“Some great exhibits - proud to be a Brummie!”

Visitor

We made it exhibition at Thinktank

We are transforming the way we work as an organisation and have realised over £15m of capital projects delivering new attractive offers to visitors. We are making connections with new audiences through our wide ranging contemporary and historic exhibitions. We are increasing our learning programmes for schools and our family friendly activities are enjoyed by both the young and the young-at-heart.

We are developing meaningful online engagement with local communities as well as extending our reach to global audiences through projects such as Google Art. Our creative partnerships are allowing us to develop innovative digital technologies enabling deeper audience understanding of our collections and exhibitions.

The City recognises us as being vital to the promotion of the history and heritage of Birmingham. We have played a key role in enhancing a sense of pride and identity for local people, generating cultural tourism and delivering economic benefits for the City.

Welcome

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Our new governance is enabling us to be outward-looking, enterprising and sustainable, with investment in marketing and the establishment of a trading company. We are already seeing benefits in increased public donations and positive customer feedback.

Our loans programme has enabled our collections to be enjoyed by audiences at 14 UK museums and galleries and 13 international exhibitions. Our regional, national and international partnerships are enabling us to realise our full potential as a leading museum and are fundamental to ensuring this year’s success continues into the future.

Simon Cane, Interim Director@DirectorBMT

Our first year as Birmingham Museums Trust (BMT) has seen the biggest organisational change in our history, bringing together staff and collections under a new model of governance. Our staff have risen to the many challenges sharing their passion for culture and delivering excellent museums for Birmingham. We have bucked national trends and welcomed 1m visitors across our nine museums.

At a glance

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992,150 visitors to 9 venues

Our collections and exhibitions together reached

1,821,875 people in Birmingham and beyond

2,506,965 visits to our websites

Visitor breakdown 2012

70% day trippers

26% national

4% international

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247,599 people have taken part in our activities and events

£4,159,454 value in media exposure

How are we funded?

We raised

£500,000 towards revenue activity and over

£2.5m capital income for new galleries and projects

121,633 contacts with children and young people through our education programme

Over 500 volunteers contributed

2,423 days of their time

63% Birmingham City Council

18% Arts Council

10% gross profit on sales

5% grants & other income 4% Millennium Point Trust

We Made It – nuts, bolts, gadgets and gizmos is a new £2.2m gallery at Thinktank uncovering the fascinating science of materials and manufacturing in Birmingham and the region. It opened in February, and has already made a huge impact to the visitor experience. During the launch week 65 Birmingham scientists and expert volunteers participated in ‘Meet the Expert’ activities. We worked with 35 industry partners, including generous support from the Aluminium Federation and the Assay Office. In the first six weeks of operation, We Made It has been visited by 2,750 school children and attracted 32,000 visitors.

Sarehole Mill’s future as a working water mill has been safeguarded with a £450,000 restoration. The work included repair of the mill machinery and refurbishment works enabling us to grind our own wheat and, in time, to bake our own bread. 15 volunteer millers have been recruited and trained to engage our visitors in the history of the mill. The Mill reopened to a positive response from press and public, with the Birmingham Mail stating, “surely, everyone will want to try the new, Brummie bread”!

At £8.9m, Birmingham: its people, its history, is the largest and most ambitious capital development at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery in recent decades, transforming 1,500 square metres of the Grade II* listed building. The project has created spectacular, interlinked architectural spaces, improved visitor access and orientation, and enhanced facilities for schools and families. The new Birmingham history galleries explore the city’s history from the medieval period to the present day and have attracted 108,000 visitors in the opening 6 months, a third of whom were visiting for the first time.

Thinktank’s new £2.8m Science Garden has already become a favourite of visitors, with 131,000 people enjoying its first 8 months of operation, including 18,300 school children. It has been shortlisted for the UK’s prestigious Museums and Heritage Award for ‘best permanent exhibition’ of 2012, and has helped Thinktank to achieve its second busiest year since the museum opened in 2001.

Soho House welcomed Sir Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, to officially reopen the site following the completion of a £250,000 refurbishment. A new exhibition explores the life and times of Matthew Boulton and greatly enhances the offer for visitors.

New for visitorsThe year has seen the completion of major programmes of investment to transform our museums and deliver high quality experiences for our visitors. Alongside these capital developments, simple improvements such as the introduction of comfortable sofas and WIFI to Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery’s Edwardian Tea Room have attracted new and returning visitors.

