Museums and Galleries Month

Museums and Galleries Month (MGM) is an annual celebration of the best in the UK's museums and galleries. Themed special events, including workshops, exhibitions, competitions and customised tours, taking place in both large and small venues.

Many of the 2008 events were listed in the 2008 East Midlands MGM flier:
Museums and Galleries Month leaflet 2008 (2261 kb)

At the national Museums and Galleries Month meeting "everyone agreed that the East Midlands had set everyone an example to follow," as the national steering group was impressed by the breadth and creativity of East Midlands' activities.

2008 review

There were almost 100 Museums and Galleries Month events in the East Midlands during May 2008. They were all creative, inspiring and linked to the national theme of ‘innovation’ and all attracted new visitors to the region’s museums and galleries.

This was almost double the number of events compared to May 2007 and a number of museums that hadn’t been involved before took part, including through new initiatives including arts partnerships and trails.

The month started with four ‘meet the museums’ events where museums took to the streets in Northamptonshire, Leicester and Nottingham joined together to show people in city and town centres what they were missing. In Derbyshire a mini museum with artefacts from Derby’s museums and Strutt’s North Mill was on tour through the county’s museums.

Night at the Museum was back with a vengeance as 26 museums got involved across the region, attracting visitors into the museum after hours. The events varied greatly in style and substance, but all were intent on attracting more visitors. The events included:

• Action and Invention tea party with Wallace, Gromit and Shaun the Sheep in Kettering – a tea party and family film showing with Wensleydale cheese, plasticine modelling and more. 
• A Night at the Museum at Strutt’s North Mill – a first evening opening with entertainment focusing on local industry with choir, Rough Truffles, and folk singer and story teller, Pete Castle.
• Wartime celebrations in Appleby Magna and Mansfield –Sir John Moore Foundation in Appleby had vintage vehicles (including tanks) and a Dame Vera Lynn-a-like for an end of war celebration, while visitors to Mansfield helped Annie Barrow prepare for her wartime wedding and both sites provided authentic buffets including Spam.  
• Rail Ale Beer Festival and brass bands at sites in Chesterfield – Barrow Hill Engine Shed and Revolution House joined up to promote their events with real ale and trains at Barrow Hill and Holymoorside Brass Band playing Music for a Spring Evening at Revolution House.
• Death in Venice with murder and intrigue in Northampton – an evening ofmurder mystery as visitors had to find out the killer in an innovative andinvestigative evening around the museum and art gallery. The event linked to Northampton’s Venezia festival. 
• Creatures of the night and knights at Belgrave Hall and Newarke Houses in Leicester – Leicester’s museums offered evenings investigating the grounds of Belgrave Hall, or meeting a medieval knight at Newarke Houses. 
• A Polish night at Gainsborough Old Hall – celebrating cultural diversity with information about the contribution of Polish people to the local area. There was traditional food, costume, dance, music and even the chance to learn a bit of Polish language. 
• A Magical History Tour of Newark Millgate Museum – costumed characters introduced people to the museum and local history in a tour through the past. 
• Innovating mind and body in Grantham – a range of activities about health and wellbeing spread across the museum including soap making, a local innovators tour and creative tasters. 
• Cubism and Surrealism at the Collection in Lincoln – face painting took inspiration from some of the museum’s more creative collections and visitors helped created a modern mythical figure taking inspiration from the Luttrell Psalter, a 14th century illuminated manuscript. 
• Entertainment of Daventry Past – a display of entertainment posters from Daventry past with a local actors bringing some of the characters past back to life.
• Movies and music at Wollaton Hall – fun with Wallace, Gromit and Shaun the Sheep followed by a disco in the 16th century hall.  
• A Night at the Museum at Bakewell Old House Museum – building on the success of 2007, the museum once again opened in the evening for a great evening of music, poetry, prose and innovation.

Other events were held throughout the month and drew thousands of people to the region’s museums. Find out more by opening the leaflet above.

Arts activities

As part of a focus on arts for Museums and Galleries Month 2008 Clare Moloney has been appointed as the arts coordinator to support museums and galleries to organise activities working with a range of artists on events and longer term projects.

The initiative is inspired by museumaker, the East Midlands partnership between museums and designer makers who took inspiration from museum collections to create new installations for those museums.

Clare has developed a toolkit of advice on working with artists, including case study examples from around the country. The toolkit is available from the Museums and Galleries Month website.