Thank you to all who attended our AGM and networking event at The Box last month. Kristina Broughton, our Chair, presented the annual Chair and Treasurer reports, and we had a productive group discussion about the future of the South West Fed.
The Fed continues to be run by our members for our members, and without your support for what we do, the organisation cannot continue to exist. With a marked decrease in member engagement with our programme and difficulty attracting new trustees to our Board, the organisation’s future sustainability is at risk. Ultimately, it will be for the membership to determine if the South West Fed is still of value and what role the organisation should play within the heritage ecology of the South West moving forward.
In view of this, we had a discussion with members around five key areas:
1. What are the current/emerging support needs of the sector in the South West?
2. Which organisations in the South West (or beyond) are already addressing these needs?
3. Does the sector and do our members need the South West Fed?
4. What is distinctive about the South West Fed?
5. Ideas that help shape the future of the South West Fed
We’re reviewing the feedback and looking at what this means to our organisation going forward. We will come back to you later in the year to share the key findings and next actions.
After the AGM we had a great talk by Steve Conway, Collections Manager at The Box, followed by museum visits led by four members of the Curatorial and Collections team: Tabitha Cadbury, Fiona Pitt, Sarah Marden and Stacey Anderson. A huge thank you to The Box for hosting our event and organising the talks and tours!