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Medieval model, Birmingham: its people, its history

“It made history come alive – particularly when it was local

people actually speaking.” Visitor

Innovative programming doesn’t stop with schools and we have developed a variety of new, creative learning opportunities for families. From a Saturday Arts Club, enabling children to create alongside artists and support the attainment of Arts Awards, to the development of new children’s storybooks with local illustrators and storytellers. We welcome the involvement of our visitors in our events and activities.

Birmingham has a rich resource of local, talented professional artists and scientists and we strive to create the environments where they can share their knowledge, passion and skills with our visitors.

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LearningLearning is at the core of BMT and the breadth of learning opportunities is unparalleled within the museum sector, offering art, history, science and heritage across 9 sites and through our bespoke outreach services. These learning programmes target all of our audiences, from accredited training and curriculum-linked workshops to informal and family focussed events.

In 2012/13 our bespoke educational workshops attracted 108,000 children and young people, with over 220,000 people participating in family, adult and community events. Our outreach service predominantly covers Birmingham and the West Midlands but last year reached as far afield as Wales and the South Coast.

Our schools programme now offers an enhanced service, providing higher levels of engagement across more sites than ever before. We have worked creatively with teachers and educational organisations to develop a constant, high quality offer in art, history, science and heritage, but with the addition of innovative, high profile programming such as Museum in a Classroom, Chemistry at Work and Medicine Through Time.

One area of particular success has been in the sharing of experience and best practise across our museums with Home Educating visitors, offering bespoke programmes based on their needs.

“It’s brilliant. Our pupils will really benefit from this visual, hands-on learning....

This kind of learning opens up a new world for them and will

give us lots to talk about in class.”

Teacher

We made it exhibition at Thinktank

FacebookBMT’s Facebook accounts have 22,752 followers

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Digital innovation

Free Quiz AppOur family friendly app engages visitors with our different sites and can be played on a visit or at home. It was created by The Connected Set and funded through IC Tomorrow (a Technology Strategy Board programme funded by BIS). The quiz has a 5 star status on the Apple Store.

“Education cleverly disguised. Great fun!

We really enjoyed searching for the

answers on the family trail as it forced us to look at the art more”

App user

Twitter BMT’s Twitter accounts have 36,201 followers

YouTube 12,133 views of BMT videos

Tweet@thinktankmuseum Really pleased with how my remote input was used and gained a response, more events should work like this! #brumcafesci

Google Art Project 127 BMT works went live in latest release.

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Birmingham Cafe Scientifique #BrumCafeSci A regular informal pub-based event with a strong online presence, including live tweeting to encourage questions and sharing of information resources, comments and media postings to Facebook, and short interviews with speakers posted onto YouTube. 9 videos, 343 views, reaching up to 70,000 people through Twitter.

Planetarium111,500 visitors. 2,500 shows. Delivered by our team with the help of 25 planetarium volunteers. 2 new fulldome films added to our programme, the biology show ‘Cell! Cell! Cell!’ and ‘We Are Aliens’.

Dome Club, our weekly evening event of 360˚ art, music and experimental film has generated strong interest with local artists and international digital planetariums.

Multi-touch tablesWe worked in partnership with the University of Birmingham - Digital Heritage Demonstrator Project to develop content for pioneering multi-touch tables. The first table was installed in Birmingham: its people, its history.

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Exhibitions Last year we delivered an exceptionally ambitious and high profile exhibition programme attracting over 300,000 visitors. Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery was the sole or launch venue for all bar one of its exhibitions, positioning us as a national leader and attracting significant press coverage.

Our exhibitions Revealed: The Government Art Collection, Love and Death, and Pharaoh, King of Egypt, exemplified our capacity to work with national partners to bring works from London to regional audiences, collaborating with the Government Art Collection, Tate and British Museum respectively.

Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery’s Style Africa enabled forty-two 13-24 year olds from diverse backgrounds to work together in developing and curating a West African textiles exhibition. Working with multiple educational and community partners, the project was recognised by Arts Council as an exemplary case study for youth engagement within the West Midlands Cultural Olympiad programme.

