Friends Farewell to Sophie Cummings

After six and a half years at Swindon Museum and Art Gallery, Curator Sophie Cummings has made a huge impact on the place, with regular change overs of exhibitions both in the downstairs and upstairs galleries, there have been reasons for regular return visits. The Friday lunchtime talks have proved very popular and given people insights into works they might have otherwise not had.
I know a lot of other things went on behind the scenes and lots of others contributed to the recent successes at the museum, but I was concerned when I heard that Sophie was leaving because of the huge positive impact she had made. There was a card to sign and donations were made towards a present of garden tokens and a hamper from Dapaolo  Cafe and Delicatessen also featured in Angela's blog.
We got together today for afternoon tea to give Sophie the card, tokens and present. Lots of Friends turned up, and I thanked Sophie for the high standard of exhibitions  and positive impact she has made. Sophie gave a speech thanking us, and ended with a piece from the Adver in 1989 when Sophie visited a bicycle exhibition. I took a few photos, starting with this one, where Sophie could be giving a lunchtime talk:

Refreshments included a Victoria sponge cake made by my daughter Helen, and some scones with jam and cream, accompanied by cups of tea.

 Here's a photo of the Dapaolo hamper

 and a few general photos of those who came to say goodbye

 It was a lovely event, it was great that so many people could come along

 a couple more views of Sophie during her speech

 and here's Sophie holding up the newspaper cutting

The newspaper article with a lovely photo of Sophie in the museum

 and interestingly on the reverse of the photo is a piece about Steam, a second national railway museum for Swindon. with this thought 'Swindon is looking to tourism as one means of increasing its prosperity. There is still a long way to go before the town will be in a position to rival some of its more historic neighbours.'

 Katie Ackrill, newly appointed Engagement Officer seen below

 and Tracy and Sophie

 I took this photo from the museum's Facebook page.

Yes it was an emotional event. Good luck Sophie, and thank you for all you have contributed ove rthe last 6 and a half years.

Friends AGM

The annual AGM is one of those times when one is grateful that anyone has turned up, it's not the easiest event to attract an audience to attend. Bearing this in mind, we do work hard to make it interesting and informative, we look back at the last year's activities, elect committee members and a look forward to the coming year. This year we had a great crowd at the AGM, thank you so much to those who came along.
We started the evening listening to Councillor Dale Heenan, cabinet member for the town centre, explaining future plans for Swindon Museum and Art Gallery. When the bid to build a new museum and art gallery on the car park beside the Wyvern Theatre failed, £400000 was set aside to upgrade the current building and improve accessibility. That money hasn't been spent yet because of the difficulty in deciding how it should be spent. Apparently a lift so that the gallery could be accessed by people with mobility issues would cost £300000, three quarters of the budget. In an attempt to enable more people to see the collection, some paintings have been shown in STEAM museum and there are currently 18 located through the sliding glass doors at the Civic Offices. Clicking on the links reveals Sophie Cummings in these locations hanging paintings.Two part time posts have also been created to work in the community and with schools. We were keen to have an update on the announcement in March that there would be a Cultural Quarter created on the site of the Wyvern Theatre complex, going as far as the library and back to the law courts, possibly funded by the sale of the Civic Offices. The Cultural Quarter is in the top 3 projects being undertaken by the council, the other two are the SnowDome and Kimmerfields.

 We were very pleased that Dale came along to reassure us that plans are still in place to build a museum and art gallery fit for the collections. I think it was important as well that Friends were able to ask him questions.

 Moving on from Dale, Curator Sophie Cummings gave an excellent account of her year, and reminded us how the Friends had helped with conservation and reframing of paintings and outlined a wish list of things needed in the coming year including new ceramics cabinets. The present ones have been in use since the gallery was built in the sixties, they are hard to access, have poor lighting and security and aren't up to the job of displaying our increasingly fine collection of ceramics.

 I'll make a separate list of the rest of the fundraising we're hoping to be able to do.

 After Sophie's talk, we continued with voting in the committee, looking at the accounts and then using Mike Bradley's wonderful Power Point presentation went through the Friends' activities like talks, trips and Private Views.

 I will send a copy of the presentation via email to the Friends, and put the AGM papers on the pages of the blog.

I took a couple of photos of the audience just to give an idea of the numbers.
Once again thank you to all who came along.