to impress the females.
The great bustard has a dignified slow walk but tends to run when disturbed, rather than fly.
The hen-bird on display at The Salisbury Museum was one of the last great bustards to be eaten in the town!