We launched New Art West Midlands, a two year programme presenting the best work by art graduates from the region’s University art schools, working in partnership with Turning Point West Midlands, the Barber Institute and Grand Union. The exhibition and catalogue made a major contribution to building a critical mass of support for emerging artists in the region and a thriving arts scene.

Our Community Gallery programme empowered young offenders to curate Arrow in the Blue, in partnership with Koestler Trust and Birmingham Youth Offending Service, building confidence and opportunities beyond their realm of experience. Other exhibitions included Jamaica 50 focusing on the story of Jamaican independence and Empowered, featuring paintings and sculptures by artists from the Birmingham-based charity, Cerebral Palsy Midlands.

Aston Hall staged Curious Visitors, the first exhibition arising out of our four year partnership with the Arts Council Collection. Works by 11 contemporary artists including Peter Doig and Toby Ziegler were sited throughout the historic rooms, making connections to the history of the house and its collections. A particular focal point, the Giraffe by Laura Ford, echoed the time when a stuffed giraffe dominated the room in the late nineteenth century when Aston Hall was home to the city’s taxidermy collections.

Curious Visitors at Aston Hall

“It shows everyone has a place in a museum not just old objects, and not just stories about famous or important figures.” Visitor

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Engaging communities Our ground breaking participatory events reached new audiences across our sites. Our Community Open Weekends at Thinktank and Free First Sundays at our Heritage Sites attracted many first time visitors. We have empowered local people to influence the future development of BMT and actively contribute to the development and interpretation of our collections.

Birmingham: its people, its history was the culmination of an ambitious and highly innovative community engagement and learning programme, involving over 200 volunteers and enabling local people to play a leading role in the shaping of the new history galleries. A variety of exciting projects involved intergenerational groups, school children, young people and elders from diverse ethnic backgrounds, enabling the people of Birmingham to take pride in their city’s important global heritage.

Celluloid Nights, a pilot event for adults in partnership with the Flatpack Film Festival opened up the lower floors of Thinktank to a series of artistic installations, music and entertainment. Visitors took part in everything from lab-based film development to cocktail mixology to hand-made film production.

Thinktank’s Youth Forum Ignite has worked with The British Ecological Society to mark their 100th anniversary. Working with local ecologists Ignite created a pop-up exhibition and series of family and adult activities that will tour BMT venues in 2013 and will be manned largely by the young volunteers.

In launching a new South Asian programme we developed new partnerships with local Sikh communities through the display and interpretation of the Sikh Fortress Turban, on loan from the British Museum. Young people from Birmingham’s Nishkam Centre developed a film with Sangat TV, conveying their experiences of wearing a turban in today’s society which was a key feature of the exhibition.

Blakesley Hall developed Yardley Arts Weekend in partnership with Arts in the Yard. Supported by enthusiastic volunteers there were music and dance performances, storytelling and craft activities for all. Families had the opportunity to engage with artists from several local arts organisations.

Birmingham Repertory Theatre presented The Witches’ Promise, an innovative outdoor theatre performance at Weoley Castle inspired by remarkable historical events that took place in and around the ancient landmark. The week of performances was seen by almost 2,000 visitors.

The Witches’ Promise at Weoley Castle

“It is important that as a member of this community I can

inform how institutions like the museum work.”

Community Action Panel member

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Our people We have transformed our approach to the development of our staff and volunteers and they have responded with enthusiasm. Bringing together different working cultures has enabled us to build on our strengths and to develop new and innovative partnerships that share our commitment to product and service excellence.

172 people (staff, volunteers and •partner representatives) have benefited from one or more training or development opportunities.We have employed two young •people on 12 month Creative Apprenticeship programmes.We supported two • Future Curator traineeships, in partnership with the British Museum, in addition to supporting a Cultural Intern from the University of Birmingham.The • Science and Heritage Career Ladder ran its 5th successful year of training and developing local young people through a paid traineeship over the Summer Holidays. We developed a new volunteer rung over the Easter holidays that formed a pool for summer positions, extending the young people’s engagement with the museum.We assumed management of a •Heritage Lottery Fund Skills for the Future project offering training in Specialist Curatorial Skills in partnership with Manchester University Museum, Leeds Discovery Centre and The Herbert, Coventry.

