South West Fed Conference 2019 

'Inspiring Audiences: Home and Away'

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Date: 4-5 July 2019
Venue: Roland Levinsky Building, University of Plymouth

About the conference
In partnership with Cornerstone Heritage, University of Plymouth

The 2019 conference theme is ‘Inspiring Audiences Home and Away’. Through presentations, discussions and workshops, it will focus on the different ways we can respond to the challenge of working with local communities whilst also engaging tourist audiences, which is of particular relevance to the South West region.

Sessions will explore and discuss how museums and heritage sites can engage their local communities, diversify their audiences and provide tourists with meaningful and enjoyable experiences. The event will provide inspiration and practical examples to take away and apply to your own work and the organisations you work with.

Each day will contain a combination of presentations and workshops that provide valuable CPD opportunities to consider this challenge and provide examples of best practice. There will be time and space for meeting people from across the sector throughout the conference - the South West Fed conference is a great opportunity to network with multi-disciplinary practitioners working in the heritage the sector in the South West region.  

Please note that we will be announcing workshop options shortly, and will be emailing to ask for your workshop choices nearer the time.

For further information about the conference, please visit our website here.

Keynotes

Day 1

Stephen Bird MBE - Head of Heritage Services, Bath & North East Somerset Council

Stephen is Head of Heritage Services at Bath and North East Somerset Council, responsible for the Roman Baths & Pump Room, Fashion Museum & Assembly Rooms, Victoria Art Gallery and Bath Record Office. In 2005 he restructured the service as a business unit within the Council working to bespoke financial arrangements and a rolling 5-year business plan.

For many years Stephen played an active role in the region’s museums sector. He served the Federation as Hon. Secretary (1996-2000) and President (2000-2002) and sat on the boards of the Area Museums Council for the South West (1996-1998), South West Museums Council 1998-2003 and MLA South West (2003-2009). Nationally he is an AMA mentor and Fellowship assessor for the Museums Association. He also sits on the Advisory Board of the Alexander Keiller Museum Avebury, is a trustee of Glastonbury Abbey and Company Secretary of the Roman Baths Foundation.

In 2018 Stephen was awarded an MBE for services to museums, heritage and tourism.

Day 2

Victoria Rogers - Museum Manager, Cardiff Story Museum

'Building and diversifying audiences - lessons from the Museum of Cardiff'

By establishing Wales’ capital’s first city history museum, its collection and its visitor and participant base from absolute scratch, the Cardiff Story Museum has built, and then diversified, its audience over the course of 12 years. This keynote will explore how they approached this, why it is crucial for museums to do so, and the things they learnt along the way.
 
Victoria Rogers is the Manager of the Cardiff Story Museum. With 20 years’ experience of the sector she has worked for Coldharbour Mill Trust, Tyne and Wear Museums and the project to establish Cardiff’s first city history museum. She is also President of the Federation of Museums and Art Galleries of Wales.

Programme

Full programme TBA

Twitter

We encourage attendees to share what they are learning on Twitter using the hashtag #SWFED19

Free evening social event on 4 July

For the evening on Day 1, there has been a change to the plan and we are delighted to confirm the following:

The evening will begin at 5pm with a presentation on the SW Retro Computing Archive, which is held at the University of Plymouth. This will be followed by an informal drinks reception and a visit to the SW Retro Computing Archive itself. The permanent display holds around 250 of the exhibits at any one time. This will be a fantastic opportunity to learn about the timeline of computers and gaming, and to reminisce with others about 8-bit consoles and that time you protected the planet from rows and rows of Space Invaders. 

Please register your interest for the visit to the SW Retro Computing Archive before lunchtime on Day 1 (if you are only attending Day 2, but still wish to attend this evening event, please email info@swfed.org.uk). This will be free to attend no matter what day you are attending the conference. We will also be aiming to to gather in a bar or affordable restaurant so that you can grab a bite to eat, chat, and relax - we will update you nearer the time.

Prices

For further information about the conference, please visit our website here.

Cancellation and refund policy

If you need to cancel your ticket, there is a cancellation fee of £5 (deducted from refund). The booking fee is not refundable. If you would like to transfer your order to someone else at no charge, please email info@swfed.org.uk