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Old 28th Jun 2012, 9:33 am   #8
trh01uk
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Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, UK.
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Default Re: What happened to the National Wireless Museum?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sean Williams View Post
To suggest that anything went wrong would be incorrect, indeed given the sheer number of Museums and collections within the UK that are closing, relocating, or disposing of artefacts, you could say it was just a victim of circumstance.

The hardest part of administering a collection, or a trust, is that of finding suitable trustees, CEMT, a trust of which I am a trustee is slowly winding down, the average age of trustees is high, and finding interested replacements is no easy task, we have taken a decision to wind things down slowly, while we are winding down, we are also helping to rehouse the remaining items in our care.

There really isnt much to learn from this situation - the NWM just ran out of time, and did not have a viable future

Sean,

thanks for the comprehensive explanation. I am not sure I understand your comment that "To suggest that anything went wrong would be incorrect"?

Surely, if you set out to do something - presumably in this case to set up a public museum where equipment was preserved and displayed - and you end up with "100 foot long tunnels of rotting equipment" (to quote Rod Burman, one of the Trustees, in Radio Bygones) - something has gone very badly wrong?

At the very least, artefacts should have been disposed of before anyone even thought to place the first bit of equipment in any tunnel. It should hardly be a surprise that Douglas got ill - after all most of us get ill and die sooner or later. Surely any viable Trust has to take these realities into account?

Your comment on the difficulty of finding Trustees is very pertinent to my own work with the ERT. But hopefully being forewarned is to be fore-armed. I am trying to update our constitution to direct Trustees to move equipment to other institutions should they find it impossible to look after equipment or find other trustees to carry out the work.

Naturally, those who set up Trusts can only anticipate a certain range of disasters befalling it. We can't plan for everything - but we can require Trustees in the future not to ensure that equipment is properly looked after - and if they can't do it, then to move it on to someone who can.


Richard
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