Our unique • Management Academy programme is providing training and qualifications in management skills for 9 of our managers. They are joined on the programme by colleagues from partner organisations Ironbridge Gorge Museums Trust and The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery. We joined with 9 other Heart of •England Attractions to win £1M of funding from the BIS Employer Ownership fund for the training of staff and volunteers.We led the way in the formation of •the regional Developing Skills- Creating Futures forum for skills sharing in workforce development. The forum is a member of the National Skills Academy run by Creative and Cultural Skills. Technical staff took part in a •Leonardo exchange programme with a manufacturing company in Germany and we hosted a student from France under the same programme.

In the regionOur regional partnerships enable us to take our collections to a wider audience. Our loans programme has lent an Edward Burne-Jones tapestry to Shire Hall, Stafford, and 15 art works to Hereford Museum and Art Gallery including pieces by Helen Chadwick, David Cox, Ivon Hitchens and John Everitt Millais.

We are excited to be leading on Art in the Heart, a collaborative audience development and creative arts programme for West Midlands museums and galleries, in partnership with 18 organisations representing 23 venues. The aim of the programme is to highlight collections and exhibitions from Stoke to Worcester, Ironbridge to Coventry and in doing so increase cultural tourism throughout the region.

BMT commissioned regional museums partnership, the Marches Network, to deliver an outreach programme using two mobile vehicles, the Museums on the Move. Facilitated exhibitions travelled to schools, care homes, hospices and hospitals, traveller sites, town centres, community celebrations and other venues across the West Midlands attracting over 25,000 visitors. The latest mobile exhibition Magic of Colour was developed in partnership with our team at Thinktank and will tour the region in 2013.

Love leading the Pilgrim Tapestry by Sir Edward Burne-Jones

For 2013The coming year will see new Family Friendly and Schools offers. A new Learning Officer will increase schools engagement at the Museum of the Jewellery Quarter and Sarehole Mill. We will launch new promotions of our high quality programmes for schools.

Our major summer family exhibitions will share younger audiences at Thinktank and Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. The Pirates! In an adventure with Scientists! has been developed in partnership with multi-award winning Aardman Animation. A Squash and a Squeeze: Sharing Stories with Julia Donaldson has been realised through partnership with Seven Stories, National Centre for Children’s Books.

The Worlds Apart event at Aston Hall will engage local communities with heritage and culture, using re-enactors and artists to celebrate 400 years of connections between Aston Hall and the Indian subcontinent.

Young people will take a leading role, with Ignite curating an element of The Pirates! and young people from inner city Birmingham developing films and content for our new Staffordshire Hoard Gallery, opening 2014.

Pirate themed workshop

“Overall the project was incredibly

inspiring and the feedback on the

exhibition has been brilliant.”

Visitor

Thank you to all the funders of Birmingham Museums Trust and 2012/13 projects at the Museum and Art Gallery, Thinktank and Heritage Sites.

Millennium Point Trust – major funder

Aluminium Federation, Art Fund, Arts & Humanities Research Council, Biffa Award, Birmingham Common Good Trust, Birmingham Environmental Partnership, Birmingham Museums Trust Patrons, British Ecological Society, Charles Henry Foyle Trust, DCMS/Wolfson Museums & Galleries Improvement Fund, Edward Cadbury Trust, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, European Regional Development Fund, Friends of Birmingham Museums Trust, Garfield Weston Foundation, Institute of Conservation, Jaguar Land Rover, John Feeney Charitable Trust, Mercer’s Charitable Trust, Pilgrim Trust, Public Picture Gallery Fund, Royal Society of Chemistry, SITA Trust, The 29th May 1961 Charitable Trust, The Armourers and Brasiers’ Gauntlet Trust, The Assay Office, The City of Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery Development Trust, The George Henry Collins Charity, The Grimmitt Trust, The Leche Trust, The Lord Austin Trust, The Rowlands Trust, V&A Purchase Grant Fund, Veolia Environmental Trust, W A Cadbury Trust, Wellcome Trust, Wolfson Foundation.

We are also very grateful for two substantial legacy donations received this year.

And thank you to the public and our visitors for their generous donations.

“Overall the project was incredibly

inspiring and the feedback on the

exhibition has been brilliant.”

Visitor

Staffordshire Hoard

www.birminghammuseums.org.ukA company controlled by Birmingham City Council

Charity No: 1147014 Company No: 07737797