Reports for the 2007 AGM

CHAIRMAN'S REPORT

Principal Activities
Groam House Museum is a Private Company Limited by Guarantee and is a Scottish Charity. The purpose of the Museum is to preserve and display the Pictish sculpture collected within Ross and Cromarty along with other items of historical interest from the Black Isle and to act as custodians of the ‘Celtic Art of George Bain’ collection donated to the Museum.

Company Board
The Company is managed by a Board of Directors. During the year Susan Bound retired and Eric Grant joined the Board. At the forthcoming AGM Alastair MacInnes will retire as Director and Company Secretary.  Barbara Cohen retires by rotation but offers herself for re-election.

Accounts for the year to 31 March 2007
We are pleased to report a sound financial situation. Despite the expenses of undertaking an ambitious programme to celebrate the life and work of George Bain as our contribution to The Highland Year of Culture (H2007) we report surplus funds of £8,690 as at 31 March 2007. The museum has drawn freely upon its financial reserves in the knowledge that retrospective grants from various sources will cover most expenditure and restore much of the liquidity present at the beginning of the financial year 2006-2007.

Again we are indebted to Highland Council for their Grant of £14, 275 towards running costs.

The current sound financial position is due to the careful management of expenditure by the Treasurer, Stuart Tickner, to Susan Seright’s remarkable power to secure grant aid and to the highly professional management of the shop by Ruth James assisted by Renee Haberfield-Smith. We are indebted to them all.

Volunteers
As ever grateful thanks are due to all our Volunteers and to Susan Bound, Volunteer Co-ordinator (now succeeded by Su Wompra). Volunteers enjoyed a successful Christmas Coffee Morning and an outing to Dunrobin Castle.
Visitors to the Museum report how much they enjoy the friendly and helpful welcome.

Newsletter
The Members’ Newsletter goes from strength to strength. We are again most grateful to Hamish Keir for editing and producing a particularly colourful edition in the new A5 format.

Curator
Susan Seright is to be highly congratulated on the customary excellence and variety of the Lecture Programme and the acclaimed success of her ambitious plans to bring the works of George Bain to the Highlands as the Museum’s contribution to H2007.

Objectives for 2007- 2008
Increase the overall number of Volunteers, recruit additional members of the Board and continue to mount imaginative, innovative and exciting programmes of exhibitions, workshops and lectures building on the success of the Groam House Museum’s celebration of H2007.

Barbara Cohen, Chairman.

CURATOR'S REPORT

1    Collections
1.1    Acquisitions
1.1.1    A collection of items from the Bain family as an addition to the George Bain Collection were donated to the museum.
1.1.2    Treasure trove: successful bids were made for TT.1/05 176 finds from Fortrose and TT.60/06, 86 medieval/other objects from Fortrose; these were metal-detectorist finds.
1.2    Documentation
1.2.1    Curatorial work on the collection was reduced in order to carry out other work within the Groam House Museum (GHM), as given in this report.
1.2.2    The curator’s successful grant-aid application funded a free-lance typist to transfer the museum’s paper records up to 2000 (but not including the Bain Collection) into ADLIB (the computerised museum documentation system previously purchased through a Scottish Museums Council (SMC) IT initiative). The grant-aid source was Highland Council’s Special Responsibility Fund (now defunct).
1.3    Conservation
1.3.1    George Bain Collection conservation: certain items for exhibition in the GB Highland 2007 exhibitions were identified as requiring conservation. This work was undertaken by Scottish Conservation Studio, Edinburgh.
1.3.2    Additional mounts and frames were also commissioned for the H2007 Bain project.
1.4    Storage
1.4.1    No changes have been made within the period of this report.

