What can visitors expect by visiting your stand?
Friendly welcome from AIM staff and trustees, the opportunity to ask us any questions about the independent museum sector and the chance to discover how AIM can benefit you.
What is your primary role in the sector?
AIM is a membership organisation, established in 1977 by the Directors of independent museums, who wanted to create a network for mutual help and support which would share good practice and create a voice for the specific needs of the growing independent sector. We support and champion independent museums, galleries and heritage organisations in the UK – helping them to achieve their purposes and ensuring their needs are recognised and addressed by policy makers, funders and other organisations working in the sector.
Why is it important to you to be involved in the Museums + Heritage Show?
The Museums + Heritage Show offers us the chance to meet many AIM members face to face and to meet other individuals and organisations from across the heritage sector. The show provides us with a platform to talk about our membership benefits, our upcoming annual conference in June and all the other ways that AIM can support both museums and sector businesses to succeed. The whole team at AIM – staff and trustees – always enjoy being involved!
What are your goals of participating in this year’s Show?
Our main goal is to talk to AIM members (and potential members) that we may not get the chance to meet for the rest of the year and find out what is working well at their museums and the challenges they face
Our Director, Emma Chaplin, is giving a talk on Thursday with Jon Durnin of DC Research in the Fundraising, Retail and Trading Theatre on “Admission charges, what does the research say?” which is based on the research that AIM commissioned and published in 2017. We hope that this will prove interesting and useful for conference delegates
What do you think are some of the key challenges professionals are currently facing in this sector?
We know that Trustees, staff and volunteers find it hard to keep up with changes to legislation that impacts on them- this is one of the reasons that our Success Guide on Managing privacy and data regulations for smaller museums is proving so popular.
Access to funding is an ongoing challenge which is why we will be busy promoting AIM’s grant programmes at the Show too.
What are you looking forward to most at this year’s Museums + Heritage Show?
The show is always a great opportunity to catch up with existing AIM members and to see our partners and Associate Suppliers that also exhibit each year. We always enjoy chatting with new people and also enjoy meeting up with the brilliant team that create the show. This year we are launching several new projects including a new partnership with the Charity Finance Group, so we are looking forward to telling visitors all about this brilliant new AIM membership benefit.
The Museums + Heritage Show is free to attend and you can pre-register here.
More Ask the Expert Q&As
This Q&A is part of a series leading up to the Musuems + Heritage Show, which you can see here.
