Wessex Museums Partnership

 On 8 June Swindon Museums celebrated joining Wessex Museums Partnership at STEAM museum. Three of our Swindon museums, STEAM museum, Lydiard House museum and Swindon Museum and Art Gallery joined Dorset, Poole, Salisbury and Wiltshire museums to form a National Portfolio Organisation, NPO, funded by the Arts Council for the next 3 years.

Friends of all three Swindon museums were invited and it was an excellent chance to catch up and talk to representatives of the four other museums in the partnership. Speeches were given by Frances Yeo Swindon Museum's manager, Declan Westwood from the Arts Council and Kristina Broughton, CEO of Wessex Museums. Kristina's speech can be read in full here and gives a good ideas about the partnership.

Unusually I didn't take any photographs, but there were some official ones below, starting with the Swindon one, from the left: Declan Westwood, Marina Strinkovsky Cabinet member for art and culture, Frances Yeo, Jim Robbins, leader of the council and Kristina Broughton:

And these two photos with representatives from the other museums and Arts Council:

STEAM museum presents such good backdrops for photos.

Do have a look at the Wessex partnership's website with lots of information about their achievements and news.

Art on Tour Exhibitions and Talks

Art on Tour is hosting three exhibitions, the first of which is at STEAM, and opened yesterday. Please have a look at the Swindon Borough Council website for details. I tried copying and pasting the information, but it's too wide for the page!

 The first exhibition, 'The Art of Industry' is at Steam Museum, it opened yesterday, and features work by Ken White and other artists. It celebrates Swindon's railway and industrial heritage. 

I am grateful to Barbara Swann for these photos of the exhibition:

There's also a free lunchtime talks programme which can be found here. Note they do need to be booked in advance of the talk. Hope to see you at a talk!