2    Services
2.1.1    To secure Highland Council (HC) funding GHM has entered into a Service Level Agreement with the Council. GHM achieved the targets set within the Service Level Agreement for 2006/7.
2.1.2    Visitor Figures
6,565 (compared with 6,178 last year over the same period).
2.1.3    School Visits
As agreed by the Board, school visits were attended to by volunteers due to the curator’s workload for H2007.  Fewer groups (2, as opposed to 7 last year) visited,
4 schools borrowed the Loans Boxes based on the Picts.
2.1.4    Group Visits
Only 1 group pre-booked however several groups have arrived un-announced and it has proved difficult to count the figures for this
2.2    Exhibitions
2.2.1    The new exhibition opened on 1 May 2006 Don’t sniff at history – the intriguing tale of a local worthy this included beautiful silver loaned from the National Museums Scotland as well as items loaned from Inverness Museum & Art Gallery and objects from our own collection. The local worthy was James Fowler of Raddery and Grange, Jamaica. It included major research work carried out by the curator for her Museum’s Diploma studies at St Andrews University ten years ago, supplemented by further research in the archives of Jamaica and fieldwork carried out during a holiday in Jamaica. The exhibition closed on 9 April 2007.
2.2.2    The Curator carried out preparation for the 2007 season exhibition titled Theory into Practice – George Bain and his Celtic art revival and requested loans from the National Museums Scotland. Loans from varying private collections of Bain material were also researched, requested and transported to Rosemarkie for inclusion in the touring and static exhibitions.
2.3    Talks
April 27th  Annual Academic Lecture Playtime in Pictland: the material culture of gaming in early medieval Scotland by Mark Hall, Curator of Archaeology, Perth Museum and Art Gallery.
June 29th Unique Rock Art from a Bronze Age Context at Balblair, Beauly: some further thoughts by Andrew Dutton Headland Archaeology Ltd..
July 12th Wed.    Rethinking Scottish Stone Circles by Richard Bradley, Professor in Archaeology, Reading University.

July 27th Lies, Damn Lies and Orkneyinga saga by Alex Woolf, School of History,
University of St Andrews.
August 31st From Castles to Camels: Scottish silver and its marks, mid 16th century – present by George Dalgleish, Principal Curator of Scottish History, National Museums of Scotland.
October 5th Dealing with the Romans – latest news from the Birnie trenches by Dr Fraser Hunter, Department of Archaeology, National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh
As part of the H2007 programme (see 3.1.1), the curator will give lectures on the life and work of George Bain at each venue. Within the period of this report the lecture at the Swanson Gallery, Thurso was presented.
2.4    Public Enquiries
37 public enquiries requiring research were completed.

3    Developments
3.1.1    Highland 2007: much of the period covered by this report was taken up with applications for funding the touring exhibitions of George Bain – GHM’s contribution to 2007 the year of Celebrating Highland Culture (Highland 2007). Five touring venues with slightly different, themed exhibitions were planned starting in Thurso on 23 February, then travelling to Wick, Kingussie, Drumnadrochit and Helmsdale. Funding of £35,438.00 was achieved from various sources including Highland 2007, Highland Council, Highlands & Islands Enterprise, Awards for All, Cromarty Arts Trust; Caithness British Association for the Advancement of Science, and Walker Metalsmiths, USA. A project co-ordinator to assist the curator was budgeted into the funding package.
3.2    Grants
3.2.1    The Highland Council Service Level Agreements were again attained by GHM to secure their partial funding.
3.2.2    HC Special Responsibility Fund grant-aided projects were carried forward and finalised (ADLIB data entry, Improving Access Museum IT support, Tourist sign update).
3.2.3    Grants were successfully sought for the George Bain Project as outlined in 3.1.1 from Highland 2007, Awards for All, HIE network, Stephen Walker, Cromarty Arts Trust and British Association for the Advancement of Science.
3.3    Training
3.3.1    The Curator held two ‘refresher’ training courses for existing volunteers.
3.4    Trading
3.4.1    Fraser Hunter produced the text for his outstanding publication, Beyond the edge of the empire – Caledonians, Picts and Romans
3.4.2    Mark Hall delivered his text for his 2006 Annual Academic Lecture.
3.4.3    Publication was delayed until August 2007 through problems at the printers.

4    Networking
4.1    Quarterly meetings of the Highlands and Islands Museums Forum were attended by GHM. This Forum provides a platform for Curators and Trustees to meet other registered museums within the Highlands to explore and take forward common objectives.

5    Miscellaneous
I would like to record my personal thanks to all the volunteers for their time, help and support that they have given to me individually, as well as to GHM. We all recognise that this museum would not function without the good will of so many able volunteers. In particular, Stuart Tickner our new Treasurer, Susan Bound and now Su Wompra and Val Southern our new Volunteer Coordinators; Clive Simpson PR person; Ruth James and Renée Haberfield-Smith who keep the shop looking so good; Eric Allan for collating all our Visitor Survey Information and Barbara Cohen our Chairman for being so supportive together with the Board of Directors – all of whom aid me in my role as Curator.

Susan E Seright   21 August 2007